THE DEBATE.
The beginning of the battle as recorded in the last chapter took
place on a Friday,--Friday, 11th November,--and consequently two
entire days intervened before the debate could be renewed. There
seemed to prevail an opinion during this interval that Mr. Gresham
had been imprudent. It was acknowledged by all men that no finer
speech than that delivered by him had ever been heard within the
walls of that House. It was acknowledged also that as regarded the
question of oratory Mr. Daubeny had failed signally. But the strategy
of the Minister was said to have been excellent, whereas that of
the ex-Minister was very loudly condemned. There is nothing so
prejudicial to a cause as temper. This man is declared to be unfit
for any position of note, because he always shows temper. Anything
can be done with another man,--he can be made to fit almost any
hole,--because he has his temper under command. It may, indeed, be
assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is
endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and
again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without
losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith.
Whether or not this be a reason the more for preferring the calm
and tranquil man may be doubted; but the calm and tranquil man is
preferred for public services. We want practical results rather than
truth. A clear head is worth more than an honest heart. In a matter
of horseflesh of what use is it to have all manner of good gifts if
your horse won't go whither you want him, and refuses to stop when
you bid him? Mr. Gresham had been very indiscreet, and had especially
sinned in opposing the Address without arrangements with his party.
And he made the matter worse by retreating within his own shell
during the whole of that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning.
Lord Cantrip was with him three or four times, and he saw both Mr.
Palliser, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer under him, and Mr.
Ratler. But he went amidst no congregation of Liberals, and asked
for no support. He told Ratler that he wished gentlemen to vote
altogether in accordance with their opinions; and it came to be
whispered in certain circles that he had resigned, or was resigning,
or would resign, the leadership of his party. Men said that his
passions were too much for him, and that he was destroyed by feelings
of regret, and almost of remorse.
The Ministers held a Cabinet Council on the Monday morning, and it
was supposed afterwards that that also had been stormy. Two gentlemen
had certainly resigned their seats in the Government before the House
met at four o'clock, and there were rumours abroad that others would
do so if the suggested measure should be found really to amount to
disestablishment. The rumours were, of course, worthy of no belief,
as the transactions of the Cabinet are of necessity secret. Lord
Drummond at the War Office, and Mr. Boffin from the Board of Trade,
did, however, actually resign; and Mr. Boffin's explanations in
the House were heard before the debate was resumed. Mr. Boffin had
certainly not joined the present Ministry,--so he said,--with the
view of destroying the Church. He had no other remark to make, and he
was sure that the House would appreciate the course which had induced
him to seat himself below the gangway. The House cheered very loudly,
and Mr. Boffin was the hero of ten minutes. Mr. Daubeny detracted
something from this triumph by the overstrained and perhaps ironic
pathos with which he deplored the loss of his right honourable
friend's services. Now this right honourable gentleman had never been
specially serviceable.
But the wonder of the world arose from the fact that only two
gentlemen out of the twenty or thirty who composed the Government did
give up their places on this occasion. And this was a Conservative
Government! With what a force of agony did all the Ratlers of the
day repeat that inappropriate name! Conservatives! And yet they
were ready to abandon the Church at the bidding of such a man as Mr.
Daubeny! Ratler himself almost felt that he loved the Church. Only
two resignations;--whereas it had been expected that the whole House
would fall to pieces! Was it possible that these earls, that marquis,
and the two dukes, and those staunch old Tory squires, should remain
in a Government pledged to disestablish the Church? Was all the
honesty, all the truth of the great party confined to the bosoms of
Mr. Boffin and Lord Drummond? Doubtless they were all Esaus; but
would they sell their great birthright for so very small a mess of
pottage? The parsons in the country, and the little squires who but
rarely come up to London, spoke of it all exactly as did the Ratlers.
There were parishes in the country in which Mr. Boffin was canonised,
though up to that date no Cabinet Minister could well have been less
known to fame than was Mr. Boffin.
What would those Liberals do who would naturally rejoice in the
disestablishment of the Church,--those members of the Lower House,
who had always spoken of the ascendancy of Protestant episcopacy with
the bitter acrimony of exclusion? After all, the success or failure
of Mr. Daubeny must depend, not on his own party, but on them.
