THE REFORM BILL
Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri,
Quo me cunque rapit tempestas deferor hospes.
HORACE.
Sworn to no master, of no sect am I,
As drives the storm, at any door I knock.
POPE’S _Imitations_.
The Parliamentary session of 1884 began ill for Her Majesty’s Ministers
and its first month was like enough to have been their last. While the
mover and seconder of the Address to the Crown in either House were
purring ceremonious optimism about the improvement of the Egyptian
situation, the news arrived that General Valentine Baker’s wretched army
had been utterly destroyed by Osman Digna in a vain attempt to relieve
Tokar. So little disposed, indeed, were the Government to discuss
Egyptian affairs that they allowed the debate in the Commons to collapse
in a single night without any official reply to the serious attacks
which had been made; and it was only revived next day through Lord
Randolph’s moving the adjournment of the House, in somewhat unusual
procedure, to protest against their silence.
Hard upon the heels of Soudan disaster, and equally unwelcome, came Mr.
Bradlaugh. Judgment had been delivered in the Court of Queen’s Bench
upon the suit Bradlaugh _v._ Gosset, brought by the member for
Northampton against the Serjeant-at-Arms for excluding him from the
precincts of the House. The Court, while admitting the absolute command
of the Houses of Parliament over their own discipline, rules of
procedure, and interpretation thereof, asserted that resolutions of
either House could not affect Acts imposing fines and penalties. The
opportunity was thus presented to Mr. Bradlaugh of testing in the Courts
the value of a self-administered oath followed by a vote in Parliament.
Once again, therefore (February 11), he presented himself at the table.
Once again the members broke into a storm of shouting which drowned his
voice. Once again the Leader of the House sat silent and powerless. But
the battlefield had now become familiar to the Opposition. Sir Stafford
Northcote moved that the member for Northampton be not permitted to go
through the form of repeating the words of the oath. Mr. Labouchere
provoked the House to a division, in which Mr. Bradlaugh voted. Motion
was made forthwith to expunge his vote. Mr. Bradlaugh voted again upon
this. When it was realised that his vote could always be recorded once
oftener than it could be disallowed, the numbers of the first division
were read out and Sir Stafford Northcote’s motion was carried by 280 to
187. A further motion to exclude Mr. Bradlaugh from the precincts of the
House was agreed to without voting. Mr. Bradlaugh thereafter applied for
the Chiltern Hundreds and, his seat being thus vacated, Mr. Labouchere
moved for a new writ. This was granted by the House in spite of Lord
Randolph’s opposition. The electors of Northampton returned Mr.
Bradlaugh without delay by a largely increased majority. Sir Stafford
Northcote again moved his old motion to exclude him from the House and,
although the Prime Minister spoke impressively against it, the motion
was carried (February 26) by 226 to 173.
The Government were scarcely free from the humiliations of this affair
when fresh tidings of massacre and disaster arrived from the Soudan.
Despairing of relief after the destruction of Baker’s army, the garrison
of Tokar surrendered. The garrison of Sinkat perished in an attempt to
cut their way to the coast. While the fate of these places was
inevitably approaching, votes of censure were moved in both Houses of
Parliament. In the Lords the motion of Lord Cairns and Lord Salisbury
was affirmed by 181 to 81. In the Commons the debate followed what was
becoming the usual course. Sir Stafford Northcote made a long, mild, and
moderate speech, to which Mr. Gladstone replied vigorously. The moment
he sat down Lord Randolph Churchill sprang up to attack him in rhetoric
which can only be sustained by passion in few men and on rare occasions.
‘“Too late!”’ he cried. ‘“Too late!” is an awful cry. From time
immemorial it has heralded and proclaimed the slaughter of routed
armies, the flight of dethroned monarchs, the crash of falling Empires.
Wherever human blood has been poured out in torrents, wherever human
misery has been accumulated in mountains, wherever disasters have
occurred which have shaken the world to its very centre, there straight
and swift, up to heaven, or down to hell, has always gone the appalling
cry, “Too late! Too late!” The Opposition cannot but move a vote of
censure upon a Government whose motto is “Too late!” The Liberals should
be chary of giving support to a Government whose motto is “Too late!”;
and the people of this country will undoubtedly repudiate a Government
whose motto is invariably “Too late!”’
The Conservative party, profoundly stirred by tales of blood and shame,
continued shouting at this fierce conclusion long after the orator had
ceased.
