Lord Hartington no sooner saw what was then called the Hawarden kite

flying in the sky, than he felt its full significance. He at once wrote to

Mr. Gladstone, partly in reply to the letter of the 17th already given,

and pointed with frankness to what would follow. No other subject would be

discussed until the meeting of parliament, and it would be discussed with

the knowledge, or what would pass for knowledge, that in Mr. Gladstone’s

opinion the time for concession to Ireland had arrived, and that

concession was practicable. In replying to his former letter Mr. Gladstone

had invited personal communication, and Lord Hartington thought that he

might in a few days avail himself of it, though (December 18) he feared

that little advantage would follow. In spite of urgent arguments from wary

friends, Lord Hartington at once proceeded to write to his chairman in

Lancashire (December 20), informing the public that no proposals of

liberal policy on the Irish demand had been communicated to him; for his

own part he stood to what (M101) he said, at the election. This letter was

the first bugle note of an inevitable conflict between Mr. Gladstone and

those who by and by became the whig dissentients.

To Lord Hartington resistance to any new Irish policy came easily, alike

by temperament and conviction. Mr. Chamberlain was in a more embarrassing

position; and his first speech after the election showed it. “We are face

to face,” he said, “with a very remarkable demonstration by the Irish

people. They have shown that as far as regards the great majority of them,

they are earnestly in favour of a change in the administration of their

government, and of some system which would give them a larger control of

their domestic affairs. Well, we ourselves by our public declarations and

by our liberal principles are pledged to acknowledge the justice of this

claim.” What was the important point at the moment, Mr. Chamberlain

declared that in his judgment the time had hardly arrived when the liberal

party could interfere safely or with advantage to settle this great

question. “Mr. Parnell has appealed to the tories. Let him settle accounts

with his new friends. Let him test their sincerity and goodwill; and if he

finds that he has been deceived, he will approach the liberal party in a

spirit of reason and conciliation.”(170)

Translated into the language of parliamentary action, this meant that the

liberals, with a majority of eighty-two over the tories, were to leave the

tory minority undisturbed in office, on the chance of their bringing in

general measures of which liberals could approve, and making Irish

proposals to which Mr. Parnell, in the absence of competition for his

support, might give at least provisional assent. In principle, these

tactics implied, whether right or wrong, the old-fashioned union of the

two British parties against the Irish. Were the two hundred and fifty

tories to be left in power, to carry out all the promises of the general

election, and fulfil all the hopes of a new parliament chosen on a new

system? The Hawarden letter-bag was heavy with remonstrances from newly

elected liberals against any such course.

Second only to Mr. Gladstone in experience of stirring and perilous

positions, Lord Granville described the situation to one of his colleagues

as nothing less than “thoroughly appalling.” A great catastrophe, he said,

might easily result from any of the courses open: from the adoption of

coercion by either government or opposition; from the adoption by either

of concession; from the attempt to leave the state of Ireland as it was.

If, as some think, a great catastrophe did in the end result from the

course that Mr. Gladstone was now revolving in his own mind at Hawarden,

and that he had commended to the meditations of his most important

colleagues, what alternative was feasible?

IV

The following letters set out the various movements in a drama that was

now day by day, through much confusion and bewilderment, approaching its

climax.

_To Lord Granville._

_December 18, ’85._—... Thinking incessantly about the matter,

speaking freely and not with finality to you, and to Rosebery and

Spencer—the only colleagues I have seen—I have trusted to writing

to Hartington (who had had Harcourt and Northbrook with him) and

to you for Derby.

If I have made _any_ step in advance at all, which I am not sure

of, it has most certainly been in the direction of leaving the

field open for the government, encouraging them to act, and

steadily refusing to say or do _anything_ like negotiation on my

own behalf. So I think Derby will see that in the main I am

certainly with him.... What will Parnell do? What will the

government do? How can we decide without knowing or trying to

know, both if we can, but at any rate the second? This letter is

at your discretion to use in proper quarters.

_December 22._—In the midst of these troubles, I look to you as

the great feud-composer, and your note just received is just what

I should have hoped and expected. Hartington wrote to me on

Saturday that he was going up to see Goschen, but as I thought

inviting a letter from me, which I wrote [December 17, above], and

it was with no small surprise that I read him yesterday in the

_Times_. However, I repeated yesterday to R. Grosvenor all that I

have said to you about what seems to me the plain duty of the

_party_, in the event of a severance between nationalists and

tories. Meantime I care not who knows my anxiety to prevent that

severance, and for that reason among others to avoid all

communications of ideas and intentions which could tend to bring

it about.

On December 27, Lord Granville wrote to Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden:—

I have been asked to request you to call a cabinet of your late

colleagues to discuss the present state of affairs. I have

declined, giving my reasons, which appear to me to be good. At the

same time, I think it would calm some fussiness that exists, if

you let it be known to a few that you will be in town and ready

for consultation, before the actual meeting.

Mr. Gladstone answered, as those acquainted with his modes of mind might

have been sure that he would:—

_December 28._—Thank you for stopping the request to which your

letter of yesterday refers. A cabinet does not exist out of

office, and no one in his senses could covenant to call _the late

cabinet_ together, I think, even if there were something on which

it was ready to take counsel, which at this moment there is not.

On the other hand, you will have seen from my letter that the idea

before me has been that of going unusual lengths in the way of

consulting beforehand, not only leading men but the party, or

undertaking some special obligation to be assured of their

concurrence generally, before undertaking new responsibilities.

The one great difficulty in proceeding to consult now, I think, is

that we cannot define the situation for ourselves, as an essential

element of it is the relation between nationalists and tories,

which they—not we—have to settle. If we meet on Tuesday 12th to

choose a Speaker, so far as I can learn, regular business will not

begin before the 19th. By the 12th we shall have given ourselves a

much better chance of knowing how the two parties stand together;

and there will be plenty of time for our consultations. Thus at

least I map out the time; pray give me any comments you think

required.

I begged you to keep Derby informed; would you kindly do the same

with Harcourt? Rosebery goes to London to-morrow.

Two days before this resistance to the request for a meeting, he had

written to Lord Granville with an important enclosure:—

_December 26, 1885._—I have put down on paper in a memorandum as

well as I can, the possible forms of the question which may have

to be decided at the opening of the session. I went over the

ground in conversation with you, and afterwards with R. Grosvenor,

and I requested R. Grosvenor, who was going to London, to speak to

Hartington in that sense. After his recent act of publication, I

should not like to challenge him by sending him the written paper.

Please, however, to send it on to Spencer, who will send it back

to me.

The memorandum itself must here be quoted, for it sets out in form,

succinct, definite, and exhaustive, the situation as Mr. Gladstone at that

time regarded it:—

_Secret._ _Hawarden Castle, Chester, Dec. 26, 1885._

1. Government should act.

2. Nationalists should support them in acting.

3. I have done what I can to bring about (1). I am confident the

nationalists know my desire. They also publicly know there can be

no plan from me in the present circumstances.

4. If (1) and (2) come about, we, who are half the House of

Commons, may under the circumstances be justified in waiting for

the production of a plan.

5. This would be in every sense the best situation.

6. But if ministers refuse to take up the question—or if from

their not actually taking it up, or on any grounds, the

nationalists publicly dissolve their alliance with them, the

government then have a party of 250 in the face of 420, and in the

face of 335 who were elected to oppose them.

7. The basis of our system is that the ministry shall have the

confidence of the House of Commons. The exception is, when it is

about to appeal to the people. The rule applies most strongly when

an election has just taken place. Witness 1835, 1841, 1859, and

the _three_ last elections, after each of which, the rule has been

acted upon, silent inference standing instead of a vote.

8. The present circumstances warrant, I think, an understanding as

above, between ministers and the nationalists; but not one between

us and the nationalists.

9. If from any cause the alliance of the tories and nationalists

which did exist, and presumably does exist, should be known to be

dissolved, I do not see how it is possible for what would then be

the liberal majority to shrink from the duty appertaining to it as

such, and to leave the business of government to the 250 men whom

it was elected to oppose.

10. This looks towards an amendment to the Address, praying her

Majesty to choose ministers possessed of the confidence of the

House of Commons.

11. Which under the circumstances should, I think, have the

sanction of a previous meeting of the party.

12. An attempt would probably be made to traverse the proceeding

by drawing me on the Irish question.

13. It is impossible to justify the contention that as _a

condition previous_ to asserting the right and duty of a

parliamentary majority, the party or the leaders should commit

themselves on a measure about which they can form no final

judgment, until by becoming the government they can hold all the

necessary communications.

14. But in all likelihood jealousy will be stronger than logic;

and to obviate such jealousy, it might be right for me [to go] to

the very farthest allowable point.

15. The case supposed is, the motion made—carried—ministers

resign—Queen sends for me.

Might I go so far as to say at the first meeting that in the case

supposed, I should only accept the trust if assured of the

adequate, that is of the general, support of the party to a plan

of duly guarded home rule?

16. If that support were withheld, it would be my duty to stand

aside.

17. In that event it would, I consider, become the duty of that

portion of the party, which was not prepared to support me in an

effort to frame a plan of duly guarded home rule, to form a

government itself if invited by the Queen to do so.

18. With me the Irish question would of course remain paramount;

but preferring a liberal government without an adequate Irish

measure to a tory government similarly lacking, such a liberal

government would be entitled to the best general support I could

give it.

The reference of this memorandum to Lords Granville and Spencer was

regarded as one of the first informal steps towards a consultation of

leaders. On receiving Lord Spencer’s reply on the point of procedure Mr.

Gladstone wrote to him (December 30):—

_To Lord Spencer._

I understand your idea to be that inasmuch as leaders of the party

are likely to be divided on the subject of a bold Irish measure,

and a divergence might be exhibited in a vote on the Address, it

may be better to allow the tory government, with 250 supporters in

a house of 670, to assume the direction of the session and

continue the administration of imperial affairs. I do not

undervalue the dangers of the other course. But let us look at

this one—

1. It is an absolute novelty.

2. Is it not a novelty which strikes at the root of our

parliamentary government? under which the first duty of a majority

freshly elected, according to a uniform course of precedent and a

very clear principle, is to establish a government which has its

confidence.

3. Will this abdication of primary duty avert or materially

postpone the (apprehended) disruption of the party? Who can

guarantee us against an Irish or independent amendment to the

Address? The government must in any case produce at once their

Irish plan. What will have been gained by waiting for it? The

Irish will know three things—(1) That I am conditionally in favour

of at least examining their demand. (2) That from the nature of

the case, I must hold this question paramount to every interest of

party. (3) That a part, to speak within bounds, of the liberal

party will follow me in this respect. Can it be supposed that in

these circumstances they will long refrain, or possibly refrain at

all? With their knowledge of possibilities behind them, _dare_

they long refrain? An immense loss of dignity in a great crisis of

the empire would attend the forcing of our hands by the Irish or

otherwise. There is no necessity for an instant decision. My

desire is thoroughly to shake up all the materials of the

question. The present leaning of my mind is to consider the faults

and dangers of abstention greater than those of a more decided

course. Hence, in part, my great anxiety that the present

government should move. Please send this on to Granville.

Finding Mr. Gladstone immovable at Hawarden, four of the members of the

last liberal cabinet of both wings met at Devonshire House on New Year’s

day. All, save one, found themselves hopeless, especially after the

Hawarden revelations, as to the possibility of governing Ireland by mere

repression. Lord Hartington at once communicated the desires of the

conclave for information of his views and designs. Mr. Gladstone replied

(January 2, 1886):—

On the 17th December I communicated to you _all_ the opinions I

had formed on the Irish question. But on the 21st you published in

the _Times_ a re-affirmation of opposite opinions.

On the Irish question, I have not a word to add to that letter. I

am indeed doing what little the pressure of correspondence

permits, to prepare myself by study and reflection. My object was

to facilitate study by you and others—I cannot say it was wholly

gained. But I have done nothing, and shall do nothing, to convert

those opinions into intentions, for I have not the material before

me. I do not know whether my “postulate” is satisfied.... I have

taken care by my letter of the 17th that you should know my

opinions _en bloc_. You are quite welcome to show it, if you think

fit, to those whom you met. But Harcourt has, I believe, seen it,

and the others, if I mistake not, know the substance.... There is

no doubt that a very grave situation is upon us, a little sooner

or a little later. All my desire and thought was how to render it

less grave, for next to the demands of a question far higher than

all or any party interests, is my duty to labour for the

consolidation of the party.... Pray show this letter, if you think

fit, to those on whose behalf you write. I propose to be available

in London about 4 P.M., for any who wish to see me.

V

Signals and intimations were not wholly wanting from the Irish camp. It

was known among the subalterns in that rather impenetrable region, partly

by the light of nature, partly by the indiscretions of dubiously

accredited ambassadors, that Mr. Gladstone was not disposed on any terms

to meet the Irish demand by more coercion. For the liberal party as a

whole the Irish had a considerable aversion. The violent scenes that

attended the Coercion bill of 1881, the interchange of hard words, the

suspensions, the imprisonments—all mechanically acquiesced in by the

ministerial majority—had engendered both bitterness and contempt. The

Irishmen did not conceal the satisfaction with which they saw the defeat

of some of those liberals who had openly gloated over their arrests and

all the rest of their humiliations. Mr. Gladstone, it is true, had laid a

heavy and chastening hand upon them. Yet, even when the struggle had been

fiercest, with the quick intuition of a people long oppressed, they

detected a note of half-sympathetic passion which convinced them that he

would be their friend if he could, and would help them when he might.

