THE TWO GLADIATORS.
The great debate was commenced with all the solemnities which are
customary on such occasions, and which make men think for the day
that no moment of greater excitement has ever blessed or cursed the
country. Upon the present occasion London was full of clergymen.
The specially clerical clubs,--the Oxford and Cambridge, the Old
University, and the Athenaeum,--were black with them. The bishops and
deans, as usual, were pleasant in their manner and happy-looking, in
spite of adverse circumstances. When one sees a bishop in the hours
of the distress of the Church, one always thinks of the just and
firm man who will stand fearless while the ruins of the world are
falling about his ears. But the parsons from the country were a sorry
sight to see. They were in earnest with all their hearts, and did
believe,--not that the crack of doom was coming, which they could
have borne with equanimity if convinced that their influence would
last to the end,--but that the Evil One was to be made welcome
upon the earth by Act of Parliament. It is out of nature that any
man should think it good that his own order should be repressed,
curtailed, and deprived of its power. If we go among cab-drivers
or letter-carriers, among butlers or gamekeepers, among tailors or
butchers, among farmers or graziers, among doctors or attorneys, we
shall find in each set of men a conviction that the welfare of the
community depends upon the firmness with which they,--especially
they,--hold their own. This is so manifestly true with the Bar that
no barrister in practice scruples to avow that barristers in practice
are the salt of the earth. The personal confidence of a judge in his
own position is beautiful, being salutary to the country, though not
unfrequently damaging to the character of the man. But if this be so
with men who are conscious of no higher influence than that exercised
over the bodies and minds of their fellow creatures, how much
stronger must be the feeling when the influence affects the soul! To
the outsider, or layman, who simply uses a cab, or receives a letter,
or goes to law, or has to be tried, these pretensions are ridiculous
or annoying, according to the ascendancy of the pretender at the
moment. But as the clerical pretensions are more exacting than
all others, being put forward with an assertion that no answer is
possible without breach of duty and sin, so are they more galling.
The fight has been going on since the idea of a mitre first entered
the heart of a priest,--since dominion in this world has found itself
capable of sustentation by the exercise of fear as to the world to
come. We do believe,--the majority among us does so,--that if we live
and die in sin we shall after some fashion come to great punishment,
and we believe also that by having pastors among us who shall be
men of God, we may best aid ourselves and our children in avoiding
this bitter end. But then the pastors and men of God can only be
human,--cannot be altogether men of God; and so they have oppressed
us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces,
and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and
idleness. The torturing and the burning, as also to speak truth the
luxury and the idleness, have, among us, been already conquered, but
the idea of ascendancy remains. What is a thoughtful man to do who
acknowledges the danger of his soul, but cannot swallow his parson
whole simply because he has been sent to him from some source in
which he has no special confidence, perhaps by some distant lord,
perhaps by a Lord Chancellor whose political friend has had a son
with a tutor? What is he to do when, in spite of some fine linen
and purple left among us, the provision for the man of God in his
parish or district is so poor that no man of God fitted to teach
him will come and take it? In no spirit of animosity to religion he
begins to tell himself that Church and State together was a monkish
combination, fit perhaps for monkish days, but no longer having
fitness, and not much longer capable of existence in this country.
But to the parson himself,--to the honest, hardworking, conscientious
priest who does in his heart of hearts believe that no diminution in
the general influence of his order can be made without ruin to the
souls of men,--this opinion, when it becomes dominant, is as though
the world were in truth breaking to pieces over his head. The world
has been broken to pieces in the same way often;--but extreme Chaos
does not come. The cabman and the letter-carrier always expect that
Chaos will very nearly come when they are disturbed. The barristers
are sure of Chaos when the sanctity of Benchers is in question. What
utter Chaos would be promised to us could any one with impunity
contemn the majesty of the House of Commons! But of all these
Chaoses there can be no Chaos equal to that which in the mind of a
zealous Oxford-bred constitutional country parson must attend that
annihilation of his special condition which will be produced by
the disestablishment of the Church. Of all good fellows he is the
best good fellow. He is genial, hospitable, well-educated, and
always has either a pretty wife or pretty daughters. But he has so
extreme a belief in himself that he cannot endure to be told that
absolute Chaos will not come at once if he be disturbed. And now
disturbances,--ay, and utter dislocation and ruin were to come from
the hands of a friend! Was it wonderful that parsons should be seen
about Westminster in flocks with _"Et tu, Brute"_ written on their
faces as plainly as the law on the brows of a Pharisee?