From these embarrassments and humiliations the Government found a happy
escape which for a while entirely transformed the Parliamentary
situation and placed them, in the fifth year of their troubled
existence, once again in a position of great advantage. The story of the
Reform Bill of 1884 may be briefly told. By enlargements of the
household franchise and by assimilation of the county and borough
franchise, two million new electors would be called into being and the
total electorate raised from three to five millions. The momentum which
this ponderous measure acquired was great enough to carry it forward
through all sections of the Liberal party and over all opposition in the
House of Commons, and to throw on one side or the other, as irrelevant
or impracticable, principles as democratic as ‘one man one vote,’ causes
as cherished as ‘Female Suffrage,’ devices as intricate and attractive
as proportional representation. The Bill itself became an object of
paramount desire. ‘It is,’ said Mr. Gladstone in introducing it, ‘a Bill
worth having; again I say it is a Bill worth your not endangering. Let
us enter into no by-way which would lead us off the path marked straight
out before us. Let there be no wanderings on the hill-tops of
speculation or into the morasses and fogs of doubt. What we want to
carry this Bill is union, and union only. What will endanger it is
disunion, and disunion only.’ And so it proved.
The position of the Conservative party had been very ill-defined on the
question of Parliamentary Reform ever since 1867. Mr. Disraeli’s action
had deprived them for ever of the right to oppose large extensions of
the franchise on principle. Tory Democracy, especially in Lancashire,
though hostile to the Government, looked with favour on their proposal.
Reform was a national as well as a party movement. Yet, on the other
hand, some of the strongest and most unyielding forces in the Tory
ranks--the county members in the House of Commons and Lord Salisbury in
the House of Lords--were prepared to offer a stubborn resistance to the
change.
Nor, indeed, were they without grave reason from their point of view.
Hitherto the county Conservatives had been mainly, if not entirely,
selected and returned by farmers and landowners. The great labouring
population had been altogether excluded from political power. Now that
the franchise was offered to them, they welcomed it with greater
earnestness and enthusiasm than they have ever displayed on any other
question. Social reforms were good enough in their way but it was the
_vote_ on which they had set their hearts. There was a temper among them
that no one who understood county politics, could mistake and that
filled the Conservative representatives of a hundred seats with a
profound dismay. The overwhelming electorate that was to be, regarded
the interest of the farmer and landlord as fundamentally antagonistic to
their own. Any representative or candidate who was agreeable to the
farmer, must therefore be an enemy of theirs. Gratitude for the boon
which was offered, threw them still more completely on the Liberal side;
and the country party, once all powerful, long predominant, always
exercising enormous influence, now looked political extermination in the
face.
Lord Randolph Churchill’s course through this memorable controversy is
not marked by that clearness of view or consistency of action which may
be claimed for him during his whole life upon so many important
questions. In a letter written some years afterwards he speaks of it as
‘the only sharp curve’ revealed by his published speeches. But, in
truth, the forces which he employed, as well as those with which he was
contending, were complex and uncertain to a degree beyond description.
Tory Democracy wanted to pass the Bill, yet wanted to destroy the
Government. The Conservative party, as a whole, hated the Bill, hated
the Government, yet were unable to agree upon uncompromising
opposition. These perplexities were multiplied by the struggle for
mastery which was proceeding between the rival Parliamentary groups upon
the Council of the National Union and by the varying relations of Lord
Randolph Churchill towards Lord Salisbury and the official party
leaders. The Fourth Party was fated to perish amid this intricate
confusion. Its members criticised and even attacked one another and,
though they still all sat together in their old places, their old
comradeship was utterly destroyed.
It was known during the autumn of 1883 that the question of Reform was
occupying the Cabinet and would probably issue in a Bill. On December
19, 1883, when Lord Randolph was delivering his ‘trilogy’ at Edinburgh,
he had dealt among other matters with the question of Reform. Attacking
the Government, he was easily led into attacking their project. As the
representative of a small agricultural borough he could not, as he
himself said afterwards, be expected to look upon a measure for the
extinction of Woodstock ‘with any very longing eye.’ The divided state
of opinion in the Conservative party had not then been disclosed. He
believed that they would insist upon fighting the Bill to the death and
he was willing to stand with them in such a struggle. He therefore spoke
against Reform--not, indeed, in principle--but on the ground of (1) the
inopportuneness of the moment chosen and the far more urgent character
of other questions; (2) the obvious risk of any large addition to the
Irish electorate; (3) the transparent design of the Government to
divert public attention from foreign affairs; (4) the absence of any
indication, on the part of the unenfranchised masses, of any great
desire for the voting privilege.[22] His words, though listened to with
attention and respect, were plainly not acceptable to the audience of
Scotch artisans. They wanted to cheer the Tory Democrat: but they also
wanted Reform. A more surprising incident followed. Mr. Balfour and Lord
Elcho, who were on the platform, both thought it necessary then and
there to declare themselves in favour of the assimilation of the county
and borough franchise. Before Parliament assembled the utter lack of
unanimity in the Conservative party against the Bill was evident and all
chance of resisting it consequently perished.