Mr. Parnell was not open to impressions of this order. He had a long

memory for injuries, and he had by no means satisfied himself that the

same injuries might not recur. As soon as the general election was over,

he had at once set to work upon the result. Whatever might be right for

others, his line of tactics was plain—to ascertain from which of the two

English parties he was most likely to obtain the response that he desired

to the Irish demand, and then to concert the procedure best fitted to

place that party in power. He was at first not sure whether Lord Salisbury

would renounce the Irish alliance after it had served the double purpose

of ousting the liberals from office, and then reducing their numbers at

the election. He seems also to have counted upon further communications

with Lord Carnarvon, and this expectation was made known to Mr. Gladstone,

who expressed his satisfaction at the news, though it was also made known

to him that Mr. Parnell doubted (M102) Lord Carnarvon’s power to carry out

his unquestionably favourable dispositions. He at the same time very

naturally did his best to get some light as to Mr. Gladstone’s own frame

of mind. If neither party would offer a solution of the problem of Irish

government, Mr. Parnell would prefer to keep the tories in office, as they

would at least work out gradually a solution of the problems of Irish

land. To all these indirect communications Mr. Gladstone’s consistent

reply was that Mr. Parnell’s immediate business was with the government of

the day, first, because only the government could handle the matter;

second, because a tory government with the aid that it would receive from

liberals, might most certainly, safely, and quickly settle it. He declined

to go beyond the ground already publicly taken by him, unless by way of a

further public declaration. On to this new ground he would not go, until

assured that the government had had a fair opportunity given them.

By the end of December Mr. Parnell decided that there was not the

slightest possibility of any settlement being offered by the conservatives

under the existing circumstances. “Whatever chance there was,” he said,

“disappeared when the seemingly authoritative statements of Mr.

Gladstone’s intention to deal with the question were published.” He

regarded it as quite probable that in spite of a direct refusal from the

tories, the Irish members might prefer to pull along with them, rather

than run the risk of fresh coercion from the liberals, should the latter

return to power. “Supposing,” he argued, “that the liberals came into

office, and that they offered a settlement of so incomplete a character

that we could not accept it, or that owing to defections they could not

carry it, should we not, if any long interval occurred before the proposal

of a fresh settlement, incur considerable risk of further coercion?” At

any rate, they had better keep the government in, rather than oust them in

order to admit Lord Hartington or Mr. Chamberlain with a new coercion bill

in their pockets.

Foreseeing these embarrassments, Mr. Gladstone wrote in a final memorandum

(December 24) of this eventful year, “I used every effort to obtain a

clear majority at the election, and failed. I am therefore at present a

man in chains. Will ministers bring in a measure? If ‘Aye,’ I see my way.

If ‘No’: that I presume puts an end to all relations of confidence between

nationalists and tories. If that is done, I have then upon me, as is

evident, the responsibilities of _the leader of a majority_. But what if

neither Aye nor No can be had—will the nationalists then continue their

support and thus relieve me from responsibility, or withdraw their support

[from the government] and thus change essentially my position? Nothing but

a public or published dissolution of a relation of amity publicly sealed

could be of any avail.”

So the year ended.

Chapter IV. Fall Of The First Salisbury Government. (January 1886)

Historians coolly dissect a man’s thoughts as they please; and

label them like specimens in a naturalist’s cabinet. Such a thing,

they argue, was done for mere personal aggrandizement; such a

thing for national objects; such a thing from high religious

motives. In real life we may be sure it was not so.—GARDINER.

I

Ministers meanwhile hesitated, balanced, doubted, and wavered. Their party

was in a minority, and so they had a fair plea for resigning and not

meeting the new parliament. On the other hand, they had a fair plea for

continuing in office, for though they were in a minority, no other party

had a majority. Nobody knew what the Hartington whigs would do, or what

the Irish would do. There seemed to be many chances for expert angling.

Then with what policy were they to meet the House of Commons? They might

adhere to the conciliatory policy of the summer and autumn, keep clear of

repressive legislation, and make a bold attempt in the direction of

self-government. Taking the same courageous plunge as was taken by

Wellington and Peel in 1829, by Peel in the winter of 1845, by Disraeli in

1867, they might carry the declarations made by Lord Carnarvon on behalf

of the government in July to their only practical conclusion. But then

they would have broken up their party, as Wellington and Peel broke it up;

and Lord Salisbury may have asked himself whether the national emergency

warranted the party risk.

Resistance then to the Irish demand being assumed, various tactics came

under review. They might begin by asking for a vote of confidence, saying

plainly that if they were turned out and Mr. Gladstone were put in, he

would propose home rule. In that case a majority was not wholly

impossible, for the whig wing might come over, nor was it quite certain

that the Irish would help to put the government out. At any rate the

debate would force Mr. Gladstone into the open, and even if they did not

have a majority, they would be in a position to advise immediate

dissolution on the issue of home rule.

The only other course open to the cabinet was to turn their backs upon the

professions of the summer; to throw overboard the Carnarvon policy as a

cargo for which there was no longer a market; to abandon a great

experiment after a ludicrously short trial; and to pick up again the old

instrument of coercion, which not six months before they had with such

elaborate ostentation condemned and discarded. This grand manœuvre was

kept carefully in the background, until there had been time for the whole

chapter of accidents to exhaust itself, and it had become certain that no

trump cards were falling to the ministerial hand. Not until this was quite

clear, did ministers reveal their poignant uneasiness about the state of

Ireland.

In the middle of October (1885) Lord Randolph Churchill visited the

viceroy in Dublin, and found him, as he afterwards said, extremely anxious

and alarmed at the growing power of the National League. Yet the viceroy

was not so anxious and alarmed as to prevent Lord Randolph from saying at

Birmingham a month after, on November 20, that up to the present time

their decision to preserve order by the same laws as in England had been

abundantly justified, and that on the whole crime and outrage had greatly

diminished. This was curious, and shows how tortuous was the crisis. Only

a fortnight later the cabinet met (December 2), and heard of the

extraordinary development and unlimited resources of the league. All the

rest of the month of December,—so the public were by and by informed,—the

condition of Ireland was the subject of the most anxious consideration.

With great deliberation, a decision was at length reached. It was that

ordinary law had broken down, and that exceptional means of repression

were indispensable. Then a (M103) serious and embarrassing incident

occurred. Lord Carnarvon “threw up the government of Ireland,” and was

followed by Sir William Hart Dyke, the chief secretary.(171) A measure of

coercion was prepared, its provisions all drawn in statutory form, but who

was to warrant the necessity for it to parliament?(172)

Though the viceroy’s retirement was not publicly known until the middle of

January, yet so early as December 17 the prime minister had applied to Mr.

Smith, then secretary of state for war, to undertake the duties of Irish

government.(173) This was one of the sacrifices that no man of public

spirit can ever refuse, and Mr. Smith, who had plenty of public spirit,

became Irish secretary. Still when parliament assembled more than a month

after Lord Salisbury’s letter to his new chief secretary, no policy was

announced. Even on the second night of the session Mr. Smith answered

questions for the war office. The parliamentary mystification was

complete. Who, where, and what was the Irish government?

The parliamentary session was rapidly approaching, and Mr. Gladstone had

good information of the various quarters whence the wind was blowing.

Rumours reached him (January 9) from the purlieus of Parliament Street,

that general words of confidence in the government would be found in the

Queen’s Speech. Next he was told of the report that an amendment would be

moved by the ultras of law and order,—the same who had mutinied on the

Maamtrasna debate,—censuring ministers for having failed to uphold the

authority of the Queen. The same correspondent (January 15), who was well

able to make his words good, wrote to Mr. Gladstone that even though home

rule might perhaps not be in a parliamentary sense before the House, it

was in a most distinct manner before the country, and no political party

could avoid expressing an opinion upon it. On the same day another

colleague of hardly less importance drew attention to an article in a

journal supposed to be inspired by Lord Randolph, to the effect that

conciliation in Ireland had totally failed, that Lord Carnarvon had

retired because that policy was to be reversed and he was not the man for

the rival policy of vigour, and finally, that the new policy would

probably be announced in the Queen’s Speech; in no circumstances would it

be possible to avoid a general action on the Address.

II

The current of domestic life at Hawarden, in the midst of all these

perplexities, flowed in its usual ordered channels. The engagement of his

second daughter stirred Mr. Gladstone’s deepest interest. He practised

occasional woodcraft with his sons, though ending his seventy-sixth year.

He spends a morning in reviewing his private money affairs, the first time

for three years. He never misses church. He corrects the proofs of an

article on Huxley; carries on tolerably profuse correspondence, coming to

very little; he works among his books, and arranges his papers; reads

Beaconsfield’s _Home Letters_, Lord Stanhope’s _Pitt_, Macaulay’s _Warren

Hastings_, which he counts the most brilliant of all that illustrious

man’s performances; Maine on _Popular Government_; _King Solomon’s Mines_;

something of Tolstoy; Dicey’s _Law of the Constitution_, where a chapter

on semi-sovereign assemblies made a deep impression on him in regard to

the business that now absorbed his mind. Above all, he nearly every day

reads Burke: “_December 18._—Read Burke; what a magazine of wisdom on

Ireland and America. _January 9._—Made many extracts from Burke—_sometimes

almost divine_.”(174) We may easily imagine how the heat from that

profound and glowing furnace still further inflamed strong purposes and

exalted resolution in Mr. Gladstone. The Duke of Argyll wrote to say that

he was sorry to hear of the study of Burke: “Your _perfervidum ingenium

Scoti_ does not need being touched with a live coal from that Irish altar.

Of course your reference to Burke indicates a tendency to compare our

position as regards Ireland to the position of George III. towards the

colonies. I deny that there is any parallelism or even analogy.” (M104) It

was during these months that he renewed his friendly intercourse with

Cardinal Manning, which had been suspended since the controversy upon the

Vatican pamphlets. In November Mr. Gladstone sent Manning his article on

the “Dawn of Creation.” The cardinal thanked him for the paper—“still more

for your words, which revive the memories of old days. Fifty-five years

are a long reach of life in which to remember each other. We have twice

been parted, but as the path declines, as you say, it narrows, and I am

glad that we are again nearing each other as we near our end.... If we

cannot unite in the realm where ‘the morning stars sang together’ we

should be indeed far off.” Much correspondence followed on the articles

against Huxley. Then his birthday came:—

Postal deliveries and other arrivals were seven hundred.

Immeasurable kindness almost overwhelmed us. There was also the

heavy and incessant weight of the Irish question, which offers

daily phases more or less new. It was a day for intense

thankfulness, but, alas, not for recollection and detachment. When

will that day come? Until then, why string together the

commonplaces and generalities of great things, really unfelt?... I

am certain there is one keen and deep desire to be extricated from

the life of contention in which a chain of incidents has for the

last four years detained me against all my will. Then, indeed, I

should reach an eminence from which I could look before and after.

But I know truly that I am not worthy of this liberty with which

Christ makes free his elect. In his own good time, something, I

trust, will for me too be mercifully devised.

III

At the end of this long travail, which anybody else would have found all

the sorer for the isolation and quietude that it was ever Mr. Gladstone’s

fashion in moments of emergency to seek, he reached London on January

11th; two days later he took the oath in the new parliament, whose life

was destined to be so short; and then he found himself on the edge of the

whirlpool. Three days before formalities were over, and the House

assembled for the despatch of business, he received a communication that

much perturbed him, and shed an ominous light on the prospect of liberal

unity. This communication he described to Lord Granville:—

_21 Carlton House Terrace, Jan. 18, 1886._—Hartington writes to me

a letter indicating the possibility that on Thursday, while I

announce with reasons a policy of silence and reserve, he may feel

it his duty to declare his determination “to maintain the

legislative union,” that is to proclaim a policy (so I understand

the phrase) of absolute resistance without examination to the

demand made by Ireland through five-sixths of her members. This is

to play the tory game with a vengeance. They are now, most rashly

not to say more, working the Irish question to split the liberal

party.

It seems to me that if a gratuitous declaration of this kind is

made, it must produce an explosion; and that in a week’s time

Hartington will have to consider whether he will lead the liberal

party himself, or leave it to chaos. He will make my position

impossible. When, in conformity with the wishes expressed to me, I

changed my plans and became a candidate at the general election,

my motives were two. The _first_, a hope that I might be able to

contribute towards some pacific settlement of the Irish question.

The _second_, a desire to prevent the splitting of the party, of

which there appeared to be an immediate danger. The second object

has thus far been attained. But it may at any moment be lost, and

the most disastrous mode of losing it perhaps would be that now

brought into view. It would be certainly opposed to my convictions

and determination, to attempt to lead anything like a home rule

opposition, and to make this subject—the strife of nations—the

dividing line between parties. This being so, I do not see how I

could as leader survive a gratuitous declaration of opposition to

me such as Hartington appears to meditate. If he still meditates

it, ought not the party to be previously informed?