The Speaker had been harassed for orders. The powers and prowess
of every individual member had been put to the test. The galleries
were crowded. Ladies' places had been ballotted for with desperate
enthusiasm, in spite of the sarcasm against the House which Madame
Goesler had expressed. Two royal princes and a royal duke were
accommodated within the House in an irregular manner. Peers swarmed
in the passages, and were too happy to find standing room. Bishops
jostled against lay barons with no other preference than that
afforded to them by their broader shoulders. Men, and especially
clergymen, came to the galleries loaded with sandwiches and flasks,
prepared to hear all there was to be heard should the debate last
from 4 P.M. to the same hour on the following morning. At two in the
afternoon the entrances to the House were barred, and men of all
ranks,--deans, prebends, peers' sons, and baronets,--stood there
patiently waiting till some powerful nobleman should let them
through. The very ventilating chambers under the House were filled
with courteous listeners, who had all pledged themselves that under
no possible provocation would they even cough during the debate.
A few minutes after four, in a House from which hardly more than a
dozen members were absent, Mr. Daubeny took his seat with that air of
affected indifference to things around him which is peculiar to him.
He entered slowly, amidst cheers from his side of the House, which
no doubt were loud in proportion to the dismay of the cheerers as to
the matter in hand. Gentlemen lacking substantial sympathy with their
leader found it to be comfortable to deceive themselves, and raise
their hearts at the same time by the easy enthusiasm of noise. Mr.
Daubeny having sat down and covered his head just raised his hat from
his brows, and then tried to look as though he were no more than any
other gentleman present. But the peculiar consciousness of the man
displayed itself even in his constrained absence of motion. You could
see that he felt himself to be the beheld of all beholders, and that
he enjoyed the position,--with some slight inward trepidation lest
the effort to be made should not equal the greatness of the occasion.
Immediately after him Mr. Gresham bustled up the centre of the House
amidst a roar of good-humoured welcome. We have had many Ministers
who have been personally dearer to their individual adherents in the
House than the present leader of the Opposition and late Premier,
but none, perhaps, who has been more generally respected by his
party for earnestness and sincerity. On the present occasion there
was a fierceness, almost a ferocity, in his very countenance, to
the fire of which friends and enemies were equally anxious to add
fuel,--the friends in order that so might these recreant Tories be
more thoroughly annihilated, and the enemies, that their enemy's
indiscretion might act back upon himself to his confusion. For,
indeed, it never could be denied that as a Prime Minister Mr. Gresham
could be very indiscreet.
A certain small amount of ordinary business was done, to the disgust
of expectant strangers, which was as trivial as possible in its
nature,--so arranged, apparently, that the importance of what was to
follow might be enhanced by the force of contrast. And, to make the
dismay of the novice stranger more thorough, questions were asked
and answers were given in so low a voice, and Mr. Speaker uttered a
word or two in so quick and shambling a fashion, that he, the novice
stranger, began to fear that no word of the debate would reach him
up there in his crowded back seat. All this, however, occupied but a
few minutes, and at twenty minutes past four Mr. Daubeny was on his
legs. Then the novice stranger found that, though he could not see Mr.
Daubeny without the aid of an opera glass, he could hear every word
that fell from his lips.
Mr. Daubeny began by regretting the hardness of his position, in that
he must, with what thoroughness he might be able to achieve, apply
himself to two great subjects, whereas the right honourable gentleman
opposite had already declared, with all the formality which could be
made to attach itself to a combined meeting of peers and commoners,
that he would confine himself strictly to one. The subject selected
by the right honourable gentleman opposite on the present occasion
was not the question of Church Reform. The right honourable gentleman
had pledged himself with an almost sacred enthusiasm to ignore that
subject altogether. No doubt it was the question before the House,
and he, himself,--the present speaker,--must unfortunately discuss
it at some length. The right honourable gentleman opposite would not,
on this great occasion, trouble himself with anything of so little
moment. And it might be presumed that the political followers of the
right honourable gentleman would be equally reticent, as they were
understood to have accepted his tactics without a dissentient voice.
