ELIJAH’S MANTLE
‘Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand
judgment.’--JOB. xxxii. 9.
[Sidenote: 1883 ÆT. 34]
For nearly three eventful years Mr. Gladstone’s Administration had held
power. In the country the popularity and prestige of the great Minister
were still immense. His authority was as unquestioned by the rank and
file of his party as on the morrow of the Midlothian triumph. He was
still ‘the people’s William’ to the crowd. But in Parliament and in the
Cabinet difficulties had arisen which scarcely any other leader could
have stemmed. Bradlaugh, Majuba, Kilmainham, were names full of gloomy
significance to the Liberal party, that promised renewed vexation and
discredit in the future. Colleagues had dropped off one by one. Lord
Lansdowne had left the Government as early as the Compensation for
Disturbance Bill. The Irish Land Act had cost the Prime Minister the
Duke of Argyll. Mr. Forster had fallen rather than consent to the
release of Parnell. A new question was at hand, opening a broad
indefinite vista of embarrassment and disaster and involving at the
outset a far more serious secession.
[Sidenote: 1882-1883]
The gradual withdrawal of European Powers and final retreat of France
left Great Britain alone to confront the growing anarchy in Egypt. A
medley of conflicting impulses and incidents--moral obligations,
material interests, the Suez Canal, the coupons of the Egyptian debt,
Arabi’s national movement and the massacre of June--culminated in the
bombardment of Alexandria on July 11, 1882, by the British fleet. Mr.
Bright resigned from the Cabinet; but the House of Commons broke into
general cheering at the news and only eight Radicals testified to their
principles by their votes. Large military operations followed.
Twenty-five thousand British soldiers descended upon Egypt. Arabi and
his national movement were stamped out under the heavy heel of the
British Grenadier and England became responsible for the fortunes of the
Nile Valley.
Their intervention was to carry the Government further than they
expected. The misrule which had produced in Egypt the national movement
of Arabi had created the rebellion of the Mahdi in the Soudan. The
inhabitants of vast regions were aflame with military fury and religious
fervour. Yusef Pasha had been overwhelmed. The army of General Hicks was
being collected for its fatal effort. The Khedival garrisons were
everywhere cut off and besieged. Khartoum almost alone was accessible
from the north. Inch by inch and hour by hour the Liberal Government was
dragged deeper and deeper into the horrible perplexities of the Egyptian
riddle and the Soudan tragedy. At each detested step they resolved to
go no further. Every act of interference was to be their last. Every day
they looked forward to an early evacuation. To get out of the country in
the shortest possible time and upon any conceivable justification was
their constant and controlling desire; and after every struggle to
escape they found themselves more hopelessly and inextricably involved.
To Lord Randolph Churchill the whole policy of intervention seemed a
flagrant political blunder and a crowning violation of Liberal
principles. He had sympathised from the beginning with the revolt of
Arabi Pasha. He subscribed fifty pounds to the expenses of his defence
before the Egyptian Court Martial. He believed that the popular soldier
and Minister had been the head of a real national movement directed
against one of the vilest and most worthless Governments in the world.
That England should use her power to stamp out that movement, to crush
the army which sustained it, to banish the leader on whom all depended
and to hand back the wretched Egyptians to the incapacity of Tewfik and
the extortions of his creditors, was to him an odious crime. The war
was--in his eyes--a wicked war, an unjust war, ‘a bondholders’ war.’ And
as he felt, so he spoke. While the fighting was actually in progress
criticism was necessarily ineffective; but at the beginning of 1883 the
excitement of Tel-el-Kebir and Kassassin had begun to subside and
Egyptian affairs became a leading subject of Parliamentary debate.
While these embarrassments preoccupied the Ministry, the Conservative
Opposition was disturbed by questions of leadership. Who was to be Lord
Beaconsfield’s successor? Sir Stafford Northcote, as the leader in the
House of Commons, seemed to have the most natural and formal claims.
Lord Salisbury had not then obtained any large measure of public
confidence. He was generally regarded as representing a form of Toryism
highly orthodox and respectable in principle, but rather too rampant and
unyielding for the practical necessities of the political situation. The
epigrams and epithets which slipped so easily from his tongue and pen
had won him the reputation of being rash and violent by nature. His
comparison of Lord Derby to Titus Oates was not soon forgotten; and, for
all the respect in which his character was held, Disraeli’s celebrated
description of him had gained a very wide acceptance. Even in the House
of Lords there had been at first some doubt as to his leadership. Lord
Cairns, the Duke of Richmond and the Duke of Marlborough seem all at
times to have been considered as safer alternatives. Since his authority
had been conceded or asserted in the Upper Chamber some mistakes in
tactics had been made, and Lord Salisbury was thought on more than one
occasion to have committed his party further in resistance to Liberal
legislation than its strength warranted. For two years, however, the
leadership of the party as a whole had been in commission. A kind of
‘dual control’ had been jointly exerted by the leaders in both houses.
Between Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Salisbury the most pleasant
personal relations prevailed and it will be shown in this account that
they behaved to each other, in many difficult and delicate
circumstances, with unquestionable loyalty. At the same time the great
prize and honour of supreme control, with its almost certain reversion
of the Premiership, lay between them, and only one could win it. As very
often happens in such circumstances, the good faith and good feeling
observed between the principals did not extend to their respective
supporters; and Lord Salisbury’s excellent relations with Sir Stafford
Northcote did not prevent the growth of two sulky and jealous factions
to support their rival claims.
The Fourth Party stood for a long time apart from these activities and
were individually divided as to the course to take. Mr. Balfour’s
opinion was from the outset clear; and his evident wish that Lord
Salisbury, and not Sir Stafford Northcote, should head the Conservative
party may have been his chief reason for associating himself with the
free-lances below the gangway. Mr. Gorst, on the other hand, was much
more friendly to Sir Stafford Northcote. He did not altogether agree
with Lord Randolph Churchill in his very adverse estimate of Sir
Stafford Northcote’s qualities and capacity as a Parliamentary leader,
which is generally reflected in these pages. Between these two choices
Lord Randolph seems long to have hung in doubt. He was much disquieted
by several of Lord Salisbury’s actions in the House of Lords, which
seemed to indicate an attitude of uncompromising resistance to
democratic legislation. On the other hand, the Fourth Party came into
constant disagreement with Sir Stafford Northcote in the House of
Commons, and chafed keenly under his guidance.
The evils of the ‘dual control’ were increasingly displayed as time went
by. The Arrears Bill in 1882 ended in the complete collapse of the
Opposition in both Houses. Lord Salisbury was for rejecting it in the
House of Lords on the second reading and courting a dissolution. In this
course he was supported by an enthusiastic meeting of Peers at his house
in Arlington Street. The leaders in the Commons dissuaded him from such
an extreme measure. It was agreed that the Bill should not be rejected,
but materially amended, and that the amendments should be fought for at
all risks. Lord Salisbury accordingly amended the Bill in the House of
Lords. But Sir Stafford and his friends in the Commons failed to support
him with the necessary vigour. A division of opinion grew rapidly in the
Conservative ranks. At a time when union and decision were both vital to
the success of the operations, neither was to be found. No great effort
was made to rally the party in the House of Commons. Grave doubts were
expressed as to the wisdom of provoking a conflict between the two
Houses. The word ‘dissolution’ seemed full of evil omen. Only 157
Conservatives out of 242 voted in the decisive division for the Lords’
amendments and they were defeated by the crushing majority of 136. The
panic spread to the House of Lords. Lord Salisbury, deserted by the
Peers, was left in a very ignominious position; and, in spite of the
definite arrangement on which he had acted, the party Press resounded
with praise of Sir Stafford’s prudence and blame of Lord Salisbury’s
rashness. The need of a single supreme leader was, through the
occurrence of such incidents, very widely recognised at the beginning of
1883; but whether Lord Salisbury or Sir Stafford Northcote should be
chosen was still a matter of doubt and controversy. The prevailing
opinion inclined strongly towards Sir Stafford Northcote.