Pray, consider whether you can bring this subject before him, less

invidiously than I. I have explained to you and I believe to him,

and I believe you approve, my general idea, that we ought not to

join issue with the government on what is called home rule (which

indeed the social state of Ireland may effectually thrust aside

for the time); and that still less ought we to join issue among

ourselves, if we have a choice, unless and until we are called

upon to consider whether or not to take the government. I for one

will have nothing to do with ruining the party if I can avoid it.

This letter discloses with precision the critical state of facts on the

eve of action being taken. Issue was not directly joined with ministers on

home rule; no choice was found to exist as to taking the government; and

this brought deep and long-standing diversities among the liberal leaders

to the issue that Mr. Gladstone had strenuously laboured to avoid from the

beginning of 1885 to the end.

IV

The Irish paragraphs in the speech from the throne (January 21, 1886) were

abstract, hypothetical, and vague. The sovereign was made to say that

during the past year there had been no marked increase of serious crime,

but there was in many places a concerted resistance to the enforcement of

legal obligations, and the practice of intimidation continued to exist.

“If,” the speech went on, “as my information leads me to apprehend, the

existing provisions of the law should prove to be inadequate to cope with

these growing evils, I look with confidence to your willingness to invest

my government with all necessary powers.” There was also an abstract

paragraph about the legislative union between the two islands.

In a fragment composed in the autumn of 1897, Mr. Gladstone has described

the anxiety with which he watched the course of proceedings on the

Address:—

I had no means of forming an estimate how far the bulk of the

liberal party could be relied on to support a measure of home

rule, which should constitute an Irish parliament subject to the

supremacy of the parliament at Westminster. I was not sanguine on

this head. Even in the month of December, when rumours of my

intentions were afloat, I found how little I could reckon on a

general support. Under the circumstances I certainly took upon

myself a grave responsibility. I attached value to the acts and

language of Lord Carnarvon, and the other favourable

manifestations. Subsequently we had but too much evidence of a

deliberate intention to deceive the Irish, with a view to their

support at the election. But in the actual circumstances I thought

it my duty to encourage the government of Lord Salisbury to settle

the Irish question, so far as I could do this by promises of my

personal support. Hence my communication with Mr. Balfour, which

has long been in the hands of the public.

It has been unreasonably imputed to me, that the proposal of home

rule was a bid for the Irish vote. But my desire for the

adjustment of the question by the tories is surely a conclusive

answer. The fact is that I could not rely upon the collective

support of the liberals; but I could and did rely upon the support

of so many of them as would make the success of the measure

certain, in the event of its being proposed by the tory

administration. It would have resembled in substance the liberal

support given to Roman catholic emancipation in 1829, and the

repeal of the corn laws in 1846. Before the meeting of parliament,

I had to encounter uncomfortable symptoms among my principal

friends, of which I think —— was the organ.

I was, therefore, by no means eager for the dismissal of the tory

government, though it counted but 250 supporters out of 670, as

long as there were hopes of its taking up the question, or at all

events doing nothing to aggravate the situation.

When we came to the debate on the Address I had to face a night of

extreme anxiety. The speech from the throne referred in a menacing

way to Irish disturbances, and contained a distinct declaration in

support of the legislative union. On referring to the clerks at

the table to learn in what terms the Address in reply to the

speech was couched, I found it was a “thanking” address, which did

not commit the House to an opinion. What I dreaded was lest some

one should have gone back to the precedent of 1833, when the

Address in reply to the speech was virtually made the vehicle of a

solemn declaration in favour of the Act of Union.(175)

Home rule, rightly understood, altered indeed the terms of the Act

of Union, but adhered to its principle, which was the supremacy of

the imperial parliament. Still [it] was pretty certain that any

declaration of a substantive character, at the epoch we had now

reached, would in its moral effect shut the doors of the existing

parliament against home rule.

In a speech of pronounced clearness, Mr. Arthur Elliot endeavoured

to obtain a movement in this direction. I thought it would be

morally fatal if this tone were extensively adopted on the liberal

side; so I determined on an effort to secure reserve for the time,

that our freedom might not be compromised. I, therefore, ventured

upon describing myself as an “old parliamentary hand,” and in that

capacity strongly advised the party to keep its own counsel, and

await for a little the development of events. Happily this counsel

was taken; had it been otherwise, the early formation of a

government favourable to home rule would in all likelihood have

become an impossibility. For although our Home Rule bill was

eventually supported by more than 300 members, I doubt whether, if

the question had been prematurely raised on the night of the

Address, as many as 200 would have been disposed to act in that

sense.

In the debate on the Address the draft Coercion bill reposing in the

secret box was not mentioned. Sir Michael Hicks Beach, the leader of the

House, described the mischiefs then afoot, and went on to say that whether

they could be dealt with by ordinary law, or would require exceptional

powers, were questions that would receive the new chief secretary’s

immediate attention,(176) Parliament was told that the minister had

actually gone to Ireland to make anxious inquiry into these questions. Mr.

Smith arrived in Dublin at six o’clock on the morning of January 24, and

he quitted it at six o’clock on the evening of the 26th. He was sworn in

at the Castle in the forenoon of that day.(177) His views must have

reached the cabinet in London not later than the morning of the 26th. Not

often can conclusions on such a subject have been ripened with such

electrifying precocity.

“I intend to reserve my own freedom of action,” Mr. Gladstone said; “there

are many who have taken their seats for the first time upon these benches,

and I may avail myself of the privilege of old age to offer a

recommendation. I would tell them of my own intention to keep my counsel

and reserve my own freedom, until I see the moment and the occasion when

there may be a prospect of public benefit in endeavouring to make a

movement forward, and I will venture to recommend them, as an old

parliamentary hand, to do the same.”(178) Something in this turn of phrase

kindled lively irritation, and it drew bitter reproaches from more than

one of the younger whigs. The angriest of these remonstrances was listened

to from beginning to end without a solitary cheer from the liberal

benches. The great bulk of the party took their leader’s advice. Of course

the reserve of his speech was as significant of Irish concession, as the

most open declaration would have been. Yet there was no rebellion. This

was felt by ministers to be a decisive omen of the general support likely

to be given to Mr. Gladstone’s supposed policy by his own party. Mr.

Parnell offered some complimentary remarks on the language of Mr.

Gladstone, but he made no move in the direction of an amendment. The

public outside looked on with stupefaction. For two or three days all

seemed to be in suspense. But the two ministerial leaders in the Commons

knew how to read the signs. What Sir Michael (M105) Hicks Beach and Lord

Randolph foresaw, for one thing was an understanding between Mr. Gladstone

and the Irishmen, and for another, they foresaw the acquiescence of the

mass of the liberals. This twofold discovery cleared the ground for a

decision. After the second night’s debate ministers saw that the only

chance now was to propose coercion. Then it was that the ephemeral chief

secretary had started on his voyage for the discovery of something that

had already been found.

V

On the afternoon of the 26th, the leader of the House gave notice that two

days later the new Irish secretary would ask leave to introduce a bill

dealing with the National League, with intimidation, and with the

protection of life, property, and public order. This would be followed by

a bill dealing with land, pursuing in a more extensive sense the policy of

the Ashbourne Act of the year before. The great issue was thus at last

brought suddenly and nakedly into view. When the Irish secretary reached

Euston Square on the morning of the 27th, he found that his government was

out.

The crucial announcement of the 26th of January compelled a prompt

determination, and Mr. Gladstone did not shrink. A protest against a

return to coercion as the answer of the British parliament to the

extraordinary demonstration from Ireland, carried with it the

responsibility of office, and this responsibility Mr. Gladstone had

resolved to undertake.

The determining event of these transactions,—he says in the

fragment already cited,—was the declaration of the government that

they would propose coercion for Ireland. This declaration put an

end to all the hopes and expectations associated with the mission

of Lord Carnarvon. Not perhaps in mere logic, but practically, it

was now plain that Ireland had no hope from the tories. This being

so, my rule of action was changed at once, and I determined on

taking any and every legitimate opportunity to remove the existing

government from office. Immediately on making up my mind about the

rejection of the government, I went to call upon Sir William

Harcourt and informed him as to my intentions and the grounds of

them. He said, “What! Are you prepared to go forward without

either Hartington or Chamberlain?” I answered, “Yes.” I believe it

was in my mind to say, if I did not actually say it, that I was

prepared to go forward without anybody. That is to say without any

known and positive assurance of support. This was one of the great

imperial occasions which call for such resolutions.

An amendment stood upon the notice-paper in the name of Mr. Collings,

regretting the omission from the speech of measures for benefiting the

rural labourer; and on this motion an immediate engagement was fought.

Time was important. An exasperating debate on coercion with obstruction,

disorder, suspensions, would have been a damning prologue to any policy of

accommodation. The true significance of the motion was not concealed. On

the agrarian aspect of it, the only important feature was the adhesion of

Mr. Gladstone, now first formally declared, to the policy of Mr.

Chamberlain. The author of the agrarian policy fought out once more on the

floor of the House against Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen the battle of

the platform. It was left for Sir Michael Hicks Beach to remind the House

that, whatever the honest mover might mean, the rural labourer had very

little to do with the matter, and he implored the gentlemen in front of

him to think twice and thrice before they committed the future of this

country to the gravest dangers that ever awaited it.

The debate was not prolonged. The discussion opened shortly before dinner,

and by one o’clock the division was taken. The government found itself in

a minority of 79. The majority numbered 331, composed of 257 liberals and

74 Irish nationalists. The ministerialist minority was 252, made up of 234

tories and 18 liberals. Besides the fact that Lord Hartington, Mr.

Goschen, and Sir Henry James voted with ministers, there was a still more

ominous circumstance. No fewer than 76 liberals were absent, including

among them the imposing personality of Mr. Bright. In a memorandum written

for submission to the Queen a few days later, Mr. Gladstone said, “I must

express my personal conviction that had the late ministers remained in

office and proceeded with their proposed plan of repression, and even had

that plan received my support, it would have ended in a disastrous

parliamentary failure.”(179)

The next day (Jan. 28) ministers of course determined to resign. A liberal

member of parliament was overtaken by Lord Randolph on the parade ground,

walking away from the cabinet. “You look a little pensive,” said the

liberal. “Yes; I was thinking. I have plenty to think of. Well, we are

out, and you are in.” “I suppose so,” the liberal replied, “we are in for

six months; we dissolve; you are in for six years.” “Not at all sure,”

said Lord Randolph; “let me tell you one thing most solemnly and most

surely: the conservative party are not going to be made the instrument of

the Irish for turning out Mr. Gladstone, if he refuses repeal.” “Nobody,”

observed the sententious liberal, “should so often as the politician say

the prayer not to be led into temptation. Remember your doings last

summer.”

Chapter V. The New Policy. (1886)

In reason all government without the consent of the governed is

the very definition of slavery; but in fact eleven men well armed

will certainly subdue one single man in his shirt.... Those who

have used to cramp liberty have gone so far as to resent even the

liberty of complaining; although a man upon the rack was never

known to be refused the liberty of roaring as loud as he thought

fit.—JONATHAN SWIFT.

I

The tory government was defeated in the sitting of Tuesday (Jan. 26). On

Friday, “at a quarter after midnight, in came Sir H. Ponsonby, with verbal

commission from her Majesty, which I at once accepted.”(180) The whole of

Saturday was spent in consultations with colleagues. On Sunday, Mr.

Gladstone records, “except church, my day from one to eight was given to

business. I got only fragmentary reading of the life of the admirable Mr.

Suckling and other books. At night came a painful and harassing succession

of letters, and my sleep for once gave way; yet for the soul it was

profitable, driving me to the hope that the strength of God might be made

manifest in my weakness.” On Monday, Feb. 1, he went to attend the Queen.

“Off at 9.10 to Osborne. Two audiences: an hour and half in all.

Everything good in the main points. Large discourse upon Ireland in

particular. Returned at 7-¾. I kissed hands and am thereby prime minister

for the third time. But, as I trust, for a brief time only. Slept well,

_D.G._”

The first question was, how many of his colleagues in the liberal cabinet

that went out of office six months before, would now embark with him in

the voyage into stormy and unexplored seas. I should suppose that no such

difficulties (M106) had ever confronted the attempt at making a cabinet

since Canning’s in 1827.

Mr. Gladstone begins the fragment from which I have already quoted with a

sentence or two of retrospect, and then proceeds:—

In 1885 (I think) Chamberlain had proposed a plan accepted by

Parnell (and supported by me) which, without establishing in

Ireland a national parliament, made very considerable advances

towards self-government. It was rejected by a small majority of

the cabinet—Granville said at the time he would rather take home

rule. Spencer thought it would introduce confusion into executive

duties.

On the present occasion a full half of the former ministers

declined to march with me. Spencer and Granville were my main

supports. Chamberlain and Trevelyan went with me, their basis

being that we were to seek for some method of dealing with the

Irish case other than coercion. What Chamberlain’s motive was I do

not clearly understand. It was stated that he coveted the Irish

secretaryship.... To have given him the office would at that time

have been held to be a declaration of war against the Irish party.