He, Mr. Daubeny, was the last man in England to deny the importance
of the question which the right honourable gentleman would select
for discussions in preference to that of the condition of the
Church. That question was a very simple one, and might be put to
the House in a very few words. Coming from the mouth of the right
honourable gentleman, the proposition would probably be made in this
form:--"That this House does think that I ought to be Prime Minister
now, and as long as I may possess a seat in this House." It was
impossible to deny the importance of that question; but perhaps he,
Mr. Daubeny, might be justified in demurring to the preference given
to it over every other matter, let that matter be of what importance
it might be to the material welfare of the country.
He made his point well; but he made it too often. And an attack of
that kind, personal and savage in its nature, loses its effect when
it is evident that the words have been prepared. A good deal may be
done in dispute by calling a man an ass or a knave,--but the resolve
to use the words should have been made only at the moment, and they
should come hot from the heart. There was much neatness and some
acuteness in Mr. Daubeny's satire, but there was no heat, and it was
prolix. It had, however, the effect of irritating Mr. Gresham,--as
was evident from the manner in which he moved his hat and shuffled
his feet.
A man destined to sit conspicuously on our Treasury Bench, or on the
seat opposite to it, should ask the gods for a thick skin as a first
gift. The need of this in our national assembly is greater than
elsewhere, because the differences between the men opposed to each
other are smaller. When two foes meet together in the same Chamber,
one of whom advocates the personal government of an individual ruler,
and the other that form of State, which has come to be called a Red
Republic, they deal, no doubt, weighty blows of oratory at each
other, but blows which never hurt at the moment. They may cut each
other's throats if they can find an opportunity; but they do not bite
each other like dogs over a bone. But when opponents are almost in
accord, as is always the case with our parliamentary gladiators,
they are ever striving to give maddening little wounds through
the joints of the harness. What is there with us to create the
divergence necessary for debate but the pride of personal skill in
the encounter? Who desires among us to put down the Queen, or to
repudiate the National Debt, or to destroy religious worship, or even
to disturb the ranks of society? When some small measure of reform
has thoroughly recommended itself to the country,--so thoroughly that
all men know that the country will have it,--then the question arises
whether its details shall be arranged by the political party which
calls itself Liberal,--or by that which is termed Conservative. The
men are so near to each other in all their convictions and theories
of life that nothing is left to them but personal competition for the
doing of the thing that is to be done. It is the same in religion.
The apostle of Christianity and the infidel can meet without a chance
of a quarrel; but it is never safe to bring together two men who
differ about a saint or a surplice.
Mr. Daubeny, having thus attacked and wounded his enemy, rushed
boldly into the question of Church Reform, taking no little pride
to himself and to his party that so great a blessing should be
bestowed upon the country from so unexpected a source. "See what we
Conservatives can do. In fact we will conserve nothing when we find
that you do not desire to have it conserved any longer. 'Quod minime
reris Graiâ pandetur ab urbe.'" It was exactly the reverse of the
complaint which Mr. Gresham was about to make. On the subject of
the Church itself he was rather misty but very profound. He went
into the question of very early Churches indeed, and spoke of the
misappropriation of endowments in the time of Eli. The establishment
of the Levites had been no doubt complete; but changes had been
effected as circumstances required. He was presumed to have alluded
to the order of Melchisedek, but he abstained from any mention of the
name. He roamed very wide, and gave many of his hearers an idea that
his erudition had carried him into regions in which it was impossible
to follow him. The gist of his argument was to show that audacity in
Reform was the very backbone of Conservatism. By a clearly pronounced
disunion of Church and State the theocracy of Thomas à Becket would
be restored, and the people of England would soon again become the
faithful flocks of faithful shepherds. By taking away the endowments
from the parishes, and giving them back in some complicated way to
the country, the parishes would be better able than ever to support
their clergymen. Bishops would be bishops indeed, when they were no
longer the creatures of a Minister's breath. As to the deans, not
seeing a clear way to satisfy aspirants for future vacancies in the
deaneries, he became more than usually vague, but seemed to imply
that the Bill which was now with the leave of the House to be read
a second time, contained no clause forbidding the appointment of
deans, though the special stipend of the office must be matter of
consideration with the new Church Synod.