Lord Randolph began the session of 1883 in great activity, and the
Fourth Party, with or without the assistance of Mr. Balfour, was
prominent, if not predominant, in almost every Parliamentary event. As a
leader of free-lances, Lord Randolph was for ever seeking for a chance
to drive a wedge into the Ministerial array. To split the Government
majority by raising some issue on which conscientious Radicals would be
forced to vote against their leaders, or, failing that, by some question
on which the Minister concerned would be likely to utter illiberal
sentiments, and bound to justify a policy or a system which the Liberal
party detested, was his perpetual and almost instinctive endeavour. Such
had been his method during the debates on Irish Coercion; it was his
plan upon ‘Parliamentary procedure’; it would have been his course, had
he not been dissuaded therefrom, in regard to the suppression of the
Boer revolt; it was afterwards to be his attitude in much greater degree
upon the unending tangles of affairs in Egypt. If the tactics he pursued
were adroit, the sentiments he expressed were congenial. Alike from
conviction and partisanship he was drawn continually to the more Radical
view of political disputes. No one understood better than he the
difficulties with which Mr. Gladstone had to contend, or the stresses
which paralysed the Cabinet and racked the Liberal party.
‘You are no doubt aware,’ he told a Manchester audience (December 1,
1881), ‘of a curious fact in natural history--that there is an animal
more useful than picturesque, generally to be found in our farmyards,
which cannot swim. Owing to its ungraceful conformation, whenever it is
called upon to swim, it cuts its own throat with its feet; and the
spectacle of the Radical party attempting to govern reminds me
irresistibly of that animal trying to swim. The Radical party are
prevented from governing by what they are pleased to call their
principles; and in the act of governing they invariably commit suicide.
They are unable to govern Ireland because it was by stimulating disorder
that they attained power. They were unable to suppress the revolt of the
Boers, because it is their most sacred principle that any portion of the
Empire must be sacrificed rather than that they should incur the charge
of “blood-guiltiness.” They were unable to retain the valuable
possession of Candahar, which had been gained at a cost of eighteen
millions, because another of their most sacred principles is that we
must rely on “moral barriers.” Their Government is without an ally in
Europe because this is their diplomatic maxim--that foreign policy is
nothing more than an alternate succession of insults and apologies.
They are unable to conclude a treaty of commerce, vital though it be to
this country, because they have gratuitously tied themselves down to the
fetish of limiting Customs duties to six articles of foreign import. So
you see, gentlemen, that whenever they attempt to move in the ordinary
paths of government one of these so-called principles immediately rises
up, paralyses their action, and makes them an object either of mockery
or of compassion.’
He took a grim delight in compelling the Under Secretary for the
Colonies--‘this humanitarian Minister’--and even Mr. Gladstone himself,
to defend or palliate the use of dynamite by the Boers in their warfare
with the natives. When Mr. Evelyn Ashley was stung by much sarcastic
comment into condemning ‘the ill-regulated impulses of humanity’ which
appeared to prompt the Opposition attack, Lord Randolph replied that he
had passed the gravest censure on the Prime Minister, whose whole career
had consisted in giving way to such ‘ill-regulated impulses’ and
persuading the nation to agree with him. Now, as always, he was an
economist. He subjected the Civil Service Estimates to an unremitting
scrutiny. The repair of Royal Palaces, the up-keep of the Royal Mews and
Parks, formed the subject of protracted debate. He attacked the Royal
Buckhounds--‘’Arry’s Hounds,’ as he called them--and declared that only
a Cockney who did not know the difference between a field of oats and a
field of wheat, and no true sportsman, would take part in the pursuit
of a tame animal kept in captivity for the purpose of being hunted over
and over again. Against such criticisms the Liberal Ministers could
furnish no reply satisfactory to their own supporters.
[Illustration: _Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of ‘Punch.’_
ATHWART THE COURSE.
R-ND-LPH CH-RCH-LL. (_an aggravating Boy_): ‘In the way again! ’ooray!!’
_Punch_, July 7, 1883.]
Some of Lord Randolph’s maxims in Opposition are well known. He is often
credited with, though he cannot rightly claim, the authorship of the
phrase, ‘The duty of an Opposition is to oppose.’ Lord Salisbury
condemned early in 1883 ‘the temptation, strong to many politicians, to
attempt to gain the victory by bringing into the Lobby men whose
principles were divergent, and whose combined forces therefore could not
lead to any wholesome victory.’ ‘Excellent moralising,’ observed Lord
Randolph, ‘very suitable to the digestions of country delegates, but one
of those Puritanical theories which party leaders are prone to preach on
a platform, which has never guided for any length of time the action of
politicians in the House of Commons, and which, whenever apparently put
into practice, invariably results in weak and inane proceedings.
Discriminations between wholesome and unwholesome victories are idle and
impracticable. Obtain the victory, know how to follow it up, and leave
the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness to critics.’ His second maxim was
as follows: ‘Take office only when it suits you, but put the Government
in a minority whenever you decently can’; and his third, ‘Whenever by an
unfortunate concurrence of circumstances an Opposition is compelled to
support the Government, the support should be given with a kick and not
with a caress and should be withdrawn on the first available moment.’
Lord Randolph always declared that in such things he was sustained by
the example of Mr. Disraeli. In 1852 Mr. Disraeli put Lord John Russell
in a minority by allying himself with Lord Palmerston. In 1857 he put
Lord Palmerston in a minority by allying himself with Mr. Gladstone and
the Radical party. In 1858 he put Lord Palmerston in a second minority
by following the lead of Mr. Milner Gibson and the Radicals. In 1866 Mr.
Disraeli, with the assistance of Lord Cranborne, placed Mr. Gladstone in
a minority by allying himself with the Whigs. Again, in 1873 Mr.
Disraeli placed Mr. Gladstone in a minority by making a temporary
alliance with the Radicals and with the Irish. Fortified by these
examples, the leader of Tory Democracy pursued his devious and
unexpected course, to the bewilderment of his friends and the
discomfiture of his foes.
The chronic friction between the Front Opposition Bench and the corner
seat below the gangway developed in the first few weeks of the session
of 1883 a considerable degree of heat. Lord Randolph’s opinion of the
worthies at the head of his party was not good, and the efforts which he
made to conceal it, were not apparent. They complained of the irritating
laugh with which he would sometimes mark his dissent from their tactics.