Selborne nibbled at the offer, but I felt that it would not work,

and did not use great efforts to bring him in.(181)

When I had accepted the commission, Ponsonby brought me a message

from the Queen that she hoped there would not be any Separation in

the cabinet. The word had not at that time acquired the offensive

meaning in which it has since been stereotyped by the so-called

unionists; and it was easy to frame a reply in general but strong

words. I am bound to say that at Osborne in the course of a long

conversation, the Queen was frank and free, and showed none of the

“armed neutrality,” which as far as I know has been the best

definition of her attitude in the more recent years towards a

liberal minister. Upon the whole, when I look back upon 1886, and

consider the inveterate sentiment of hostility flavoured with

contempt towards Ireland, which has from time immemorial formed

the basis of English, tradition, I am much more disposed to be

thankful for what we then and afterwards accomplished, than to

murmur or to wonder at what we did not.

What Mr. Gladstone called the basis of his new government was set out in a

short memorandum, which he read to each of those whom he hoped to include

in his cabinet: “I propose to examine whether it is or is not practicable

to comply with the desire widely prevalent in Ireland, and testified by

the return of eighty-five out of one hundred and three representatives,

for the establishment by statute of a legislative body to sit in Dublin,

and to deal with Irish as distinguished from imperial affairs; in such a

manner as would be just to each of the three kingdoms, equitable with

reference to every class of the people of Ireland, conducive to the social

order and harmony of that country, and calculated to support and

consolidate the unity of the empire on the continued basis of imperial

authority and mutual attachment.”

No definite plan was propounded or foreshadowed, but only the proposition

that it was a duty to seek a plan. The cynical version was that a cabinet

was got together on the chance of being able to agree. To Lord Hartington,

Mr. Gladstone applied as soon as he received the Queen’s commission. The

invitation was declined on reasoned grounds (January 30). Examination and

inquiry, said Lord Hartington, must mean a proposal. If no proposal

followed inquiry, the reaction of Irish disappointment would be severe, as

it would be natural. His adherence, moreover, would be of little value. He

had already, he observed, in the government of 1880 made concessions on

other subjects that might be thought to have shaken public confidence in

him; he could go no further without destroying that confidence altogether.

However that might be, he could not depart from the traditions of British

statesmen, and he was opposed to a separate Irish legislature. At the same

time he concluded, in a sentence afterwards pressed by Mr. Gladstone on

the notice of the Queen: “I am fully convinced that the alternative policy

of governing Ireland without large concessions to the national sentiment,

presents difficulties of a tremendous character, which in my opinion could

now only be faced by the support of a nation united by the consciousness

that the fullest opportunity had been given for the production and

consideration of a conciliatory policy.”

A few days later (February 5) Lord Hartington wrote: “I have been told

that I have been represented as having been in general agreement with you

on your Irish policy, and having been prevented joining your government

solely by the declarations which I made to my constituents; and as not

intending to oppose the government even on home rule. On looking over my

letter I think that the general intention is sufficiently clear, but there

is part of one sentence which, taken by itself, might be understood as

committing me beyond what I intended or wished. The words I refer to are

those in which I say that it may be possible for me as a private member to

prevent obstacles being placed in the way of a fair trial being given to

the policy of the new government. But I think that the commencement of the

sentence in which these words occur sufficiently reserves my liberty, and

that the whole letter shows that what I desire is that the somewhat

undefined declarations which have hitherto been made should now assume a

practical shape.”(182)

The decision was persistently regarded by Mr. Gladstone as an important

event in English political history. With a small number of distinguished

individual exceptions, it marked the withdrawal from the liberal party of

the aristocratic element. Up to a very recent date this had been its

governing element. Until 1868, the whig nobles and their connections held

the reins and shaped the policy. After the accession of a leader from

outside of the caste in 1868, when Mr. Gladstone for the first time became

prime minister, they continued to hold more than their share of the

offices, but in cabinet they sank to the position of what is called a

moderating force. After 1880 it became every day more clear that even this

modest function was slipping away. Lord Hartington found that the

moderating force could no longer moderate. If he went on, he must make up

his mind to go under the Caudine forks once a week. The significant

reference, among his reasons for not joining the new ministry, to the

concessions that he had made in the last government for the sake of party

unity, and to his feeling that any further moves of the same kind for the

same purpose would destroy all public confidence in him, shows just as the

circumstances of the election had shown, and as the recent debate on the

Collings amendment had shown, how small were the chances, quite apart from

Irish policy, of uniting whig and radical wings in any durable liberal

government.

Mr. Goschen, who had been a valuable member of the great ministry of 1868,

was invited to call, but without hopes that he would rally to a cause so

startling; the interview, while courteous and pleasant, was over in a very

few minutes. Lord Derby, a man of still more cautious type, and a rather

recent addition to the officers of the liberal staff, declined, not

without good nature. Lord Northbrook had no faith in a new Irish policy,

and his confidence in his late leader had been shaken by Egypt. Most

lamented of all the abstentions was the honoured and trusted name of Mr.

Bright.

Mr. Trevelyan agreed to join, in the entirely defensible hope that they

“would knock the measure about in the cabinet, as cabinets do,” and mould

it into accord with what had until now been the opinion of most of its

members.(183) Mr. Chamberlain, who was destined to play so singular and

versatile a part in the eventful years to come, entered the cabinet with

reluctance and misgiving. The Admiralty was first proposed to him and was

declined, partly on the ground that the chief of the fighting and spending

departments was not the post for one who had just given to domestic

reforms the paramount place in his stirring addresses to (M107) the

country. Mr. Chamberlain, we may be sure, was not much concerned about the

particular office. Whatever its place in the hierarchy, he knew that he

could trust himself to make it as important as he pleased, and that his

weight in the cabinet and the House would not depend upon the accident of

a department. Nobody’s position was so difficult. He was well aware how

serious a thing it would be for his prospects, if he were to join a

confederacy of his arch enemies, the whigs, against Mr. Gladstone, the

commanding idol of his friends, the radicals. If, on the other hand, by

refusing to enter the government he should either prevent its formation or

should cause its speedy overthrow, he would be left planted with a

comparatively ineffective group of his own, and he would incur the deep

resentment of the bulk of those with whom he had hitherto been accustomed

to act.

All these were legitimate considerations in the mind of a man with the

instinct of party management. In the end he joined his former chief. He

made no concealment of his position. He warned the prime minister that he

did not believe it to be possible to reconcile conditions as to the

security of the empire and the supremacy of parliament, with the

establishment of a legislative body in Dublin. He declared his own

preference for an attempt to come to terms with the Irish members on the

basis of a more limited scheme of local government, coupled with proposals

about land and about education. At the same time, as the minister had been

good enough to leave him unlimited liberty of judgment and rejection, he

was ready to give unprejudiced examination to more extensive

proposals.(184) Such was Mr. Chamberlain’s excuse for joining. It is

hardly so intelligible as Lord Hartington’s reasons for not joining. For

the new government could only subsist by Irish support. That support

notoriously depended on the concession of more than a limited scheme of

local government. The administration would have been overthrown in a week,

and to form a cabinet on such a basis as was here proposed would be the

idlest experiment that ever was tried.

The appointment of the writer of these pages to be Irish secretary was at

once generally regarded as decisive of Mr. Gladstone’s ultimate intention,

for during the election and afterwards I had spoken strongly in favour of

a colonial type of government for Ireland. It was rightly pressed upon Mr.

Gladstone by at least one of his most experienced advisers, that such an

appointment to this particular office would be construed as a declaration

in favour of an Irish parliament, without any further examination at

all.(185) And so, in fact, it was generally construed.

Nobody was more active in aiding the formation of the new ministry than

Sir William Harcourt, in whose powerful composition loyalty to party and

conviction of the value of party have ever been indestructible instincts.

“I must not let the week absolutely close,” Mr. Gladstone wrote to him

from Mentmore (February 6), “without emphatically thanking you for the

indefatigable and effective help which you have rendered to me during its

course, in the difficult work now nearly accomplished.”

At the close of the operation, he writes from Downing Street to his son

Henry, then in India:—

_February 12, 1886._ You see the old date has reappeared at the

head of my letter. The work last week was extremely hard from the

mixture of political discussions on the Irish question, by way of

preliminary condition, with the ordinary distribution of offices,

which while it lasts is of itself difficult enough.

Upon the whole I am well satisfied with its composition. It is not

a bit more radical than the government of last year; perhaps a

little less. And we have got some good young hands, which please

me very much. Yet short as the Salisbury government has been, it

would not at all surprise me if this were to be shorter still,

such are the difficulties that bristle round the Irish question.

But the great thing is to be right; and as far as matters have yet

advanced, I see no reason to be apprehensive in this capital

respect. I have framed a plan for the land and for the finance of

what must be a very large transaction. It is necessary to see our

way a little on these at the outset, for, unless these portions of

anything we attempt are sound and well constructed, we cannot hope

to succeed. On the other hand, if we fail, as I believe the late

ministers would have failed even to pass their plan of repressive

legislation, the consequences will be deplorable in every way.

There seems to be no doubt that some, and notably Lord R.

Churchill, fully reckoned on my failing to form a government.(186)

II

The work pressed, and time was terribly short. The new ministers had

barely gone through their re-elections before the opposition began to

harry them for their policy, and went so far, before the government was

five weeks old, as to make the extreme motion for refusing supply. Even if

the opposition had been in more modest humour, no considerable delay could

be defended. Social order in Ireland was in a profoundly unsatisfactory

phase. That fact was the starting-point of the reversal of policy which

the government had come into existence to carry out. You cannot announce a

grand revolution, and then beg the world to wait. The very reason that

justified the policy commanded expedition. Anxiety and excitement were too

intense out of doors for anything but a speedy date, and it was quite

certain that if the new plan were not at once propounded, no other public

business would have much chance.

The new administration did not meet parliament until after the middle of

February, and the two Irish bills, in which their policy was contained,

were ready by the end of the first week of April. Considering the enormous

breadth and intricacy of the subjects, the pressure of parliamentary

business all the time, the exigencies of administrative work in the case

of at least one of the ministers principally concerned, and the

distracting atmosphere of party perturbation and disquiet that daily and

hourly harassed the work, the despatch of such a task within such limits

of time was at least not discreditable to the industry and concentration

of those who achieved it. I leave it still open to the hostile critic to

say, as Molière’s Alceste says of the sonnet composed in a quarter of an

hour, that time has nothing to do with the business.

All through March Mr. Gladstone laboured in what he called “stiff

conclaves” about finance and land, attended drawing rooms, and “observed

the variations of H.M.’s _accueils_”; had an audience of the Queen, “very

gracious, but avoided serious subjects”; was laid up with cold, and the

weather made Sir Andrew Clark strict; then rose up to fresh grapples with

finance and land and untoward colleagues, and all the “inexorable demands

of my political vocation.” His patience and self-control were as

marvellous as his tireless industry. Sorely tried by something or another

at a cabinet, he enters,—“Angry with myself for not bearing it better. I

ought to have been thankful for it all the time.” On a similar occasion, a

junior colleague showed himself less thankful than he should have been for

purposeless antagonism. “Think of it as discipline,” said Mr. (M108)

Gladstone. “But why,” said the unregenerate junior, “should we grudge the

blessings of discipline to some other people?”

Mr. Gladstone was often blamed even by Laodiceans among his supporters,

not wise but foolish after the event, because he did not proceed by way of

resolution, instead of by bill. Resolutions, it was argued, would have

smoothed the way. General propositions would have found readier access to

men’s minds. Having accepted the general proposition, people would have

found it harder to resist the particular application. Devices that

startled in the precision of a clause, would in the vagueness of a broad

and abstract principle have soothed and persuaded. Mr. Gladstone was

perfectly alive to all this, but his answer to it was plain. Those who

eventually threw out the bill would insist on unmasking the resolution.

They would have exhausted all the stereotyped vituperation of abstract

motions. They would have ridiculed any general proposition as mere

platitude, and pertinaciously clamoured for working details. What would

the resolution have affirmed? The expediency of setting up a legislative

authority in Ireland to deal with exclusively Irish affairs. But such a

resolution would be consistent equally with a narrow scheme on the one

hand, such as a plan for national councils, and a broad scheme on the

other, giving to Ireland a separate exchequer, separate control over

customs and excise, and practically an independent and co-ordinate

legislature.(187) How could the government meet the challenge to say

outright whether they intended broad or narrow? Such a resolution could

hardly have outlived an evening’s debate, and would not have postponed the

evil day of schism for a single week.

Precedents lent no support. It is true that the way was prepared for the

Act of Union in the parliament of Great Britain, by the string of

resolutions moved by Mr. Pitt in the beginning of 1799. But anybody who

glances at them, will at once perceive that if resolutions on their model

had been framed for the occasion of 1886, they would have covered the

whole ground of the actual bill, and would instantly have raised all the

formidable objections and difficulties exactly as the bill itself raised

them. The Bank Charter Act of 1833 was founded on eight resolutions, and

they also set forth in detail the points of the ministerial plan.(188) The

renewal of the East India Company’s charter in the same year went on by

way of resolutions, less abundant in particulars than the Bank Act, but

preceded by correspondence and papers which had been exhaustively

canvassed and discussed.(189) The question of Irish autonomy was in no

position of that sort.