The attempt to overthrow the Government on their Egyptian policy having
failed, the Reform Bill was introduced. Lord Randolph proposed to meet
it on the second reading by moving the previous question--‘that the
question be not now put.’ This form of opposition asserted most of the
objections he had stated at Edinburgh, without committing anyone who
might support it to resistance to Reform on principle. He secured
precedence for his motion. But the Conservative leaders, who were also
unable to meet the Bill squarely, attempted a parry of their own. They
declared that they could not agree to the extension of the franchise
unless it were coupled with provision for a redistribution of seats. A
motion in this sense was placed upon the paper by Lord John Manners in
the name of the Opposition. In so far as this motion allowed it to be
assumed that the leaders of the Conservative party were favourable to
the extension of the franchise, if only it were accompanied by
redistribution, it was plainly a pretence. But there was one element of
grim reality about it. A dissolution upon the extended electorate before
redistribution had taken effect would have been peculiarly injurious to
Conservative interests both in town and country. At Sir Stafford
Northcote’s request Lord Randolph Churchill removed his motion of ‘the
previous question’ from the paper and issue was accordingly joined upon
the motion of Lord John Manners. Even this modified and rather
meaningless form of resistance did not secure the support of the entire
Conservative party. At the beginning of the session the Government
majority had fallen to 17. They carried the second reading of the ‘Bill
for the Representation of the People,’ as it was officially styled, by a
majority of 130 (340-210).
Confronted with such evidences of the impossibility of further resisting
the measure as a whole, Lord Randolph Churchill now abandoned altogether
his opposition. He thought that if the Conservative party were not
prepared to fight the Bill, there was no reason why they should incur
the odium and the hazards, without the satisfactions of war, or the hope
of victory. Moreover, he had in the meanwhile accepted the invitation to
contest Birmingham at the General Election, and in exchanging a large
democratic constituency for a family borough he was naturally freed from
those special reasons connected with Woodstock which had previously
influenced him.
These arguments were no doubt fortified by the progress of the debates
in the House of Commons. It soon became certain that the Bill would pass
and that the Conservative party could offer it no united and general
resistance. It became, moreover, evident that the most bitter opponents
of Lord Randolph Churchill personally and of Tory Democracy as an idea,
were also the most bitter opponents of Reform. The line of cleavage
between the New and the Old Tories ran through the whole question. The
very fact that the ‘old gang’ were obstinately against the measure
influenced Lord Randolph powerfully in its favour and he was not the man
to allow a single precipitate speech to separate him from those
progressive forces in the Conservative party whose representative he
was. ‘An unchanging mind,’ he observed on one occasion, ‘is an admirable
possession--a possession which I devoutly hope I shall never possess.’
He declared publicly that he now regarded Reform as inevitable, and that
the principles of the assimilation of the county and borough franchise
and of equality of political rights between England and Ireland must
henceforth govern Conservatives as well as Liberals. The Fourth Party
therefore, after the second reading, became the friends of the Reform
Bill and genuinely and materially assisted its passage.
While the Bill was passing through Committee the quarrel in the National
Union was at its height, and Lord Randolph and his handful of friends
became increasingly hostile to the Conservative leaders and consequently
more favourable to Reform. He and Mr. Gorst voted and Sir Henry Wolff
spoke against Sir R. Cross’s amendment which affected the principle of
the Bill. The question of the date at which the Reform Bill should come
into force, exercised the Conservative party and was vital to the
position of conditional resistance they had perforce adopted. Sir Henry
Wolff, in the name of the Fourth Party, made a motion which would have
had the effect of postponing the decision upon this point until a later
stage. His suggestion was willingly accepted by Mr. Gladstone in the
interests of a compromise. Colonel Stanley, however, proposed from the
Front Opposition Bench at once to insert words delaying the operation of
the Franchise Bill until Redistribution had been effected. Lord Randolph
Churchill on this said bluntly that he had changed his mind since the
beginning of the session and he argued that while it might have been
possible to fight the Bill with a united party, it was foolish to incur
popular displeasure by futile attempts to wreck it. Colonel Stanley’s
amendment was dismissed by a large majority (276-182).
The tactics of the Fourth Party were supported by a few independent
members, but the serious cleavage in the Tory ranks was revealed more
evidently by the number of Conservatives who failed, during various
divisions in Committee, to sustain the Opposition leaders in the Lobby.