He spoke of them collectively in private as ‘the old gang.’ One by one
he fastened upon them nicknames which clung like burrs. Sir Stafford
Northcote had always been ‘the Goat.’ Mr. W. H. Smith and Sir R. Cross
were described as ‘Marshall and Snelgrove.’ Mr. Gibson was ‘the family
solicitor of the Tory party.’ The smoking-room of the House of Commons
was always laughing over some new witticism or sharp saying, faithfully
carried by mischief-makers from one to another till it reached its final
destination and roused the wrath of the potentate concerned. But while
in his conversation Lord Randolph was scarcely restrained by the limits
of decorum, he remained himself perfectly unapproachable. No man dared
to take any liberties with him, and party officials or ex-Ministers who
addressed themselves to him found themselves confronted by a suave and
formal courtesy through which it was impossible to break.
A sharp and open difference with Sir Stafford Northcote grew early in
March out of some small incident of House of Commons tactics:--
_Sir Stafford Northcote to Lord Randolph Churchill._
_Private._
House of Commons: March 9, 1883.
Dear Lord Randolph,--I understand that a good many of our friends
are annoyed at the appearance of a kind of _communiqué_ in the
morning papers yesterday to the effect that if I were to move the
adjournment of the House (as some persons supposed I intended to
do) the ‘Fourth Party’ would not support the motion by rising in
their places.
You will, I am sure, understand that any steps taken with the
apparent purpose of marking out a separate party within the general
body of the Conservatives must be prejudicial to the interests of
the whole, and I therefore call your attention to the matter in
the hope of preventing similar embarrassments in the future.
I remain
Yours very faithfully,
STAFFORD H. NORTHCOTE.
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Sir Stafford Northcote._
2 Connaught Place, W.
Dear Sir Stafford Northcote,--In reply to your letter I have to
remark that members who sit below the gangway have always acted in
the House of Commons with a very considerable degree of
independence of the recognised and constituted chiefs of either
party, nor can I (who owe nothing to anyone and depend on nobody)
in any way or at any time depart from that well-established and
highly respectable tradition.
I am not aware of any _communiqué_ on the matter about which you
write and I must decline to be responsible for the gossip of the
Lobby which may find its way into the daily or weekly Press. I
would suggest, however, that ‘similar embarrassments’ would be
avoided for the future, if the small party of Conservatives who sit
below the gangway were to be occasionally informed beforehand of
your intentions on any particular matter. They consider that they
have, during the whole of this Parliament, worked harder in the
House of Commons than any other members of the party, and they know
that a very considerable body of public opinion in the country
approves entirely of the course of action which they have adopted.
There would be less danger of ‘marking out a separate party within
the general body of the Conservatives,’ if you would use your
influence with some of your late colleagues so as to induce them to
abstain from holding my friends and myself up to ridicule and
dislike by their speeches in the country, or covertly by inspiring
that portion of the daily Press which is notoriously under the
influence of the Front Opposition Bench to attack and denounce us,
whose only fault is that at all times and by all means we have
never ceased from attacking, denouncing, and embarrassing the
present Government. I spoke on this point to Mr. Rowland Winn very
freely at the end of the autumn session, and I regret to find that
my so doing seems rather to have increased than modified the
mischief.
I have the honour to remain
Yours very faithfully,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
_Sir Stafford Northcote to Lord Randolph Churchill._
_Private._
30 St. James’s Place, S.W.: March 10, 1883.
Dear Lord Randolph,--I am very sensible of the zeal and ability
which you and your immediate friends show in your Parliamentary
work. But to turn your work to the best account you really ought to
consider the first principles of party action, and, unless you mean
absolutely to dissever yourselves from the main body, you ought to
act heartily with it except upon occasions when you feel yourselves
bound to differ from it; and when those occasions arise, you ought
frankly but amicably to tell the leaders what your difficulties and
your intentions are. You may be well assured that I am only too
glad to confer with all members of the party on these terms, and
with yourself as frankly as with anyone. What I must object to is
the apparent maintenance of a distinct organisation within the
party. It produces infinite soreness and difficulty.
I remain
Faithfully yours,
STAFFORD H. NORTHCOTE.
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Sir Stafford Northcote._
2 Connaught Place, W.: March 11.
Dear Sir Stafford Northcote,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of
your letter. I do not see my way to complete acquiescence in the
views which you have been kind enough to express to me. Since I
have been in Parliament I have always acted on my own account, and
I shall continue to do so, for I have not found the results of such
a line of action at all unsatisfactory. It is not in the power of
any Conservative, however hostile towards me he may feel, to throw
the slightest doubt upon the orthodoxy of my political views, and
with respect to what may conduce to the ultimate benefit of the
Tory party I conceive that the widest latitude of opinion at the
present moment is not only allowable but, indeed, imperative.
You have not thought it necessary to allude to the remarks I made
in reply to your first letter concerning the censure, the intrigue,
the dislike, open or imperfectly concealed, of several of those who
appear to be deeply in your confidence, and who may possibly be
comprised amongst those whom you designate as ‘leaders.’ These are
matters on which I am perfectly informed and equally unconcerned,
but at the same time their existence rather weakens the effect of
the second letter which I have received from you. The parties I
allude to have a past to get rid of; I have not; and the numerous
letters which I have for some time received, and which I continue
to receive, from all parts of the country, and from all sorts of
individuals and bodies, enable me to be confident that my political
actions and views are not so entirely personal as you would seem to
imagine.
In conclusion, I would observe that I did not commence this
correspondence, but that, as you have done me the honour to
communicate to me your opinions on my attitude in Parliament, I am
under the impression that it would not be respectful to you if I
were not to avail myself of this opportunity to place clearly
before you what that attitude will continue to be. It will be the
same in the future as it has been in the past; and as I have no
particular personal object to gain, and therefore nothing to lose,
I can await the result with very considerable equanimity.
I have the honour to remain
Yours very faithfully,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
This correspondence heralded a state of war. The Tory leaders affected
to regard Lord Randolph Churchill as a contumacious fellow who
represented no one but himself, and pushed inordinate pretension with
boundless impudence. They continued wilfully blind to the ever-growing
movement in his favour of popular opinion among their own party all over
the country. Lord Randolph, on his part, was not slow or reluctant to
assert his power. In December 1882 he had been visited by a deputation
of the principal Conservatives of Manchester, inviting him to be their
candidate for the then undivided representation of that great city. He
complained openly to the deputation of the feeble conduct of the
Opposition, and these serious gentlemen did not hesitate to greet with
unmistakable approbation censures which he passed upon their own
leaders.
‘I see no good object,’ he said, ‘to be gained by concealing my opinion
that the constitutional function of an Opposition is to oppose and not
support the Government, and that this function has during the three
sessions of this Parliament been either systematically neglected or
defectively carried out. More than once since the present Government
came into office legitimate opportunities have arisen for conflict,
which ought to have resulted in the overthrow of the Ministry or in
great damage thereto; and those opportunities have been allowed to pass
by unavailed of. I would venture to lay down with confidence the
principle that the healthy vitality of a party is not to be estimated by
great speeches in the country, but only by its action in Parliament;
and if its action in Parliament is observed to fall considerably below
the level of its great speeches in the country, depend upon it there is
something or other not altogether satisfactory in its constitution.’