The most apt precedent in some respects is to be found on a glorious

occasion, also in the year 1833. Mr. Stanley introduced the proposals of

his government for the emancipation of the West Indian slaves in five

resolutions. They furnished a key not only to policy and general

principles, but also to the plan by which these were to be carried

out.(190) Lord Howick followed the minister at once, raising directly the

whole question of the plan. Who could doubt that Lord Hartington would now

take precisely the same course towards Irish resolutions of similar scope?

The procedure on the India bill of 1858 was just as little to the point.

The general disposition of the House was wholly friendly to a settlement

of the question of Indian government by the existing ministry. No single

section of the opposition wished to take it out of their hands, for

neither Lord Russell nor the Peelites nor the Manchester men, and probably

not even Lord Palmerston himself, were anxious for the immediate return of

the last-named minister to power. Who will pretend that in the House, of

Commons in February 1886, anything at all like the same state of facts

prevailed? As for the resolutions in the case of the Irish church, they

were moved by Mr. Gladstone in opposition, and he thought it obvious that

a policy proposed in opposition stands on a totally different footing from

a policy laid before parliament on the responsibility of a government, and

a government bound by every necessity of the situation to prompt

action.(191)

(M109) At a later stage, as we shall see, it was actually proposed that a

vote for the second reading of the bill should be taken to mean no more

than a vote for its principle. Every one of the objections that instantly

sprang out of their ambush against this proposal would have worked just as

much mischief against an initial resolution. In short, in opening a policy

of this difficulty and extent, the cabinet was bound to produce to

parliament not merely its policy but its plan for carrying the policy out.

By that course only could parliament know what it was doing. Any other

course must have ended in a mystifying, irritating, and barren confusion,

alike in the House of Commons and in the country.(192)

The same consideration that made procedure by resolution unadvisable told

with equal force within the cabinet. Examination into the feasibility of

some sort of plan was most rapidly brought to a head by the test of a

particular plan. It is a mere fable of faction that a cast iron policy was

arbitrarily imposed upon the cabinet; as matter of fact, the plan

originally propounded did undergo large and radical modifications.

The policy as a whole shaped itself in two measures. First, a scheme for

creating a legislative body, and defining its powers; second, a scheme for

opening the way to a settlement of the land question, in discharge of an

obligation of honour and policy, imposed upon this country by its active

share in all the mischiefs that the Irish land system had produced. The

introduction of a plan for dealing with the land was not very popular even

among ministers, but it was pressed by Lord Spencer and the Irish

secretary, on the double ground that the land was too burning a question

to be left where it then stood, and next that it was unfair to a new and

untried legislature in Ireland to find itself confronted by such a

question on the very threshold.

The plan was opened by Mr. Gladstone in cabinet on March 13th, and Mr.

Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan at once wished to resign. He remonstrated in

a vigorous correspondence. “I have seen many and many a resignation,” he

said, “but never one based upon the intentions, nay the immature

intentions, of the prime minister, and on a pure intuition of what may

happen. Bricks and rafters are prepared for a house, but are not

themselves a house.” The evil hour was postponed, but not for long. The

Cabinet met again a few days later (March 26) and things came to a sharp

issue. The question was raised in a sufficiently definite form by the

proposition from the prime minister for the establishment of a statutory

body sitting in Dublin with legislative powers. No difficulty was made

about the bare proposition itself. Every one seemed to go as far as that.

It needed to be tested, and tests were at once forthcoming. Mr. Trevelyan

could not assent to the control of the immediate machinery of law and

order being withdrawn from direct British authority, among other reasons

because it was this proposal that created the necessity for buying out the

Irish landlords, which he regarded as raising a problem absolutely

insoluble.(193) Mr. Chamberlain raised four points. He objected to the

cesser of Irish representation; he could not consent to the grant of full

rights of taxation to Ireland; he resisted the surrender of the

appointment of judges and magistrates; and he argued strongly against

proceeding by enumeration of the things that an Irish government might not

do, instead of by a specific delegation of the things that it might

do.(194) That these four objections were not in themselves incapable of

accommodation was shown by subsequent events. The second was very

speedily, and the first was ultimately allowed, while the fourth was held

by good authority to be little more than a question of drafting. Even the

third was not a point either way on which to break up a government,

destroy a policy, and split a party. But everybody who is acquainted with

either the great or the small conflicts of human history, knows how little

the mere terms of a principle or of an objection are to be trusted as a

clue either to its practical significance, or (M110) to the design with

which it is in reality advanced. The design here under all the four heads

of objection, was the dwarfing of the legislative body, the cramping and

constriction of its organs, its reduction to something which the Irish

could not have even pretended to accept, and which they would have been no

better than fools if they had ever attempted to work.

Some supposed then, and Mr. Chamberlain has said since, that when he

entered the cabinet room on this memorable occasion, he intended to be

conciliatory. Witnesses of the scene thought that the prime minister made

little attempt in that direction. Yet where two men of clear mind and firm

will mean two essentially different things under the same name, whether

autonomy or anything else, and each intends to stand by his own

interpretation, it is childish to suppose that arts of deportment will

smother or attenuate fundamental divergence, or make people who are quite

aware how vitally they differ, pretend that they entirely agree. Mr.

Gladstone knew the giant burden that he had taken up, and when he went to

the cabinet of March 26, his mind was no doubt fixed that success, so

hazardous at best, would be hopeless in face of personal antagonisms and

bitterly divided counsels. This, in his view, and in his own phrase, was

one of the “great imperial occasions” that call for imperial resolves. The

two ministers accordingly resigned.

Besides these two important secessions, some ministers out of the cabinet

resigned, but they were of the whig complexion.(195) The new prospect of

the whig schism extending into the camp of the extreme radicals created

natural alarm but hardly produced a panic. So deep were the roots of

party, so immense the authority of a veteran leader. It used to be said of

the administration of 1880, that the world would never really know Mr.

Gladstone’s strength in parliament and the country, until every one of his

colleagues had in turn abandoned him to his own resources. Certainly the

secessions of the end of March 1886 left him undaunted. Every

consideration of duty and of policy bound him to persevere. He felt,

justly enough, that a minister who had once deliberately invited his party

and the people of the three kingdoms to follow him on so arduous and bold

a march as this, had no right on any common plea to turn back until he had

exhausted every available device to “bring the army of the faithful

through.”

III

From the first the Irish leader was in free and constant communication

with the chief secretary. Proposals were once or twice made, not I think

at Mr. Parnell’s desire, for conversations to be held between Mr.

Gladstone and himself, but they were always discouraged by Mr. Gladstone,

who was never fond of direct personal contentions, or conversations when

the purpose could be as well served otherwise, and he had a horror of what

he called multiplying channels of communication. “For the moment,” he

replied, “I think we may look to Mr. M. alone, and rely on all he says for

accuracy as well as fidelity. I have been hard at work, and to-day I mean

to have a further and full talk with Mr. M., who will probably soon after

wish for some renewed conversation with Mr. Parnell.” Mr. Parnell showed

himself acute, frank, patient, closely attentive, and possessed of

striking though not rapid insight. He never slurred over difficulties, nor

tried to pretend that rough was smooth. On the other hand, he had nothing

in common with that desperate species of counsellor, who takes all the

small points, and raises objections instead of helping to contrive

expedients. He measured the ground with a slow and careful eye, and fixed

tenaciously on the thing that was essential at the moment. Of constructive

faculty he never showed a trace. He was a man of temperament, of will, of

authority, of power; not of ideas or ideals, or knowledge, or political

maxims, or even of the practical reason in any of its higher senses, as

Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson had practical reason. But he knew what he

wanted.

(M111) He was always perfectly ready at this period to acquiesce in Irish

exclusion from Westminster, on the ground that they would want all the

brains they had for their own parliament. At the same time he would have

liked a provision for sending a delegation to Westminster on occasion,

with reference to some definite Irish questions such as might be expected

to arise. As to the composition of the upper or protective order in the

Irish parliament, he was wholly unfamiliar with the various utopian plans

that have been advanced for the protection of minorities, and he declared

himself tolerably indifferent whether the object should be sought in

nomination by the crown, or through a special and narrower elective body,

or by any other scheme. To such things he had given no thought. He was a

party chief, not a maker of constitutions. He liked the idea of both

orders sitting in one House. He made one significant suggestion: he wished

the bill to impose the same disqualification upon the clergy as exists in

our own parliament. But he would have liked to see certain ecclesiastical

dignitaries included by virtue of their office in the upper or protective

branch. All questions of this kind, however, interested him much less than

finance. Into financial issues he threw himself with extraordinary energy,

and he fought for better terms with a keenness and tenacity that almost

baffled the mighty expert with whom he was matched. They only met once

during the weeks of the preparation of the bill, though the indirect

communication was constant. Here is my scanty note of the meeting:—

_April 5._—Mr. Parnell came to my room at the House at 8.30, and

we talked for two hours. At 10.30 I went to Mr. Gladstone next

door, and told him how things stood. He asked me to open the

points of discussion, and into my room we went. He shook hands

cordially with Mr. Parnell, and sat down between him and me. We at

once got to work. P. extraordinarily close, tenacious, and sharp.

It was all finance. At midnight, Mr. Gladstone rose in his chair

and said, “I fear I must go; I cannot sit as late as I used to

do.” “Very clever, very clever,” he muttered to me as I held open

the door of his room for him. I returned to Parnell, who went on

repeating his points in his impenetrable way, until the policeman

mercifully came to say the House was up.

Mr. Gladstone’s own note must also be transcribed:—

_April 5._—Wrote to Lord Spencer. The Queen and ministers. Four

hours on the matter for my speech. 1-½ hours with Welby and

Hamilton on the figures. Saw Lord Spencer, Mr. Morley, Mr. A. M.

H. of C., 5-8. Dined at Sir Thomas May’s.

1-½ hours with Morley and Parnell on the root of the matter;

rather too late for me, 10-½-12. A hard day. (_Diary._)

On more than one financial point the conflict went perilously near to

breaking down the whole operation. “If we do not get a right budget,” said

Mr. Parnell, “all will go wrong from the very first hour.” To the last he

held out that the just proportion of Irish contribution to the imperial

fund was not one-fourteenth or one-fifteenth, but a twentieth or

twenty-first part. He insisted all the more strongly on his own more

liberal fraction, as a partial compensation for their surrender of fiscal

liberty and the right to impose customs duties. Even an hour or two before

the bill was actually to be unfolded to the House, he hurried to the Irish

office in what was for him rather an excited state, to make one more

appeal to me for his fraction. It is not at all improbable that if the

bill had gone forward into committee, it would have been at the eleventh

hour rejected by the Irish on this department of it, and then all would

have been at an end. Mr. Parnell never concealed this danger ahead.

In the cabinet things went forward with such ups and downs as are usual

when a difficult bill is on the anvil. In a project of this magnitude, it

was inevitable that some minister should occasionally let fall the

consecrated formula that if this or that were done or not done, he must

reconsider his position. Financial arrangements, and the protection of the

minority, were two of the knottiest points,—the first from the contention

raised on the Irish side, the second from misgiving in some minds as to

the possibility of satisfying protestant sentiment in England and

Scotland. Some kept the colonial type more strongly in view than others,

and the bill no doubt ultimately bore that cast.

(M112) The draft project of surrendering complete taxing-power to the

Irish legislative body was eventually abandoned. It was soon felt that the

bare possibility of Ireland putting duties on British goods—and it was not

more than a bare possibility in view of Britain’s position as practically

Ireland’s only market—would have destroyed the bill in every manufacturing

and commercial centre in the land. Mr. Parnell agreed to give up the

control of customs, and also to give up direct and continuous

representation at Westminster. On this cardinal point of the cesser of

Irish representation, Mr. Gladstone to the last professed to keep an open

mind, though to most of the cabinet, including especially three of its

oldest hands and coolest heads, exclusion was at this time almost vital.

Exclusion was favoured not only on its merits. Mr. Bright was known to

regard it as large compensation for what otherwise he viewed as pure

mischief, and it was expected to win support in other quarters generally

hostile. So in truth it did, but at the cost of support in quarters that

were friendly. On April 30, Mr. Gladstone wrote to Lord Granville, “I

scarcely see how a cabinet could have been formed, if the inclusion of the

Irish members had been insisted on; and now I do not see how the scheme

and policy can be saved from shipwreck, if the exclusion is insisted on.”

The plan was bound to be extensive, as its objects were extensive, and it

took for granted in the case of Ireland the fundamental probabilities of

civil society. He who looks with “indolent and kingly gaze” upon all

projects of written constitutions need not turn to the Appendix unless he

will. Two features of the plan were cardinal.

The foundation of the scheme was the establishment in Ireland of a

domestic legislature to deal with Irish as distinguished from imperial

affairs. It followed from this that if Irish members and representative

peers remained at Westminster at all, though they might claim a share in

the settlement of imperial affairs, they could not rightly control English

or Scotch affairs. This was from the first, and has ever since remained,

the Gordian knot. The cabinet on a review of all the courses open

determined to propose the plan of total exclusion, save and unless for the

purpose of revising this organic statute.