The details of this part of his speech were felt to be dull by the
strangers. As long as he would abuse Mr. Gresham, men could listen
with pleasure; and could keep their attention fixed while he referred
to the general Conservatism of the party which he had the honour
of leading. There was a raciness in the promise of so much Church
destruction from the chosen leader of the Church party, which was
assisted by a conviction in the minds of most men that it was
impossible for unfortunate Conservatives to refuse to follow this
leader, let him lead where he might. There was a gratification in
feeling that the country party was bound to follow, even should he
take them into the very bowels of a mountain, as the pied piper did
the children of Hamelin;--and this made listening pleasant. But when
Mr. Daubeny stated the effect of his different clauses, explaining
what was to be taken and what left,--with a fervent assurance that
what was to be left would, under the altered circumstances, go much
further than the whole had gone before,--then the audience became
weary, and began to think that it was time that some other gentleman
should be upon his legs. But at the end of the Minister's speech
there was another touch of invective which went far to redeem him.
He returned to that personal question to which his adversary had
undertaken to confine himself, and expressed a holy horror at
the political doctrine which was implied. He, during a prolonged
Parliamentary experience, had encountered much factious opposition.
He would even acknowledge that he had seen it exercised on both sides
of the House, though he had always striven to keep himself free from
its baneful influence. But never till now had he known a statesman
proclaim his intention of depending upon faction, and upon faction
alone, for the result which he desired to achieve. Let the right
honourable gentleman raise a contest on either the principles or
the details of the measure, and he would be quite content to abide
the decision of the House; but he should regard such a raid as that
threatened against him and his friends by the right honourable
gentleman as unconstitutional, revolutionary, and tyrannical. He felt
sure that an opposition so based, and so maintained, even if it be
enabled by the heated feelings of the moment to obtain an unfortunate
success in the House, would not be encouraged by the sympathy
and support of the country at large. By these last words he was
understood to signify that should he be beaten on the second reading,
not in reference to the merits of the Bill, but simply on the issue
as proposed by Mr. Gresham, he would again dissolve the House before
he would resign. Now it was very well understood that there were
Liberal members in the House who would prefer even the success of Mr.
Daubeny to a speedy reappearance before their constituents.
Mr. Daubeny spoke till nearly eight, and it was surmised at the time
that he had craftily arranged his oratory so as to embarrass his
opponent. The House had met at four, and was to sit continuously till
it was adjourned for the night. When this is the case, gentlemen
who speak about eight o'clock are too frequently obliged to address
themselves to empty benches. On the present occasion it was Mr.
Gresham's intention to follow his opponent at once, instead of
waiting, as is usual with a leader of his party, to the close of the
debate. It was understood that Mr. Gresham would follow Mr. Daubeny,
with the object of making a distinct charge against Ministers, so
that the vote on this second reading of the Church Bill might in
truth be a vote of want of confidence. But to commence his speech at
eight o'clock when the House was hungry and uneasy, would be a trial.
Had Mr. Daubeny closed an hour sooner there would, with a little
stretching of the favoured hours, have been time enough. Members
would not have objected to postpone their dinner till half-past
eight, or perhaps nine, when their favourite orator was on his legs.
But with Mr. Gresham beginning a great speech at eight, dinner would
altogether become doubtful, and the disaster might be serious. It was
not probable that Mr. Daubeny had even among his friends proclaimed
any such strategy; but it was thought by the political speculators of
the day that such an idea had been present to his mind.
But Mr. Gresham was not to be turned from his purpose. He waited for
a few moments, and then rose and addressed the Speaker. A few members
left the House;--gentlemen, doubtless, whose constitutions, weakened
by previous service, could not endure prolonged fasting. Some who had
nearly reached the door returned to their seats, mindful of Messrs.
Roby and Ratler. But for the bulk of those assembled the interest
of the moment was greater even than the love of dinner. Some of the
peers departed, and it was observed that a bishop or two left the
House; but among the strangers in the gallery, hardly a foot of space
was gained. He who gave up his seat then, gave it up for the night.