A more decisive declaration was soon to be required. The statue of Lord
Beaconsfield was now finished, and April 19, as the anniversary of his
death, had been fixed for its unveiling. Towards the end of March the
programme of the ceremony was made public and it was found that the
principal part of unveiling the statue and pronouncing the eulogy had
been assumed by Sir Stafford Northcote, while to Lord Salisbury was
relegated the very secondary function of proposing a vote of thanks to
Sir Stafford for his speech. The general, if tacit, acquiescence of the
Conservative party in these dispositions could only mean that Sir
Stafford Northcote was their recognised and adopted leader and would be
the head of any Conservative Government which might come into being.
Lord Randolph Churchill was so persuaded of the futility of such an
arrangement that he determined at any risk to make a protest, which
should at least prevent its unanimous acceptance. On March 29 a letter,
which was assigned especial prominence and attracted much attention,
appeared in the _Times_, from ‘A Tory,’ complaining that Sir Stafford
Northcote was to unveil the statue and denouncing his selection as the
triumph of a ‘faction’ over the more numerous adherents of Lord
Salisbury. Two days later (April 2) Lord Randolph struck his blow.
He had prepared his statement with deliberation and he showed it
privately to several intimate friends. All, with the single exception of
Mr. Chenery, the Editor of the _Times_, who had a journalist’s eye for
‘copy,’ disapproved of its terms and tone. Some urged him not to publish
it. One such appeal lies before me as I write. ‘Let me beseech you to
stop your letter. I may be presumptuous; I may be importunate; but I am
sincere--so listen to me. Your letter is a libel on your own party; it
lacks finish; it will offend the _whole_ party; it will offend the
public. You impute as an offence the attention paid to tradesmanlike
counsellors. What will the tradesmen think of you? They will be
challenged to reject you, inasmuch as you despise them.... You are now a
power in the party; you have pressed heavily on the leaders; you do so
to-day, and may continue to do so if you will husband your resources.
They don’t like it. If they can blow you out of the way they will, and
your letter gives them the chance they have been waiting for.... You are
attacking them at the wrong moment. Your victim has been ill, sent off
to recruit his strength, is back again at his post supported by good
wishes and receiving sympathy from all. Are you wanting in generosity?
No. _I_ say, “No”; but will the public, will your enemies say “No”?...
Such a letter could only be justified by its success. It will be a
failure. Your best friends will be unable to prove you right; and when
once the tyrant-throne you have raised for yourself, and by yourself,
begins to lose the support of the outside public, your enemies within
the party will hurry to overwhelm you in its ruins.’
The letter was published forthwith. ‘The position of the Conservative
party,’ wrote Lord Randolph,[12] ‘is hopeful and critical. Everything
depends upon the Liberals keeping their leader, and upon the
Conservatives finding one. An Opposition never wants a policy; but an
Opposition, if it is to become a strong Government, must have a leader.
The country, though it may be disposed to dispense with Mr. Gladstone
and his colleagues, is not likely to exchange them for an arrangement
which would practically place the Premiership in commission. The
Conservative party must decide at once upon a name. This is more
important with the modern electorate than a cry; but at the present
moment, when the battle may be joined any day, we have fixed upon
neither.’
Yet the Conservative party had an ample choice. ‘Lord Salisbury, Lord
Cairns, and Sir Stafford Northcote all possess great and peculiar
qualifications. If the electors are in a negative frame of mind they may
accept Sir Stafford Northcote; if they are in a cautious frame of mind
they may shelter themselves under Lord Cairns; if they are in an English
frame of mind they will rally round Lord Salisbury.’ He proceeded to
review the conduct of the Opposition during the last three sessions.
‘Such a series of neglected opportunities, pusillanimity, combativeness
at wrong moments, vacillation, dread of responsibility, repression and
discouragement of hard-working followers, collusions with the
Government, hankerings after coalitions, jealousies, commonplaces, want
of perception on the part of the former lieutenants of Lord
Beaconsfield, no one but he who has watched carefully and intelligently
the course of affairs in Parliament, can adequately realise or
sufficiently express; and if it be the case that Ministers have lost
ground in the country, they have only themselves to blame, nor have they
the slightest right to cherish feelings of resentment against the
regular and responsible Opposition in the House of Commons.
‘There are many, I know well, among the Conservative party out of the
House of Commons who are convinced that if the present opportunities for
success are neglected or inadequately turned to account, the days of the
Tory party, as we know it, are in all probability numbered; who are
convinced, further, that if these opportunities are handled by
third-rate statesmen, such as were just good enough to fill subordinate
offices while Lord Beaconsfield was alive, they will be neglected or
inadequately turned to account. Many of the party in the country are
determined that their efforts and their industry shall not result merely
in the short-lived triumph and speedy disgrace of _bourgeois_ placemen,
“honourable” Tadpoles, hungry Tapers, Irish lawyers. The Conservative
party was formed for better ends than these....
’ ...Lord Salisbury alone among those who have endeavoured to guide the
action of the Conservative party, has agitated Scotland and arrested the
attention of the Midlands. His name and influence in Lancashire are more
than sufficient to counterbalance any advantages which may have accrued
to the Liberal party from the adhesion of Lord Derby. Even his opponents
admit that he has projected a policy rightly conceiving and eloquently
expressing the true principles of popular Toryism. Against him are
directed all the malignant efforts of envious mediocrity, and it is
essential to the future well-being of the Tory party that these
machinations should no longer be permitted to obscure the paramount
claims of the one man who is capable, not only of overturning, but also
of replacing Mr. Gladstone, and who--partly from a magnanimous trust in
the good faith of others, partly from a very high, perhaps an
exaggerated, idea of political loyalty--is in danger of being sacrificed
to the internecine jealousies of some of the most useless of his former
colleagues.’
The publication of this letter excited, as his friends had foreseen, an
outburst of indignation against Lord Randolph Churchill. All sections of
the Conservative party--including many members who were thoroughly
dissatisfied with the conduct of their leaders--united in disowning him
and his opinions. When he went down to the House on the morrow of his
letter scarcely a member would speak to him, and he sat, alone and
abandoned, hunched up in his corner seat. When Sir Stafford Northcote
rose to address some questions to Ministers he received a tremendous
ovation. Even Mr. Gorst publicly signified his allegiance to him on
April 4. On the same day Mr. W. H. Smith denounced Lord Randolph’s
letter as an attempt to sow discord in the Conservative ranks and as a
foul wrong to both Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote. Mr.
Chaplin, Mr. Northcote (speaking with the authority of his father), and
Mr. Lowther meted out their heavy and righteous censures. Tory and
Liberal newspapers vied with each other in wrathful or derisive comment.
Two hundred members of the Conservative party attached their names to a
memorial expressing their trust and confidence in Sir Stafford, which
memorial was duly presented to him by one of their most valued
representatives, Sir John Mowbray. Lord Salisbury preserved a golden
silence. Never was politician so utterly isolated, so totally
repudiated, so signally rebuked, by all of those persons of influence
and position upon whose support he must depend.