The next question was neither so hard nor so vital. Ought the powers of

the Irish legislature to be specifically enumerated? Or was it better to

enumerate the branches of legislation from which the statutory parliament

was to be shut out? Should we enact the things that they might do, or the

things that they might not do, leaving them the whole residue of

law-making power outside of these exceptions and exclusions? The latter

was the plan adopted in the bill. Disabilities were specified, and

everything not so specified was left within the scope of the Irish

authority. These disabilities comprehended all matters affecting the

crown. All questions of defence and armed force were shut out; all foreign

and colonial relations; the law of trade and navigation, of coinage and

legal tender. The new legislature could not meddle with certain charters,

nor with certain contracts, nor could it establish or endow any particular

religion.(196)

IV

Among his five spurious types of courage, Aristotle names for one the man

who seems to be brave, only because he does not see his danger. This, at

least, was not Mr. Gladstone’s case. No one knew better than the leader in

the enterprise, how formidable were the difficulties that lay in his path.

The giant mass of secular English prejudice against Ireland frowned like a

mountain chain across the track. A strong and proud nation had trained

itself for long courses of time in habits of dislike for the history, the

political claims, the religion, the temperament, of a weaker nation. The

violence of the Irish members in the last parliament, sporadic barbarities

in some of the wilder portions of the island, the hideous murders in the

Park, had all deepened and vivified the scowling impressions nursed by

large bodies of Englishmen for many ages past about unfortunate Ireland.

Then the practical operation of shaping an Irish constitution, whether on

colonial, federal, or any (M113) other lines, was in itself a task that,

even if all external circumstance had been as smiling as it was in fact

the opposite, still abounded in every kind of knotty, intricate, and

intractable matter.

It is true that elements could be discovered on the other side. First, was

Mr. Gladstone’s own high place in the confidence of great masses of his

countrymen, the result of a lifetime of conspicuous service and

achievement. Next, the lacerating struggle with Ireland ever since 1880,

and the confusion into which it had brought our affairs, had bred

something like despair in many minds, and they were ready to look in

almost any direction for relief from an intolerable burden. Third, the

controversy had not gone very far before opponents were astounded to find

that the new policy, which they angrily scouted as half insanity and half

treason, gave comparatively little shock to the new democracy. This was at

first imputed to mere ignorance and raw habits of political judgment.

Wider reflection might have warned them that the plain people of this

island, though quickly roused against even the shadow of concession when

the power or the greatness of their country is openly assailed, seem at

the same time ready to turn to moral claims of fair play, of conciliation,

of pacific truce. With all these magnanimous sentiments the Irish case was

only too easily made to associate itself. The results of the Irish

elections and the force of the constitutional demand sank deep in the

popular mind. The grim spectre of Coercion as the other alternative wore

its most repulsive look in the eyes of men, themselves but newly admitted

to full citizenship. Rash experiment in politics has been defined as

raising grave issues without grave cause. Nobody of any party denied in

this crisis the gravity of the cause.

Chapter VI. Introduction Of The Bill. (1886)

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour’d of them all....

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;

There gloom the dark broad seas.

—TENNYSON, _Ulysses_.

I

It was not within the compass either of human effort or human endurance

even for the most practised and skilful of orators to unfold the whole

plan, both government and land, in a single speech. Nor was public

interest at all equally divided. Irish land had devoured an immense amount

of parliamentary time in late years; it is one of the most technical and

repulsive of all political subjects; and to many of the warmest friends of

Irish self-government, any special consideration for the owners of Irish

land was bitterly unpalatable. Expectation was centred upon the plan for

general government. This was introduced on April 8. Here is the entry in

the little diary:—

The message came to me this morning: “Hold thou up my goings in

thy path, that my footsteps slip not.” Settled finally my figures

with Welby and Hamilton; other points with Spencer and Morley.

Reflected much. Took a short drive. H. of C., 4-½-8-¼.

Extraordinary scenes outside the House and in. My speech, which I

have sometimes thought could never end, lasted nearly 3-½ hours.

Voice and strength and freedom were granted to me in a degree

beyond what I could have hoped. But many a prayer had gone up for

me, and not I believe in vain.

No such scene had ever been beheld in the House of Commons. Members came

down at break of day to secure their places; before noon every seat was

marked, and (M114) crowded benches were even arrayed on the floor of the

House from the mace to the bar. Princes, ambassadors, great peers, high

prelates, thronged the lobbies. The fame of the orator, the boldness of

his exploit, curiosity as to the plan, poignant anxiety as to the party

result, wonder whether a wizard had at last actually arisen with a spell

for casting out the baleful spirits that had for so many ages made Ireland

our torment and our dishonour, all these things brought together such an

assemblage as no minister before had ever addressed within those

world-renowned walls. The parliament was new. Many of its members had

fought a hard battle for their seats, and trusted they were safe in the

haven for half a dozen good years to come. Those who were moved by

professional ambition, those whose object was social advancement, those

who thought only of upright public service, the keen party men, the men

who aspired to office, the men with a past and the men who looked for a

future, all alike found themselves adrift on dark and troubled waters. The

secrets of the bill had been well kept. To-day the disquieted host were

first to learn what was the great project to which they would have to say

that Aye or No on which for them and for the state so much would hang.

Of the chief comrades or rivals of the minister’s own generation, the

strong administrators, the eager and accomplished debaters, the sagacious

leaders, the only survivor now comparable to him in eloquence or in

influence was Mr. Bright. That illustrious man seldom came into the House

in those distracted days; and on this memorable occasion his stern and

noble head was to be seen in dim obscurity. Various as were the emotions

in other regions of the House, in one quarter rejoicing was unmixed.

There, at least, was no doubt and no misgiving. There pallid and tranquil

sat the Irish leader, whose hard insight, whose patience, energy, and

spirit of command, had achieved this astounding result, and done that

which he had vowed to his countrymen that he would assuredly be able to

do. On the benches round him, genial excitement rose almost to tumult.

Well it might. For the first time since the union, the Irish case was at

last to be pressed in all its force and strength, in every aspect of

policy and of conscience, by the most powerful Englishman then alive.

More striking than the audience was the man; more striking than the

multitude of eager onlookers from the shore was the rescuer with

deliberate valour facing the floods ready to wash him down; the veteran

Ulysses, who after more than half a century of combat, service, toil,

thought it not too late to try a further “work of noble note.” In the

hands of such a master of the instrument, the theme might easily have lent

itself to one of those displays of exalted passion which the House had

marvelled at in more than one of Mr. Gladstone’s speeches on the Turkish

question, or heard with religious reverence in his speech on the

Affirmation bill in 1883. What the occasion now required was that passion

should burn low, and reasoned persuasion hold up the guiding lamp. An

elaborate scheme was to be unfolded, an unfamiliar policy to be explained

and vindicated. Of that best kind of eloquence which dispenses with

declamation, this was a fine and sustained example. There was a deep,

rapid, steady, onflowing volume of argument, exposition, exhortation.

Every hard or bitter stroke was avoided. Now and again a fervid note

thrilled the ear and lifted all hearts. But political oratory is action,

not words,—action, character, will, conviction, purpose, personality. As

this eager muster of men underwent the enchantment of periods exquisite in

their balance and modulation, the compulsion of his flashing glance and

animated gesture, what stirred and commanded them was the recollection of

national service, the thought of the speaker’s mastering purpose, his

unflagging resolution and strenuous will, his strength of thew and sinew

well tried in long years of resounding war, his unquenched conviction that

the just cause can never fail. Few are the heroic moments in our

parliamentary politics, but this was one.

II

The first reading of the bill was allowed to pass without a division. To

the second, Lord Hartington moved an (M115) amendment in the ordinary form

of simple rejection.(197) His two speeches(198) present the case against

the policy and the bill in its most massive form. The direct and

unsophisticated nature of his antagonism, backed by a personal character

of uprightness and plain dealing beyond all suspicion, gave a momentum to

his attack that was beyond any effect of dialectics. It was noticed that

he had never during his thirty years of parliamentary life spoken with

anything like the same power before. The debates on the two stages

occupied sixteen nights. They were not unworthy of the gravity of the

issue, nor of the fame of the House of Commons. Only one speaker held the

magic secret of Demosthenic oratory. Several others showed themselves

masters of the higher arts of parliamentary discussion. One or two

transient spurts of fire in the encounters of orange and green, served to

reveal the intensity of the glow behind the closed doors of the furnace.

But the general temper was good. The rule against irritating language was

hardly ever broken. Swords crossed according to the strict rules of

combat. The tone was rational and argumentative. There was plenty of

strong, close, and acute reasoning; there was some learning, a

considerable acquaintance both with historic and contemporary, foreign and

domestic fact, and when fact and reasoning broke down, their place was

abundantly filled by eloquent prophecy of disaster on one side, or

blessing on the other. Neither prophecy was demonstrable; both could be

made plausible.

Discussion was adorned by copious references to the mighty shades who had

been the glory of the House in a great parliamentary age. We heard again

the Virgilian hexameters in which Pitt had described the spirit of his

policy at the union:—

“Paribus se legibus ambæ

Invictæ gentes æterna in fœdera mittant.”

We heard once more how Grattan said that union of the legislatures was

severance of the nations; that the ocean forbade union, the channel

forbade separation; that England in her government of Ireland had gone to

hell for her principles and to bedlam for her discretion. There was, above

all, a grand and copious anthology throughout the debate from Burke, the

greatest of Irishmen and the largest master of civil wisdom in our tongue.

The appearance of a certain measure of the common form of all debates was

inevitable. No bill is ever brought in of which its opponents do not say

that it either goes too far, or else it does not go far enough; no bill of

which its defenders do not say as to some crucial flaw pounced upon and

paraded by the enemy, that after all it is a mere question of drafting, or

can be more appropriately discussed in committee. There was the usual

evasion of the strong points of the adversary’s case, the usual

exaggeration of its weak ones. That is debating. Perorations ran in a

monotonous mould; integrity of the empire on one side, a real, happy, and

indissoluble reconciliation between English and Irish on the other.

One side dwelt much on the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam in 1795, and the

squalid corruption of the union; the other, on the hopeless distraction

left by the rebellion of 1798, and the impotent confusion of the Irish

parliament. One speaker enumerated Mr. Pitt’s arguments for the union—the

argument about the regency and about the commercial treaty, the argument

about foreign alliances and confederacies and the army, about free trade

and catholic emancipation; he showed that under all these six heads the

new bill carefully respected and guarded the grounds taken by the minister

of the union. He was bluntly answered by the exclamation that nobody cared

a straw about what Mr. Pitt said, or what Sir Ralph Abercromby said; what

we had to deal with were the facts of the case in the year 1886. You show

your mistrust of the Irish by inserting all these safeguards in the bill,

said the opposition. No, replied ministers; the safeguards are to meet no

mistrusts of ours, but those entertained or feigned by other people. You

had no mandate for home rule, said the opposition. Still less, ministers

retorted, had you a mandate for coercion. (M116) Such a scheme as this,

exclaimed the critics, with all its checks and counterchecks, its

truncated functions, its vetoes, exceptions, and reservations, is

degrading to Ireland, and every Irish patriot with a spark of spirit in

his bosom must feel it so. As if, retorted the defenders, there were no

degradation to a free people in suffering twenty years of your firm and

resolute coercion. One side argued that the interests of Ireland and Great

Britain were much too closely intertwined to permit a double legislature.

The other argued that this very interdependence was just what made an

Irish legislature safe, because it was incredible that they should act as

if they had no benefit to receive from us, and no injury to suffer from

injury inflicted upon us. Do you, asked some, blot out of your minds the

bitter, incendiary, and rebellious speech of Irish members? But do you

then, the rejoinder followed, suppose that the language that came from

men’s hearts when a boon was refused, is a clue to the sentiment in their

hearts when the boon shall have been granted? Ministers were bombarded

with reproachful quotations from their old speeches. They answered the

fire by taunts about the dropping of coercion, and the amazing manœuvres

of the autumn of 1885. The device of the two orders was denounced as

inconsistent with the democratic tendencies of the age. A very impressive

argument forsooth from you, was the reply, who are either stout defenders

of the House of Lords as it is, or else stout advocates for some of the

multifarious schemes for mixing hereditary peers with fossil officials,

all of them equally alien to the democratic tendencies whether of this age

or any other. So, with stroke and counter-stroke, was the ball kept

flying.

Much was made of foreign and colonial analogies; of the union between

Austria and Hungary, Norway and Sweden, Denmark and Iceland; how in

forcing legislative union on North America we lost the colonies; how the

union of legislatures ended in the severance of Holland from Belgium. All

this carried little conviction. Most members of parliament like to think

with pretty large blinkers on, and though it may make for narrowness, this

is consistent with much practical wisdom. Historical parallels in the

actual politics of the day are usually rather decorative than substantial.