It must always be so when measures of Reform are advocated by a
Conservative Ministry. There will always be a number of untrained men
ready to take the gift without looking at the giver. They have not
expected relief from the hands of Greeks, but will take it when it
comes from Greeks or Trojans. What would Mr. Turnbull say in this
debate,--and what Mr. Monk? Mr. Turnbull was the people's tribune, of
the day; Mr. Monk had also been a tribune, then a Minister, and now
was again--something less than a tribune. But there were a few men in
the House, and some out of it, who regarded Mr. Monk as the honestest
and most patriotic politician of the day.
The debate was long and stormy, but was peculiarly memorable for the
skill with which Mr. Daubeny's higher colleagues defended the steps
they were about to take. The thing was to be done in the cause of
religion. The whole line of defence was indicated by the gentlemen
who moved and seconded the Address. An active, well-supported Church
was the chief need of a prosperous and intelligent people. As to the
endowments, there was some confusion of ideas; but nothing was to be
done with them inappropriate to religion. Education would receive
the bulk of what was left after existing interests had been amply
guaranteed. There would be no doubt,--so said these gentlemen,--that
ample funds for the support of an Episcopal Church would come from
those wealthy members of the body to whom such a Church was dear.
There seemed to be a conviction that clergymen under the new order
of things would be much better off than under the old. As to the
connection with the State, the time for it had clearly gone by. The
Church, as a Church, would own increased power when it could appoint
its own bishops, and be wholly dissevered from State patronage. It
seemed to be almost a matter of surprise that really good Churchmen
should have endured so long to be shackled by subservience to the
State. Some of these gentlemen pleaded their cause so well that they
almost made it appear that episcopal ascendancy would be restored in
England by the disseverance of the Church and State.
Mr. Turnbull, who was himself a dissenter, was at last upon his legs,
and then the Ratlers knew that the game was lost. It would be lost as
far as it could be lost by a majority in that House on that motion;
and it was by that majority or minority that Mr. Daubeny would be
maintained in his high office or ejected from it. Mr. Turnbull began
by declaring that he did not at all like Mr. Daubeny as a Minister
of the Crown. He was not in the habit of attaching himself specially
to any Minister of the Crown. Experience had taught him to doubt
them all. Of all possible Ministers of the Crown at this period, Mr.
Daubeny was he thought perhaps the worst, and the most dangerous. But
the thing now offered was too good to be rejected, let it come from
what quarter it would. Indeed, might it not be said of all the good
things obtained for the people, of all really serviceable reforms,
that they were gathered and garnered home in consequence of the
squabbles of Ministers? When men wanted power, either to grasp at
it or to retain it, then they offered bribes to the people. But in
the taking of such bribes there was no dishonesty, and he should
willingly take this bribe.
Mr. Monk spoke also. He would not, he said, feel himself justified
in refusing the Address to the Crown proposed by Ministers, simply
because that Address was founded on the proposition of a future
reform, as to the expediency of which he had not for many years
entertained a doubt. He could not allow it to be said of him that he
had voted for the permanence of the Church establishment, and he must
therefore support the Government. Then Ratler whispered a few words
to his neighbour: "I knew the way he'd run when Gresham insisted on
poor old Mildmay's taking him into the Cabinet." "The whole thing has
gone to the dogs," said Bonteen. On the fourth night the House was
divided, and Mr. Daubeny was the owner of a majority of fifteen.
Very many of the Liberal party expressed an opinion that the battle
had been lost through the want of judgment evinced by Mr. Gresham.
There was certainly no longer that sturdy adherence to their chief
which is necessary for the solidarity of a party. Perhaps no leader
of the House was ever more devoutly worshipped by a small number of
adherents than was Mr. Gresham now; but such worship will not support
power. Within the three days following the division the Ratlers had
all put their heads together and had resolved that the Duke of St.
Bungay was now the only man who could keep the party together. "But
who should lead our House?" asked Bonteen. Ratler sighed instead of
answering. Things had come to that pass that Mr. Gresham was the only
possible leader. And the leader of the House of Commons, on behalf
of the Government, must be the chief man in the Government, let the
so-called Prime Minister be who he may.