But the results were curiously barren. The intense irritation at
Westminster and in the Carlton found no encouragement in the
constituencies. The vehement attacks to which Lord Randolph was
subjected aroused no echo in the great provincial centres. Country
newspapers were restrained in their criticism. The _Times_ gave him a
cautious, left-handed, but effective support. Manchester showed no wish
to withdraw its invitation. The working-class electors declined to have
their indignation manufactured from the London clubs and offices; and
the conviction steadily gained acceptance and assertion that, whatever
might be thought of his methods, on the merits of the case ‘Randy was
right.’ So, indeed, he was. In rough but perfectly unmistakable language
he had proclaimed a vital truth. He had declared that which most men
knew in their hearts, even though they would not or dared not admit it.
No amount of memorials or party demonstrations, no loud disclaimers,
could prevail against facts which were every day becoming more flagrant.
For a week Lord Randolph remained silent and solitary in his corner
seat. Then, just as the storm showed signs of abating, just when the
worthies were asking themselves whether, after all, they had not been
too hard on a young man who could be, if he only chose, a powerful ally,
he published his second letter in the _Times_. In this he described the
utter breakdown of ‘the dual control’ by which the Conservative party
was afflicted, how Lord Salisbury had been deserted on the Arrears Bill
and how Sir Henry Wolff had been actually impeded in his original
opposition to Mr. Bradlaugh by Sir Stafford Northcote. ‘The differences
of principle which sever the Conservatives from the Radicals are even
greater and more vital to the future of the nation than those which
agitated the times of Pitt and Fox, or the more recent days of the Duke
of Wellington and Lord Grey. The questions of the continuation of the
monarchy, the existence of an hereditary legislature, the preservation
of a central government for the three kingdoms, the connection between
Church and State, are all more or less rapidly coming within the range
of practical politics.... On all these and such like questions the
Conservative party hold strong opinions, and if these opinions are to
prevail it is essential that they should be represented by, and
identified with, a statesman who fears not to meet and who knows how to
sway immense masses of the working classes and who either by his genius
or his eloquence, or by all the varied influences of an ancient name,
can “move the hearts of households.” Without such a leader the
Conservative party is beaten even before the battle is begun....
’ ...I am not in the least alarmed,’ the writer concluded, ‘by the
violence of the replies to the letter which you were good enough to
insert a week ago. I know well that many of those who are expressing
with so much heat and indignation their disagreement with my views have
themselves on many occasions during the present Parliament been loud in
their condemnation of the apathy and irresolution of the Opposition and
of the fatal influence exercised by one or two of those who surround the
leader. It is because of my belief that the maintenance of the
Constitution and the existence of a strong, resolute, intelligent and
active Tory party are inseparably connected with each other that I have
referred to the incidents of the past with the object of averting grave
disaster in the future. If that object is even approached by my letters
to you, I am only too happy to bear the brunt of a little temporary
effervescence and to be the scapegoat on which doomed mediocrities may
lay the burden of their exposed incapacity....’
Mr. Chenery was very doubtful about this letter and urged Lord Randolph
not to publish it. ‘You have produced,’ he wrote, ‘a great effect by the
first letter, which this, in my opinion, would only undo.’ But Lord
Randolph persisted and the letter was printed. On April 19 Sir Stafford
Northcote unveiled the Beaconsfield statue. Lord Randolph wrote for the
_Fortnightly Review_ of May a reflective description of this event. He
called the article, from which various quotations have already been
made, ‘Elijah’s Mantle.’ He cannot claim in any special degree the gift
of letters. In private he wrote exactly as he would have spoken to his
friends. His public writings were for the most part speeches set forth
on paper. But ‘Elijah’s Mantle’ shows a higher degree of literary
excellence than any other record he has left behind him. In its
picturesque presentment, in its well-chosen words, in the lucidity and
force of the argument, it proved not unworthy of the almost universal
attention which the personality of the writer drew upon it from the
political world.
Lord Randolph described the unveiling of the statue ‘under a murky sky
and amidst splashing rain’; the melancholy change which a few years had
effected in the position and prospects of the once mighty party Lord
Beaconsfield had led; the imposing majority of 1874, now transferred
bodily to the Liberal side; and the sudden and stunning nature of the
catastrophe of 1880. What a surprise it was to the placemen, the rank
and file and ‘the old men who crooned over the fires at the Carlton’!
‘That some malign and venomous genius must suddenly have possessed the
mind of the people’ was their only explanation. And on all this Lord
Beaconsfield’s death--‘the crowning blow sent by a mischievous and
evil-minded fortune.’ While ‘the Chief’ lived, hope had lived too. But
from the hour of his death every Tory, in and out of Parliament, high or
low, rich or poor, had exclaimed, muttered or thought: ‘Oh, if Lord
Beaconsfield were alive!’ That was a monument to the departed leader
more enduring than the bronze on the Abbey Green. Was it not also a
criticism, pointed and unanswerable, upon the conduct of affairs since
his death, which ‘no amount of memorials of confidence, no number of
dinners in Pall Mall, no repetitions, however frequent, of gushing
embraces between the Lord and the Commoner,’ could gainsay?
Lord Randolph thought that Lord Beaconsfield’s career could be painted
in a single sentence: ‘Failure, failure, failure, partial success,
renewed failure, ultimate and complete triumph.’ The victory of 1874 had
given a golden opportunity to the Tories; but owing to the natural decay
of Lord Beaconsfield’s physical vigour, that opportunity had been
wasted. Would it return? ‘The Liberals can afford better to sustain
great disasters than the Conservatives, for there is a recuperative
power innate in Liberal principles--the result of the longing of the
human mind for progress and for adventure--which enables them to recover
rapidly and unexpectedly from misfortunes which would seem to be fatal.
The Tories, though possessing many other advantages, fail in this
respect. As time goes on, their successes will be fewer and separated
from each other by intervals of growing length; unless, indeed, the
policy and the principles of the Tory party should undergo a surprising
development; unless the secret of Lord Beaconsfield’s theory of
government is appropriated, understood, believed in, sown broadcast
amongst the people; unless the mantle of Elijah should fall upon some
one who is capable enough and fortunate enough, carrying with him a
united party, to bring to perfection those schemes of Imperial rule and
of social reform which Lord Beaconsfield had only time to dream of, to
hint at, and to sketch.’
Lord Randolph then proceeded to outline for the first time the
conception of Tory Democracy which had now possessed his mind.
‘Some of Lord Beaconsfield’s phrases will bear any amount of microscopic
examination. Speaking at Manchester in 1871, by the alteration of a
letter in a quotation from the Vulgate he revealed the policy which
ought to guide Tory leaders at the present tune: “Sanitas sanitatum,
omnia sanitas.” Such was the quotation, in which a careful mind will
discover a scheme of social progress and reform of dimensions so large
and wide-spreading that many volumes would not suffice to explain its
details. By it is shadowed forth, and in it is embraced, a social
revolution which, passing by and diverting attention from wild longings
for organic change, commences with the little, peddling Boards of Health
which occupy and delight the Local Government Department, comprises Lord
Salisbury’s plans for the amelioration of the dwellings of the poor,
carries with it Lord Carnarvon’s ideal of compulsory national insurance,
includes Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s temperance propaganda, preserves and
reclaims commons and open spaces--favoured by Mr. Bryce--constructs
people’s parks, collects and opens to the masses museums, libraries,
art-galleries, does not disdain the public washhouses of Mr. Jesse
Collings. Public and private thrift must animate the whole, for it is
from public thrift that the funds for these largesses can be drawn and
it is by private thrift alone that their results can be utilised and
appreciated. The expression “Tory Democracy” has excited the wonder of
some, the alarm of others, and great and bitter ridicule from the
Radical party. But the “Tory Democracy” may yet exist; the elements for
its composition only require to be collected and the labour may some day
possibly be effected by the man, whoever he may be, upon whom the mantle
of Elijah has descended.’