Mr. Gresham began with a calmness of tone which seemed almost to be
affected, but which arose from a struggle on his own part to repress
that superabundant energy of which he was only too conscious. But the
calmness soon gave place to warmth, which heated itself into violence
before he had been a quarter of an hour upon his legs. He soon became
even ferocious in his invective, and said things so bitter that
he had himself no conception of their bitterness. There was this
difference between the two men,--that whereas Mr. Daubeny hit always
as hard as he knew how to hit, having premeditated each blow, and
weighed its results beforehand, having calculated his power even to
the effect of a blow repeated on a wound already given, Mr. Gresham
struck right and left and straightforward with a readiness engendered
by practice, and in his fury might have murdered his antagonist
before he was aware that he had drawn blood. He began by refusing
absolutely to discuss the merits of the bill. The right honourable
gentleman had prided himself on his generosity as a Greek. He would
remind the right honourable gentleman that presents from Greeks had
ever been considered dangerous. "It is their gifts, and only their
gifts, that we fear," he said. The political gifts of the right
honourable gentleman, extracted by him from his unwilling colleagues
and followers, had always been more bitter to the taste than Dead
Sea apples. That such gifts should not be bestowed on the country
by unwilling hands, that reform should not come from those who
themselves felt the necessity of no reform, he believed to be
the wish not only of that House, but of the country at large.
Would any gentleman on that bench, excepting the right honourable
gentleman himself,--and he pointed to the crowded phalanx of the
Government,--get up and declare that this measure of Church Reform,
this severance of Church and State, was brought forward in consonance
with his own long-cherished political conviction? He accused that
party of being so bound to the chariot wheels of the right honourable
gentleman, as to be unable to abide by their own convictions. And as
to the right honourable gentleman himself, he would appeal to his
followers opposite to say whether the right honourable gentleman was
possessed of any one strong political conviction.
He had been accused of being unconstitutional, revolutionary, and
tyrannical. If the House would allow him he would very shortly
explain his idea of constitutional government as carried on in this
country. It was based and built on majorities in that House, and
supported solely by that power. There could be no constitutional
government in this country that was not so maintained. Any other
government must be both revolutionary and tyrannical. Any other
government was a usurpation; and he would make bold to tell the
right honourable gentleman that a Minister in this country who should
recommend Her Majesty to trust herself to advisers not supported by a
majority of the House of Commons, would plainly be guilty of usurping
the powers of the State. He threw from him with disdain the charge
which had been brought against himself of hankering after the sweets
of office. He indulged and gloried in indulging the highest ambition
of an English subject. But he gloried much more in the privileges and
power of that House, within the walls of which was centred all that
was salutary, all that was efficacious, all that was stable in the
political constitution of his country. It had been his pride to have
acted during nearly all his political life with that party which had
commanded a majority, but he would defy his most bitter adversary, he
would defy the right honourable gentleman himself, to point to any
period of his career in which he had been unwilling to succumb to a
majority when he himself had belonged to the minority.
He himself would regard the vote on this occasion as a vote of want
of confidence. He took the line he was now taking because he desired
to bring the House to a decision on that question. He himself had not
that confidence in the right honourable gentleman which would justify
him in accepting a measure on so important a subject as the union or
severance of Church and State from his hands. Should the majority of
the House differ from him and support the second reading of the Bill,
he would at once so far succumb as to give his best attention to
the clauses of the bill, and endeavour with the assistance of those
gentlemen who acted with him to make it suitable to the wants of the
country by omissions and additions as the clauses should pass through
Committee. But before doing that he would ask the House to decide
with all its solemnity and all its weight whether it was willing to
accept from the hands of the right honourable gentleman any measure
of reform on a matter so important as this now before them. It was
nearly ten when he sat down; and then the stomach of the House could
stand it no longer, and an adjournment at once took place.
On the next morning it was generally considered that Mr. Daubeny had
been too long and Mr. Gresham too passionate. There were some who
declared that Mr. Gresham had never been finer than when he described
the privileges of the House of Commons; and others who thought that
Mr. Daubeny's lucidity had been marvellous; but in this case, as in
most others, the speeches of the day were generally thought to have
been very inferior to the great efforts of the past.