If people disbelieve premisses, nothing can be easier than to ridicule

conclusions; and what happened now was that critics argued against this or

that contrivance in the machinery, because they insisted that no machinery

was needed at all, and that no contrivance could ever be made to work,

because the Irish mechanicians would infallibly devote all their

infatuated energy and perverse skill, not to work it, but to break it in

pieces. The Irish, in Mr. Gladstone’s ironical paraphrase of these

singular opinions, had a double dose of original sin; they belonged wholly

to the kingdoms of darkness, and therefore the rules of that probability

which wise men have made the guide of life can have no bearing in any case

of theirs. A more serious way of stating the fundamental objection with

which Mr. Gladstone had to deal was this. Popular government is at the

best difficult to work. It is supremely difficult to work in a statutory

scheme with limits, reservations, and restrictions lurking round every

corner. Finally, owing to history and circumstance, no people in all the

world is less fitted to try a supremely difficult experiment in government

than the people who live in Ireland. Your superstructure, they said, is

enormously heavy, yet you are going to raise it on foundations that are a

quaking bog of incapacity and discontent. This may have been a good answer

to the policy of the bill. But to criticise its provisions from such a

point of view was as inevitably unfruitful as it would be to set a

hardened agnostic to revise the Thirty-nine articles or the mystic theses

of the Athanasian creed.

On the first reading, Mr. Chamberlain astounded allies and opponents alike

by suddenly revealing his view, that the true solution of the question was

to be sought in some form of federation. It was upon the line of

federation, and not upon the pattern of the self-governing colonies, that

we should find a way out of the difficulty.(199) Men could hardly trust

their ears. On the second reading, he startled us once more by declaring

that he was perfectly prepared, the very (M117) next day if we pleased, to

establish between this country and Ireland the relations subsisting

between the provincial legislatures and the dominion parliament of

Canada.(200) As to the first proposal, anybody could see that federation

was a vastly more revolutionary operation than the delegation of certain

legislative powers to a local parliament. Moreover before federating an

Irish legislature, you must first create it. As to the second proposal,

anybody could see on turning for a quarter of an hour to the Dominion Act

of 1867, that in some of the particulars deemed by Mr. Chamberlain to be

specially important, a provincial legislature in the Canadian system had

more unfettered powers than the Irish legislature would have under the

bill. Finally, he urged that inquiry into the possibility of satisfying

the Irish demand should be carried on by a committee or commission

representing all sections of the House.(201) In face of projects so

strangely fashioned as this, Mr. Gladstone had a right to declare that

just as the subject held the field in the public mind—for never before had

been seen such signs of public absorption in the House and out of the

House—so the ministerial plan held the field in parliament. It had many

enemies, but it had not a single serious rival.

The debate on the second reading had hardly begun when Lord Salisbury

placed in the hands of his adversaries a weapon with which they took care

to do much execution. Ireland, he declared, is not one nation, but two

nations. There were races like the Hottentots, and even the Hindoos,

incapable of self-government. He would not place confidence in people who

had acquired the habit of using knives and slugs. His policy was that

parliament should enable the government of England to govern Ireland.

“Apply that recipe honestly, consistently, and resolutely for twenty

years, and at the end of that time you will find that Ireland will be fit

to accept any gifts in the way of local government or repeal of coercion

laws that you may wish to give her.”(202) In the same genial vein, Lord

Salisbury told his Hottentot fellow-citizens—one of the two _invictæ

gentes_ of Mr. Pitt’s famous quotation—that if some great store of

imperial treasure were going to be expended on Ireland, instead of buying

out landlords, it would be far more usefully employed in providing for the

emigration of a million Irishmen. Explanations followed this inconvenient

candour, but explanations are apt to be clumsy, and the pungency of the

indiscretion kept it long alive. A humdrum speaker, who was able to

contribute nothing better to the animation of debate, could always by

insinuating a reference to Hottentots, knives and slugs, the deportation

of a million Irishmen, and twenty years of continuous coercion, make sure

of a roar of angry protest from his opponents, followed by a lusty

counter-volley from his friends.

V

The reception of the bill by the organs of Irish opinion was easy to

foretell. The nationalists accepted it in sober and rational language,

subject to amendments on the head of finance and the constabulary clauses.

The tories said it was a bill for setting up an Irish republic. It is

another selfish English plan, said the moderates. Some Irishmen who had

played with home rule while it was a phrase, drew back when they saw it in

a bill. Others, while holding to home rule, objected to being reduced to

the status of colonists. The body of home rulers who were protestant was

small, and even against them it was retorted that for every protestant

nationalist there were ten catholic unionists. The Fenian organs across

the Atlantic, while quarrelling with such provisions as the two orders,

“one of which would be Irish and the other English,” did justice to the

bravery of the attempt, and to the new moral forces which it would call

out. The florid violence which the Fenians abandoned was now with proper

variations adopted by Orangemen in the north. The General Assembly of the

presbyterian church in Ireland passed strong resolutions against a

parliament, in favour of a peasant proprietary, in favour of loyalty, and

of coercion. A few days later the general synod of the protestant

episcopal church followed suit, and denounced a parliament. The Orange

print in Belfast drew up a Solemn League and Covenant for Ulster, to

ignore and resist an Irish national government. Unionist prints in Dublin

declared and indignantly repelled “the selfish English design to get rid

of the Irish nuisance from Westminster, and reduce us to the position of a

tributary dependency.”(203)

The pivot of the whole policy was the acceptance of the bill by the

representatives of Ireland. On the evening when the bill was produced, Mr.

Parnell made certain complaints as to the reservation of the control of

the constabulary, as to the power of the first order to effect a deadlock,

and as to finance. He explicitly and publicly warned the government from

the first that, when the committee stage was reached, he would claim a

large decrease in the fraction named for the imperial contribution. There

was never any dissembling as to this. In private discussion, he had always

held that the fair proportion of Irish contribution to imperial charges

was not a fifteenth but a twentieth, and he said no more in the House than

he had persistently said in the Irish secretary’s room. There too he had

urged what he also declared in the House: that he had always insisted that

due representation should be given to the minority; that he should welcome

any device for preventing ill-considered legislation, but that the

provision in the bill, for the veto of the first order, would lead to

prolonged obstruction and delay. Subject to modification on these three

heads, he accepted the bill. “I am convinced,” he said in concluding,

“that if our views are fairly met in committee regarding the defects to

which I have briefly alluded,—the bill will be cheerfully accepted by the

Irish people, and by their representatives, as a solution of the

long-standing dispute between the two countries.”(204)

It transpired at a later date that just before the introduction of the

bill, when Mr. Parnell had been made acquainted with its main proposals,

he called a meeting of eight of his leading colleagues, told them what

these proposals were, and asked them whether they would take the bill or

leave it.(205) Some began to object to the absence of certain provisions,

such as the immediate control of the constabulary, and the right over

duties of customs. Mr. Parnell rose from the table, and clenched the

discussion by informing them that if they declined the bill, the

government would go. They at once agreed “to accept it _pro tanto_,

reserving for committee the right of enforcing and, if necessary,

reconsidering their position with regard to these important questions.”

This is neither more nor less than the form in which Mr. Parnell made his

declaration in parliament. There was complete consistency between the

terms of this declaration, and the terms of acceptance agreed to by his

colleagues, as disclosed in the black days of December four years later.

The charge of bad faith and hypocrisy so freely made against the Irishmen

is wholly unwarranted by a single word in these proceedings. If the whole

transaction had been known to the House of Commons, it could not have

impaired by one jot or tittle the value set by the supporters of the bill

on the assurances of the Irishmen that, in principle and subject to

modification on points named, they accepted the bill as a settlement of

the question, and would use their best endeavours to make it work.(206)

Chapter VII. The Political Atmosphere. Defeat Of The Bill. (1886)

Everything on every side was full of traps and mines.... It was in

the midst of this chaos of plots and counterplots ... that the

firmness of that noble person [Lord Rockingham] was put to the

proof. He never stirred from his ground; no, not an inch.—BURKE

(1766).

I

The atmosphere in London became thick and hot with political passion.

Veteran observers declared that our generation had not seen anything like

it. Distinguished men of letters and, as it oddly happened, men who had

won some distinction either by denouncing the legislative union, or by

insisting on a decentralisation that should satisfy Irish national

aspirations, now choked with anger because they were taken at their word.

Just like irascible scholars of old time who settled controversies about

corrupt texts by imputing to rival grammarians shameful crimes, so these

writers could find no other explanation for an opinion that was not their

own about Irish government, except moral turpitude and personal

degradation. One professor of urbanity compared Mr. Gladstone to a

desperate pirate burning his ship, or a gambler doubling and trebling his

stake as luck goes against him. Such strange violence in calm natures,

such pharisaic pretension in a world where we are all fallen, remains a

riddle. Political differences were turned into social proscription. Whigs

who could not accept the new policy were specially furious with whigs who

could. Great ladies purified their lists of the names of old intimates.

Amiable magnates excluded from their dinner-tables and their country

houses once familiar friends who had fallen into the guilty heresy, and

even harmless portraits of the heresiarch were sternly removed from the

walls. At some of the political clubs it rained blackballs. It was a

painful demonstration how thin after all is our social veneer, even when

most highly polished.

When a royal birthday was drawing near, the prime minister wrote to Lord

Granville, his unfailing counsellor in every difficulty political and

social: “I am becoming seriously perplexed about my birthday dinner.

Hardly any peers of the higher ranks will be available, and not many of

the lower. Will the seceding colleagues come if they are asked? (Argyll,

to whom I applied privately on the score of old friendship, has already

_refused_ me.) I am for asking them; but I expect refusal. Lastly, it has

become customary for the Prince of Wales to dine with me on that day, and

he brings his eldest son now that the young Prince is of age. But his

position would be very awkward, if he comes and witnesses a great

nakedness of the land. What do you say to all this? If you cannot help me,

who can?” Most of the seceding colleagues accepted, and the dinner came

off well enough, though as the host wrote to a friend beforehand, “If

Hartington were to get up and move a vote of want of confidence after

dinner, he would almost carry it.” The Prince was unable to be present,

and so the great nakedness was by him unseen, but Prince Albert Victor,

who was there instead, is described by Mr. Gladstone as “most kind.”

The conversion of Peel to free trade forty years before had led to the

same species of explosion, though Peel had the court strongly with him.

Both then and now it was the case of a feud within the bosom of a party,

and such feuds like civil wars have ever been the fiercest. In each case

there was a sense of betrayal—at least as unreasonable in 1886 as it was

in 1846. The provinces somehow took things more rationally than the

metropolis. Those who were stunned by the fierce moans of London over the

assured decline in national honour and credit, the imminence of civil war,

and the ultimate destruction of British power, found their acquaintances

in the country excited and interested, but still clothed and in their

right minds. The gravity of the question was fully understood, but in

taking sides ordinary (M118) men did not talk as if they were in for the

battle of Armageddon. The attempt to kindle the torch of religious fear or

hate was in Great Britain happily a failure. The mass of liberal

presbyterians in Scotland, and of nonconformists in England and Wales,

stood firm, though some of their most eminent and able divines resisted

the new project, less on religious grounds than on what they took to be

the balance of political arguments. Mr. Gladstone was able to point to the

conclusive assurances he had received that the kindred peoples in the

colonies and America regarded with warm and fraternal sympathy the present

effort to settle the long-vexed and troubled relations between Great

Britain and Ireland:—

We must not be discouraged if at home and particularly in the

upper ranks of society, we hear a variety of discordant notes,

notes alike discordant from our policy and from one another. You

have before you a cabinet determined in its purpose and an

intelligible plan. I own I see very little else in the political

arena that is determined or that is intelligible.

Inside the House subterranean activity was at its height all through the

month of May. This was the critical period. The regular opposition spoke

little and did little; with composed interest they watched others do their

work. On the ministerial side men wavered and changed and changed again,

from day to day and almost from hour to hour. Never were the motions of

the pendulum so agitated and so irregular. So novel and complex a problem

was a terrible burden for a new parliament. About half its members had not

sat in any parliament before. The whips were new, some of the leaders on

the front benches were new, and those of them who were most in earnest

about the policy were too heavily engrossed in the business of the

measure, to have much time for the exercises of explanation, argument, and

persuasion with their adherents. One circumstance told powerfully for

ministers. The great central organisation of the liberal party came

decisively over to Mr. Gladstone (May 5), and was followed by nearly all

the local associations in the country. Neither whig secession nor radical

dubitation shook the strength inherent in such machinery, in a community

where the principle of government by party has solidly established itself.

This was almost the single consolidating and steadying element in that

hour of dispersion. A serious move in the opposite direction had taken

place three weeks earlier. A great meeting was held at the Opera House, in

the Haymarket, presided over by the accomplished whig nobleman who had the

misfortune to be Irish viceroy in the two dismal years from 1880, and it

was attended both by Lord Salisbury on one side and Lord Hartington on the

other. This was the first broad public mark of liberal secession, and of

that practical fusion between whig and tory which the new Irish policy had

actually precipitated, but to which all the signs in the political heavens

had been for three or four years unmistakably pointing.

The strength of the friends of the bill was twofold: first, it lay in the

dislike of coercion as the only visible alternative; and second, it lay in

the hope of at last touching the firm ground of a final settlement with

Ireland. Their weakness was also twofold: first, misgivings about the

exclusion of the Irish members; and second, repugnance to the scheme for

land purchase. There were not a few, indeed, who pronounced the exclusion

of Irish members to be the most sensible part of the plan. Mr. Gladstone

retained his impartiality, but knew that if we proposed to keep the

Irishmen, we should be run in upon quite as fiercely from the other side.