Lord Randolph’s letters had aimed at establishing the leadership of Lord
Salisbury and had constituted an appeal to him to come forward and head
the ‘New Tories.’ They also intimated with tolerable plainness that if
Lord Salisbury were unable or unwilling to don the mantle, there was
another who would not hesitate to assume it. References to ‘a statesman
who fears not to meet, and who knows how to sway, immense masses of the
working classes,’ and who ‘by all the varied influences of an ancient
name can move “the hearts of households,”’ although directly applied to
Lord Salisbury, were obviously capable of an alternative interpretation.
The suggestion was perfectly understood by all and in political circles
a hearty, concerted, but deplorably unsuccessful attempt was made to
laugh it out of existence.
By the end of April it was evident that the outburst against Lord
Randolph Churchill had in no wise injured his position in the country.
In order to meet the difficulties of the Bradlaugh case and the repeated
explosions of passion to which it gave rise, the Prime Minister had
introduced the Affirmation Bill, which would enable persons of no
religious belief to affirm, like Quakers, instead of taking the ordinary
oath. On this Mr. Gladstone delivered one of his most magnificent
orations. When Lord Randolph replied (April 30) he was heard with severe
and respectful attention in all parts of the House. He spoke long and
thoughtfully, and, although no one could maintain the elevation to which
Mr. Gladstone had raised the debate, it was felt that the Minister’s
arguments had been not inadequately met.
[Illustration: _Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of ‘Punch,’_
A DREAM OF THE FUTURE.
LITTLE LORD R.: ‘Ah! they’ll have to give me a statue--some day!!’
_Punch_ April 28, 1883.]
‘The present Bill,’ he said, ‘is not for the benefit of the whole
nation; it is for the benefit of one man, and it is brought in in
deference to clamour and violence. Let us consider for a moment who
are the classes outside which are opposed to the representative of
atheism. They are the religious, the moral, the law-abiding, and the
industrious. Who are the personal supporters of atheism outside this
House? For the most part they are the residuum, the rabble, and the scum
of the population; the bulk of them are persons to whom all
restraint--religious, moral, or legal--is odious and intolerable. Why
are we so anxious to give these latter a victory and a triumph over the
former?
‘I take this Bill of the Government and I strip it of all those flimsy
disguises with which the Prime Minister so ingeniously but so uselessly
clothed it and I place it naked before the Parliament and before the
country--a Bill for the admission of avowed atheists into the House of
Commons--and I say that this is a fundamental change in the Constitution
of such vital and momentous importance that the people of this country
will not hastily ratify it and that the opinion of the country must be
ascertained before the Parliament can assent to it.
‘We must not only think of the relief of Mr. Bradlaugh, or of the relief
of this House from a slight difficulty; we must think what would be the
effect on the people of this State of a recognition of unlawful
doctrines, and of giving place in the immediate governing body to a man
who professes and who preaches that the Christian religion, on which our
law has been founded, is false, its morality defective, and its promises
illusory. Shall we not be giving to those doctrines a tremendous
impetus by altering the Constitution of this country, in order that they
may be officially represented in our Councils and may influence our
decisions? Can we contemplate without alarm the revulsion that such an
act might occasion among those masses of the people who, with some hope
of a happier state hereafter, are toiling their weary way through the
world, content to tolerate for a time their less fortunate lot--the
revulsion that would occur if they inferred from the action of the
Legislature that it was even possible for their faith to be false?
Surely the horrors of the French Revolution should give some idea of the
effect on the masses of the State recognition of atheism! It is from
disasters such as those that we have been very probably preserved by the
Christian characteristics of the community. Let me quote the words of
Lord Erskine: “The religious and moral sense of the people of Great
Britain is the sheet-anchor which alone can hold the vessel of State
amidst the storms that agitate the world.”
‘The peculiarity of the English Constitution is that it is founded upon
and incorporated with the Christian morality. It is a characteristic
which is possessed by no other nation, however free or however great;
and does it not occur to you that the extraordinary prosperity and
duration and apparent future of our Empire is not, perhaps, unconnected
with this famous characteristic?
‘You,’ he concluded, pointing to the Liberal party, ‘proudly claim the
task of carrying the cause of religious liberty to its furthest
imaginable limits; be it ours, I reply, nor is it less noble, to
endeavour to restrain your aspirations within the bounds of reason and
of policy.’
The division produced a great excitement. When the numbers were declared
it was found that the Affirmation Bill had upon its second reading been
cast out by a majority of three (292--289).
The satisfaction of the Tory party and of some of the best and worthiest
people in it at this result was enormous. In the House of Commons very
largely, and outside in the Press and among the electors almost
entirely, the credit of the victory was assigned to Lord Randolph. ‘The
best speech he has ever made’ was Sir Henry James’s comment. The _Punch_
cartoon of the week represented him as Ariel urging his hounds to the
pursuit and expulsion of Caliban. Once again he was the hero of the
hour. One among many letters of approval and congratulation must have
given him especial pleasure, and may be quoted here. ‘Though it is years
since we met,’ wrote Dr. Creighton (May 1, 1883), ‘and though I only
live as a vague memory in your mind, I cannot help writing you a few
lines to say how much I admired your speech last night. As an observer
of the course of politics who tries to give them an historical value, I
watch your career with growing interest. It seems to me that you combine
in a remarkable degree the real principles of statesmanship with an
attention to the conditions under which our political life has to be
carried on. It is easy to be a doctrinaire; it is easy to be a purely
party politician; it is not easy to combine the two into a distinct line
of policy. I recognise with admiration your increasing success in this
direction and your genuine devotion to the serious pursuit of politics.’
‘It is indeed a pleasure to me,’ wrote Lord Randolph in reply, ‘to know
that you have not forgotten your former rather unsatisfactory pupil and
that you follow, not without interest and perhaps with some hope, a
course of which Fate has not yet determined the form or the end.’
The ceremony of April 19, 1883, was the origin of a new idea destined to
spread and flourish over an ever-widening area during all the years that
have followed. The Fourth Party had grown spontaneously out of the
Bradlaugh controversy. The Primrose League sprang from the unveiling of
Lord Beaconsfield’s statue. Sir Henry Wolff did not attend in his place
to hear Sir Stafford Northcote’s speech and Lord Salisbury’s vote of
thanks, and he arrived at the House of Commons late in the afternoon.
The well-known superintendent of the members’ cloak-room, Mr. Cove, said
to him, ‘You must have a primrose,’ and gave him one. Thus adorned, Sir
Henry entered the Chamber and found the whole Conservative party
similarly decorated with Lord Beaconsfield’s favourite flower. The fact
impressed him vividly and he said to Lord Randolph Churchill as they
walked home together, ‘What a show of Primroses! This should be turned
to account. Why not start a “Primrose League”?’ Lord Randolph was
instantly interested. ‘Draw up a plan,’ he said, ‘to carry out your idea
and we will see what can be done.’
Sir Henry Wolff set to work at once. He looked for his models to the
Orange Society which was influential in his constituency of Portsmouth,
and to the numerous benefit societies--Foresters, Oddfellows, Good
Templars, and the like--with which he was acquainted. He saw how popular
the badges, grades, and honorary distinctions of these bodies were with
the working classes who supported them. He resolved that the Primrose
League should be inferior to none of these in the variety of its regalia
or the magniloquence of its titles. He discussed all this at length with
Lord Randolph Churchill from day to day; but it was not until the autumn
that anyone else was admitted to their councils. During October and
November the first practical steps were taken. Lord Randolph Churchill,
Sir John Gorst, Sir Henry Wolff, and Sir Alfred Slade met together to
form ‘a new political society which should embrace all classes and all
creeds except atheists and enemies of the British nation.’ All four were
members of the Council of the National Union. They had exceptional
knowledge of the state of Conservative organisations. They saw quite
clearly the failure of the existing Conservative and Constitutional
Associations to suit the popular taste or to succeed in joining all
classes together in defence of the essential doctrines of Toryism. The
constitution of the League, its objects and its machinery were settled
even in detail at meetings held during these two months. Specimen badges
were made. The declaration to be signed by every member of the League
was drawn up by Sir John Gorst in the following terms: ‘I declare, on my
honour and faith, that I will devote my best ability to the _Maintenance
of Religion_, of the _Estates of the Realm_ and of the _Imperial
Ascendency of the British Empire_, and that, consistently with my
allegiance to the Sovereign of these Realms, I will promote with
discretion and fidelity the above objects, being those of the Primrose
League.’ Finally on November 17, in the card-room of the Carlton Club,
these four gentlemen resolved themselves into the Ruling Council of the
League with power to add to their number.
The circle was then gradually increased by the addition of Lord
Randolph’s closest political allies. Colonel Burnaby, Mr. Percy Mitford,
Mr. Dixon Hartland and Sir Algernon Borthwick attended the next few
meetings. Great efforts were being made by the leaders of the
Conservative party in Birmingham to induce Lord Randolph to stand for
that city. Mr. Joseph Rowlands and other prominent Birmingham men were
frequently in London on that errand; all were pressed into the League.
Lord Randolph Churchill’s numerous relations were enlisted. A Ladies’
Grand Council was formed, of which Lady Randolph and Lady Borthwick were
members and the Duchess of Marlborough the President. A humble office
was taken on a second floor in Essex Street, Strand, and the first
public announcement was made December 18, 1883, in the advertisement
columns of the _Times_ and the _Morning Post_, as follows:--
THE PRIMROSE TORY LEAGUE.--Gentlemen wishing to be enrolled in the
Primrose Tory League must apply in writing to the Registrar,
Primrose League, care of Messrs. Lacy, Hartland & Co., Bankers,
London, E.C., or Messrs. Hopkinson & Sons, Bankers, 3 Regent
Street, London, by whom all information will be supplied.
The new political society was in its beginnings viewed with sour
distrust by all Conservatives who were officially orthodox, virtuous and
loyal. It was regarded as a dodge of the Fourth Party and a new weapon
of schism. The struggle on the council of the National Union during the
year 1884, which must soon be described, intensified these feelings. The
early Primrose knights and dames wore their badges everywhere in public
and faced in consequence the keenest ridicule. The _Morning Post_ was
their only substantial ally. The statutes and ordinances of the League
excited the derision of almost all of those who, a few years later, were
proud to subscribe to them. The idea in itself was vital; but only the
personality of Lord Randolph Churchill and the hopes and enthusiasms
which he excited, prevented it from being smothered during its first few
months of existence. As it was, only 957 members--including, however,
many persons of influence--had enrolled themselves by the end of 1884,
and 11,366 by the end of 1885. The Home Rule struggle raised these
numbers to 237,283 in 1886 and 565,861 in 1887. A million members was
reached in 1891 and the League claims at the present time, twenty-one
years after its foundation, to have 1,703,708 knights, dames, and
associates upon its rolls; and although its merits as a national
institution must necessarily be variously appraised, its power and
utility as a political engine have never been questioned.
As the session drew on, the warfare in the House of Commons became
fiercer. Day after day Lord Randolph and his friends assailed the
Government with amazing variety and increasing violence. The Prime
Minister was repeatedly forced to defend himself and his colleagues from
reproach and his encounters with Lord Randolph Churchill were of almost
nightly occurrence. ‘You will kill Mr. Gladstone one of these days,’
said some one to Lord Randolph. ‘Oh, no!’ he rejoined, ‘he will long
survive me. I often tell my wife what a beautiful letter he will write
her, proposing my burial in Westminster Abbey.’
[Illustration: Primrose League Diploma of Knighthood certificate]
In all this fighting the hostility of the Front Opposition Bench to the
Fourth Party was very plainly marked. Sir Stafford Northcote repeatedly
dissociated himself from Lord Randolph, repudiated him, rebuked him, and
even supported the Government against him. A Treasury minute had been
issued forbidding Civil Servants to petition the Government through
members of Parliament. Forthwith Lord Randolph announced that on a named
day he would present 250 petitions signed by over 2,000 Civil
Servants. Although Ministers took no action against the signatories,
Lord Randolph raised the whole matter in the House as a question of
privilege. In his speech he attacked extravagantly Mr. Algernon West,
who, as Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, had signed the
offending circular. He condemned the practice of Cabinet Ministers--Sir
Stafford Northcote as well as Mr. Gladstone--of appointing their former
private secretaries to important posts in the Civil Service. The
training of a private secretary--‘among the backstairs intrigues and
dirty work of office’--was no fit preparation for departmental
employment. An attack on a public servant ‘who cannot defend himself’ is
always resented by the supporters of a Government. On this occasion Mr.
Gladstone and Sir Stafford Northcote vied with each other in terms of
reprobation. Sir Stafford said he had never heard so many misstatements
in a single speech. Mr. Gladstone regretted that Lord Randolph should
degrade his Parliamentary position by such conduct. The House indulged
itself in that pleasant warmth which comes from righteous indignation.
Lord Randolph had persuaded himself, upon a mass of evidence collected
for him by Mr. Wilfrid Blunt and others in Egypt, that the Khedive
Tewfik was indirectly responsible for the massacre of June 11, 1882,
which he believed had been instigated from the palace in order to
compass the ruin of Arabi and the national movement, and provoke
decisively the intervention of the European Powers. Having adopted this
opinion, he held tenaciously to it, and thrust it upon Parliament with
earnestness and even with passion. Although in the first instance he had
supported the pension to Lord Alcester for his services in bombarding
Alexandria, on the ground that it was a reward to the naval profession
as a whole, he availed himself of the passage of the necessary Bill
(June 8) to bring forward his charges against the Khedive. The House was
astonished at his vehemence. The Prime Minister’s reply was, however,
curiously guarded. He did not absolutely deny the charge. All he said
was that the information in the possession of the Government afforded
not the least confirmation of it. It was a ‘tremendous charge,’ and the
Government would be glad to examine the evidence on which it was based.