Mr. Parnell stood to his original position. Any regular and compulsory

attendance at Westminster, he said, would be highly objectionable to his

friends. Further, the right of Irish members to take part in purely

English as well as imperial business would be seized upon by English

politicians, whenever it should answer their purpose, as a pretext for

interfering in Irish affairs. In short, he foresaw, as all did, the

difficulties that would inevitably arise from retention. But the tide ran

more and more strongly the other way. Scotland grew rather restive at a

proposal which, as she apprehended, would make a precedent for herself

when her turn for extension of local powers should come, and Scotchmen had

no intention of being shut out (M119) from a voice in imperial affairs. In

England, the catholics professed alarm at the prospect of losing the only

catholic force in the House of Commons. “We cannot spare one of you,”

cried Cardinal Manning. Some partisans of imperial federation took it into

their heads that the plan for Ireland would be fatal to a plan for the

whole empire, though others more rationally conceived that if there was to

be a scheme for the empire, schemes for its several parts must come first.

Some sages, while pretending infinite friendship to home rule, insisted

that the parliament at Westminster should retain a direct and active veto

upon legislation at Dublin, and that Irish members should remain as they

were in London. That is to say, every precaution should be taken to ensure

a stiff fight at Westminster over every Irish measure of any importance

that had already been fought on College Green. Speaking generally, the

feeling against this provision was due less to the anomaly of taxation

without representation, than to fears for the unity of the empire and the

supremacy of parliament.

The Purchase bill proved from the first to be an almost intolerable dose.

Vivid pictures were drawn of a train of railway trucks two miles long,

loaded with millions of bright sovereigns, all travelling from the pocket

of the British son of toil to the pocket of the idle Irish landlord. The

nationalists from the first urged that the scheme for home rule should not

be weighted with a land scheme, though they were willing to accept it so

long as it was not used to prejudice the larger demand. On the other side

the Irish landlords themselves peremptorily rejected the plan that had

been devised for their protection.

The air was thick with suggestions, devices, contrivances, expedients,

possible or madly impossible. Proposals or embryonic notions of proposals

floated like motes in a sunbeam. Those to whom lobby diplomacy is as the

breath of their nostrils, were in their element. So were the worthy

persons who are always ready with ingenious schemes for catching a vote or

two here, at the cost of twenty votes elsewhere. Intrigue may be too dark

a word, but coaxing, bullying, managing, and all the other arts of party

emergency, went on at an unprecedented rate. Of these arts, the

supervising angels will hardly record that any section had a monopoly. The

legerdemain that makes words pass for things, and liquefies things into

words, achieved many flashes of success. But they were only momentary, and

the solid obstacles remained. The foundations of human character are much

the same in all historic ages, and every public crisis brings out the same

types.

Much depended on Mr. Bright, the great citizen and noble orator, who had

in the last five-and-forty years fought and helped to win more than one

battle for wise and just government; whose constancy had confronted storms

of public obloquy without yielding an inch of his ground; whose eye for

the highest questions of state had proved itself singularly sure; and

whose simplicity, love of right, and unsophisticated purity of public and

private conduct, commanded the trust and the reverence of nearly all the

better part of his countrymen. To Mr. Bright the eyes of many thousands

were turned in these weeks of anxiety and doubt. He had in public kept

silence, though in private he made little secret of his disapproval of the

new policy. Before the bill was produced he had a prolonged conversation

(March 20) with Mr. Gladstone at Downing Street. “Long and weighty” are

the words in the diary. The minister sketched his general design, Mr.

Bright stated his objections much in the form in which, as we shall see,

he stated them later. Of the exclusion of the Irish members he approved.

The Land bill he thought quite wrong, for why should so enormous an effort

be made for one interest only? He expressed his sympathy with Mr.

Gladstone in his great difficulties, could not but admire his ardour, and

came away with the expectation that the obstacles would be found

invincible, and that the minister would retire and leave others to

approach the task on other lines. Other important persons, it may be

observed, derived at this time a similar impression from Mr. Gladstone’s

language to them: that he might discern the impossibility of his policy,

that he would admit it, and would then hand the responsibility over to

Lord Hartington, or whoever else might be willing to face it.

(M120) On the other hand, Mr. Bright left the minister himself not without

hopes that as things went forward he might count on this potent auxiliary.

So late as the middle of May, though he could not support, it was not

certain that he would actively oppose. The following letter to Mr.

Gladstone best describes his attitude at this time:—

_Mr. Bright to Mr. Gladstone._

_Rochdale, May 13th, 1886._

MY DEAR GLADSTONE,—Your note just received has put me in a great

difficulty. To-day is the anniversary of the greatest sorrow of my

life, and I feel pressed to spend it at home. I sent a message to

Mr. Arnold Morley last evening to say that I did not intend to

return to town before Monday next—but I shall now arrange to go

to-morrow—although I do not see how I can be of service in the

great trouble which has arisen.

I feel outside all the contending sections of the liberal

party—for I am not in favour of home rule, or the creation of a

Dublin parliament—nor can I believe in any scheme of federation as

shadowed forth by Mr. Chamberlain.

I do not believe that with regard to the Irish question “the

resources of civilisation are exhausted”; and I think the plan of

your bill is full of complexity, and gives no hope of successful

working in Ireland or of harmony between Westminster and Dublin. I

may say that my regard for you and my sympathy with you have made

me silent in the discussion on the bills before the House. I

cannot consent to a measure which is so offensive to the whole

protestant population of Ireland, and to the whole sentiment of

the province of Ulster so far as its loyal and protestant people

are concerned. I cannot agree to exclude them from the protection

of the imperial parliament. I would do much to clear the rebel

party from Westminster, and I do not sympathise with those who

wish to retain them, but admit there is much force in the

arguments on this point which are opposed to my views upon it.

Up to this time I have not been able to bring myself to the point

of giving a vote in favour of your bills. I am grieved to have to

say this. As to the Land bill, if it comes to a second reading, I

fear I must vote against it. It may be that my hostility to the

rebel party, looking at their conduct since your government was

formed six years ago, disables me from taking an impartial view of

this great question. If I could believe them loyal, if they were

honourable and truthful men, I could yield them much; but I

suspect that your policy of surrender to them will only place more

power in their hands, to war with greater effect against the unity

of the three kingdoms with no increase of good to the Irish

people.

How then can I be of service to you or to the real interests of

Ireland if I come up to town? I cannot venture to advise you, so

superior to me in party tactics and in experienced statesmanship,

and I am not so much in accord with Mr. Chamberlain as to make it

likely that I can say anything that will affect his course. One

thing I may remark, that it appears to me that measures of the

gravity of those now before parliament cannot and ought not to be

thrust through the House by force of a small majority. The various

reform bills, the Irish church bill, the two great land bills,

were passed by very large majorities. In the present case, not

only the whole tory party oppose, but a very important section of

the liberal party; and although numerous meetings of clubs and

associations have passed resolutions of confidence in you, yet

generally they have accepted your Irish government bill as a

’basis’ only, and have admitted the need of important changes in

the bill—changes which in reality would destroy the bill. Under

these circumstances it seems to me that more time should be given

for the consideration of the Irish question. Parliament is not

ready for it, and the intelligence of the country is not ready for

it. If it be possible, I should wish that no division should be

taken upon the bill. If the second reading should be carried only

by a _small_ majority, it would not forward the bill; but it would

strengthen the rebel party in their future agitation, and make it

more difficult for another session or another parliament to deal

with the question with some sense of independence of that party.

In any case of a division, it is I suppose certain that a

considerable majority of British members will oppose the bill.

Thus, whilst it will have the support of the rebel members, it

will be opposed by a majority from Great Britain and by a most

hostile vote from all that is loyal in Ireland. The result will

be, if a majority supports you it will be one composed in effect

of the men who for six years past have insulted the Queen, have

torn down the national flag, have declared your lord lieutenant

guilty of deliberate murder, and have made the imperial parliament

an assembly totally unable to manage the legislative business for

which it annually assembles at Westminster.

Pray forgive me for writing this long letter. I need not assure

you of my sympathy with you, or my sorrow at being unable to

support your present policy in the House or the country. The more

I consider the question, the more I am forced in a direction

contrary to my wishes.

For thirty years I have preached justice to Ireland. I am as much

in her favour now as in past times, but I do not think it justice

or wisdom for Great Britain to consign her population, including

Ulster and all her protestant families, to what there is of

justice and wisdom in the Irish party now sitting in the

parliament in Westminster.

Still, if you think I can be of service, a note to the Reform Club

will, I hope, find me there to-morrow evening.—Ever most sincerely

yours, JOHN BRIGHT.

An old parliamentary friend, of great weight and authority, went to Mr.

Bright to urge him to support a proposal to read the bill a second time,

and then to hang it up for six months. Bright suffered sore travail of

spirit. At the end of an hour the peacemaker rose to depart. Bright

pressed him to continue the wrestle. After three-quarters of an hour more

of it, the same performance took place. It was not until a third hour of

discussion that Mr. Bright would let it come to an end, and at the end he

was still uncertain. The next day the friend met him, looking worn and

gloomy. “You may guess,” Mr. Bright said, “what sort of a night I have

had.” He had decided to vote against the second reading. The same person

went to Lord Hartington. He took time to deliberate, and then finally

said, “No; Mr. Gladstone and I do not mean the same thing.”

II

The centre of interest lay in the course that might be finally taken by

those who declared that they accepted the principle of the bill, but

demurred upon detail. It was upon the group led from Birmingham that the

issue hung. “There are two principles in the bill,” said Mr. Chamberlain

at this time, “which I regard as vital. The first is the principle of

autonomy, to which I am able to give a hearty assent. The second is

involved in the method of giving effect to this autonomy. In the bill the

government have proceeded on the lines of separation or of colonial

independence, whereas, in my humble judgment, they should have adopted the

principle of federation as the only one in accordance with democratic

aspirations and experience.”(207) He was even so strong for autonomy, that

he was ready to face all the immense difficulties of federation, whether

on the Canadian or some other pattern, rather than lose autonomy. Yet he

was ready to slay the bill that made autonomy possible. To kill the bill

was to kill autonomy. To say that they would go to the country on the

plan, and not on the principle, was idle. If the election were to go

against the government, that would destroy not only the plan which they

disliked, but the principle of which they declared that they warmly

approved. The new government that would in that case come into existence,

would certainly have nothing to say either to plan or principle.

Two things, said Mr. Chamberlain on the ninth night of the debate, had

become clear during the controversy. One was that the British democracy

had a passionate devotion to the prime minister. The other was the display

of a sentiment out of doors, “the universality and completeness of which,

I dare say, has taken many of us by surprise, in favour of some form of

home rule to Ireland, which will give to the Irish people some greater

control over their own affairs.”(208) It did not need so acute a

strategist as Mr. Chamberlain to perceive that the only hope of rallying

any (M121) considerable portion of the left wing of the party to the

dissentient flag, in face of this strong popular sentiment embodied in a

supereminent minister, was to avoid as much as possible all irreconcilable

language against either the minister or the sentiment, even while taking

energetic steps to unhorse the one and to nullify the other.

The prime minister meanwhile fought the battle as a battle for a high

public design once begun should be fought. He took few secondary

arguments, but laboured only to hold up to men’s imagination, and to burn

into their understanding, the lines of central policy, the shame and

dishonour from which it would relieve us, the new life with which it would

inspire Ireland, the ease that it would bring to parliament in England.

His tenacity, his force and resource, were inexhaustible. He was harassed

on every side. The Irish leader pressed him hard upon finance. Old

adherents urged concession about exclusion. The radicals disliked the two

orders. Minor points for consideration in committee rained in upon him, as

being good reasons for altering the bill before it came in sight of

committee. Not a single constructive proposal made any way in the course

of the debate. All was critical and negative. Mr. Gladstone’s grasp was

unshaken, and though he saw remote bearings and interdependent

consequences where others supposed all to be plain sailing, yet if the

principle were only saved he professed infinite pliancy. He protested that

there ought to be no stereotyping of our minds against modifications, and

that the widest possible variety of modes of action should be kept open;

and he “hammered hard at his head,” as he put it, to see what could be

worked out in the way of admitting Irish members without danger, and

without intolerable inconvenience. If anybody considered, he continued to

repeat in endless forms, that there was another set of provisions by which

better and fuller effect could be given to the principle of the bill, they

were free to displace all the particulars that hindered this better and

fuller effect being given to the principle.(209)

III

At the beginning of May the unionist computation was that 119 on the

ministerial side of the House had, with or without qualification, promised

to vote against the second reading. Of these, 70 had publicly committed

themselves, and 23 more were supposed to be absolutely certain. If the

whole House voted, this estimate of 93 would give a majority of 17 against

the bill.(210) The leader of the radical wing, however, reckoned that 55

out of the 119 would vote with him for the second reading, if he

pronounced the ministerial amendments of the bill satisfactory. The

amendments demanded were the retention of the Irish members, a definite

declaration of the supremacy of the imperial parliament, a separate

assembly for Ulster, and the abolition of the restrictive devices for the

representation of minorities. Less than all this might have been taken in

committee, provided that the government would expressly say before the

second reading, that they would retain the Irish representation on its

existing footing. The repeated offer by ministers to regard this as an

open question was derided, because it was contended that if the bill were

once safe through its second reading, Mr. Bright and the whigs would

probably vote with ministers against Irish inclusion.