Indeed, it was Sir Stafford Northcote who used the hardest language.
While admitting that he considered the warlike intervention in Egypt
wrong and unjustifiable, he expressed ‘extreme regret’ at Lord
Randolph’s attempt to raise such an issue on the vote for a naval reward
to a distinguished officer. ‘I decline,’ he said, ‘to be led by the
noble lord, and I trust the House will decline to be induced by the
noble lord to accept a position which I consider would be degrading to
its honour.’ This, as Mr. Gorst said later in the debate, was a
statement which would have been better made by the Prime Minister than
by the leader of the Opposition, who, however he might view the opinions
of Lord Randolph Churchill, should leave it to opponents to attack him.
The affair proceeded further. One of Arabi’s officers, Suleiman Sami,
was brought before a courtmartial on the charge of burning Alexandria.
The witnesses demanded by the defence were not allowed to appear; the
trial was unexpectedly curtailed; and the prisoner was sentenced to
death. Lord Randolph exerted himself to procure at least delay before
the sentence was executed, in order that the irregularities at the trial
might be exposed. He declared that Suleiman Sami was himself a witness
whose death would be ‘a god-send to the Egyptian Government.’ Plied with
questions and appeals, the Government undertook to make inquiries; but
before any satisfactory information was obtained and while the House was
still under the impression that the matter was in suspense, Suleiman
Sami was hanged. On this being known the feeling in the Conservative
party was so strong that Sir Stafford himself moved the adjournment of
the House to discuss the conduct of Ministers in regard to the
execution, which Lord Randolph furiously described as ‘the grossest and
vilest judicial murder that ever stained the annals of Oriental
justice.’ In this attack the Fourth Party were supported by the great
mass of Conservative members.
At Mr. Gladstone’s invitation, Lord Randolph laid before him a quantity
of evidence which he had obtained in support of his assertions. This
evidence was examined by Ministers and officially rejected; but it is
remarkable that the Government took no steps, by rebutting it in detail,
to discredit their pertinacious assailant. They could not tell how far
a fearless and impartial inquiry into the labyrinth of sanguinary
intrigue which had cumbered the field of Egyptian politics before the
British intervention might carry them. They wrapped themselves in a
silence of prudence or disdain, and Lord Randolph continued to repeat
his statements with undiminished assurance. He forwarded formally to Sir
Stafford Northcote, among others, a copy of the evidence he had sent to
the Prime Minister. The style and superscription of the acknowledging
letter afford a key to their relations at this period:--
30 St. James’s Place: July 1, 1883.
Dear Lord R. Churchill,--I am much obliged to you for sending me a
copy of the papers you have submitted to Mr. Gladstone.--I remain
faithfully yours,
STAFFORD H. NORTHCOTE.
The Bill for the Suppression of Corrupt and Illegal Practices at
Parliamentary Elections brought the Fourth Party together almost for the
last time. As it passed through the Committee stage in the beginning of
July, all the four friends spoke frequently upon it and supported each
other. One night, July 3, having dined together at Lord Randolph’s
house, they descended upon the House of Commons rather late and, not
having heard the early part of the discussion, demanded with perverse
audacity that the Chairman should read the clause, as it stood amended,
from the Chair. Sir Henry Wolff was the first to make the request and he
threatened to move to report progress unless it was granted. Mr.
Gladstone--always in attendance on the House--did not deny the right of
members to make such a demand; but hoped that an evil precedent would
not be established. Lord Randolph appealed to the Chair. The Chairman
intimated that, having read the clause twice, he would read it no more.
Mr. Balfour then made a conciliatory speech, proposing that as a
compromise the Attorney-General, Sir Henry James, should read the
clause. Sir Henry James refused. Sir Henry Wolff thereupon moved to
report progress. By this time the House was very full. Sir Stafford
Northcote supported the Government and urged Sir Henry not to persist.
Lord Randolph then, under repeated interruptions from Ministerialists,
amid growing excitement, attacked the Government and Mr. Gladstone and
Mr. Herbert Gladstone ‘brought in to cheer the Prime Minister’ and all
their works; but to Sir Stafford he was very polite and deferential and
he expressed in modest language the hope that the leader of the
Opposition would, after all, support them in their protest. The appeal
was, however, fruitless.
On one occasion about this time Lord Salisbury himself seems to have
expostulated with Sir Henry Wolff. But the member for Portsmouth had his
own methods of defence. ‘I do not understand,’ said Lord Salisbury as
they walked together one day, ‘what your real political position is.’
‘Oh, I am a “Smithite,” Lord Salisbury,’ replied Sir Henry
reverentially,--‘a convinced “Smithite” in politics.’ ‘But what is your
object?’ inquired the Tory leader. ‘To do good,’ was the bland
response,--‘simply to do good’; and the conversation passed on to other
topics.
From these contentions Lord Randolph was suddenly withdrawn by a solemn
and unexpected event. On June 28 the Duke of Marlborough persuaded the
House of Lords to reject by a narrow majority (145--140) the Deceased
Wife’s Sister Bill upon its third reading. His speech was perhaps the
best he had ever made. It was also his last. On the night of July 4,
when he went to bed, he seemed in the best of health and spirits. Early
the next morning he was found dead by his servants, struck down by that
same swift, unheralded affection of the heart which was a few years
later to end the life of his heir. Lord Randolph was profoundly shocked
and grieved by his father’s death. He passed many hours reading over his
father’s letters, all carefully preserved from his boyhood days. That
strong religious strain in his nature to which reference has already
been made, afforded him consolation in this season of trouble and,
though always a devout man, he became much more regular in devotional
exercises than at any other period of his life. He had in his hands the
threads of half a dozen political enterprises, for the success of which
his constant presence in the House of Commons was necessary. He cast
them all away from him and retired at once to Blenheim. Many appeals
were made to him to return to the arena, where his absence was instantly
felt and regretted even by those in his own party who were antagonistic
to him. But nothing would induce him to go near Parliament for the rest
of the year. ‘You are very kind,’ he wrote to Wolff, ‘wanting me to come
back to the House; but it is quite impossible. I am not up to it
physically or mentally, and am longing to get away abroad.... It is very
melancholy here--sad recollections at every moment. Nothing can be nicer
than Blandford to everyone.’
The two brothers were very closely drawn together by their common
mourning, and all bitterness faded at once out of the political world.
Sir Stafford Northcote wrote, in the gentle courtesy of his nature, a
generous and affectionate letter of sympathy and regret and a private
correspondence followed between them which stands in pleasant contrast
to the general course of their relations and shows that in modern times
personal kindness and good feeling lie never very far below the sullen
surface of English politics.
Lord Randolph hurried away with his wife and son to Gastein before the
month was out and here his spirits gradually regained their usual
buoyancy. His brother joined him late in August and they dawdled home
together through Switzerland, visiting its beautiful places, climbing
the Rigi ‘like the meanest and commonest of Tow Rows,’ and so back to
Blenheim. During the autumn and winter the Duke of Marlborough persuaded
Lord Randolph to start again his pack of harriers; and this
pursuit--together with the project, about which the new master of
Blenheim was keenly excited, of bringing the railway from Oxford to
Woodstock--proved so absorbing that politics seem for a time to have
been almost abandoned.