Lord Randolph’s refusal to fight provoked indignant complaints from
those old-fashioned country Tories who, faced by political ruin in their
seats, naturally wished to offer the Bill an unyielding resistance, no
matter at what cost to party interests in general; and, as may be
imagined, they did not neglect to quote Lord Randolph’s Edinburgh speech
against him. To charges of inconsistency which were not indeed denied,
Lord Randolph and his supporters retorted by accusing the Conservative
leaders of being secretly anxious to kill a measure they did not dare
openly to assail. During these debates the separation of Mr. Balfour
from the rest of the Fourth Party became notorious. Lord Randolph,
reproached with having abandoned his attitude of strong opposition to
Reform, adroitly attributed his conversion to Mr. Balfour and Lord
Elcho, who had proclaimed at Edinburgh their dissent from his earlier
opinion. Mr. Balfour replied with some acidness that ‘his noble friend’s
efforts to be in perfect accord with the Conservative party, numerous
and well-intentioned as they were, did not seem to be crowned with
success.’ Through the ineptitude of some of their leaders and the
perversity of others the Opposition, alike above and below the gangway,
cut a poor figure during the debates on the ‘Bill for the Representation
of the People.’
Perhaps the most direct divergence occurred on Mr. Brodrick’s amendment
to omit Ireland from the scope of the new franchise. We have seen how
Lord Randolph, as a young man in the Parliament of 1874, had first
supported and later on--when circumstances had changed--opposed the
extension to Ireland of electoral privileges similar to and simultaneous
with those enjoyed in Great Britain. His speech at Edinburgh had laid
emphasis on the danger of any large accession to the Irish vote. Only a
few days before the question was discussed he had been re-elected, as
described in the last chapter, to the chairmanship of the Council of the
National Union. It was popularly assumed that he had come to terms with
Lord Salisbury, and their reported reconciliation had been
ostentatiously paraded in the party press. But when Lord Randolph
resumed the debate on May 20, it soon appeared that he was still
recalcitrant. Amid an ominous silence on the Conservative benches he
asked Mr. Brodrick to withdraw his amendment, and declared that he had
made up his mind to vote against it if it were carried to a division. He
then declared once and for all in favour of the equal and similar
treatment of Ireland in all matters of electoral reform; and this
principle of ‘similarity and simultaneity,’ as it came to be called, has
since been commonly identified with his name. One passage in this speech
was at the time greatly admired and applauded. Mr. Smith during the
autumn had argued that no votes should be given to Irish peasants who
lived in mud-cabins, and the ‘mud-cabin’ argument had become a very
prominent feature in the debate. Lord Randolph dealt with this
contention in his most polished Parliamentary style.
‘I have heard,’ he said, ‘a great deal of the mud-cabin argument. For
that we are indebted to the brilliant, ingenious, and fertile mind of
the right honourable member for Westminster.[23] I suppose that in the
minds of the lords of suburban villas, of the owners of vineries and
pineries, the mud-cabin represents the climax of physical and social
degradation. But the franchise in England has never been determined by
Parliament with respect to the character of the dwellings. The
difference between the cabin of the Irish peasant and the cottage of the
English agricultural labourer is not so great as that which exists
between the abode of the right honourable member for Westminster and the
humble roof which shelters from the storm the individual who now has the
honour to address the Committee.’ When the cheers and laughter had
subsided he went on to quote the famous lines:--
Non ebur, neque aureum
Meâ renidet in domo lacunar;
Non trabes Hymettiae
Premunt columnas ultimâ recisas
Africâ.
‘But if the right honourable member for Westminster were to propose to
the Committee that he himself should have a vote at Parliamentary
elections and that I should have none, I feel sure the House of Commons
would repudiate the proposal with indignation and disgust.’ The
‘mud-cabin’ argument seems after this to have disappeared altogether
from Parliamentary warfare and Mr. Brodrick’s amendment was rejected by
the enormous majority of 332 to 137. After this the resistance of the
Opposition in the House of Commons was at an end. The third reading of
the Bill was allowed to pass _nemine contradicente_ and entered
accordingly on the journals of the House. The Bill then went to the
House of Lords at the end of June; and there, by amendments supported by
majorities of 59 and 50, it was incontinently destroyed. The collision
between the two Houses was direct, and a dangerous excitement arose in
the country.
Although unwilling to impede the progress of the Reform Bill and
decidedly predisposed to take action contrary to the views of his own
pastors above the gangway in order to put a spoke in their wheel, Lord
Randolph was the most unrelenting and vigilant opponent of the Liberal
Government. Whenever and wherever a favourable chance of fighting
occurred he was the foremost man, and many furious wrangles between him
and Mr. Gladstone, or Mr. Chamberlain or Sir Charles Dilke marked the
course of the session. In the quarrel between the two Houses after the
rejection of the Bill in the House of Lords, he exerted himself to his
utmost on behalf of the House of Lords and laid on the Prime Minister
the whole responsibility for the dangerous constitutional situation
which had arisen and was becoming increasingly grave. Hansard and the
newspapers record these battles in ample detail. Sometimes he found
powerful support. On one occasion, when a dispute arose with Sir Charles
Dilke as to the accuracy of a quotation from Lord Randolph’s speeches,
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach said abruptly that ‘he preferred to believe the
word of his noble friend to that of the right honourable baronet’--an
observation which he was required by the Speaker to withdraw. On another
occasion Lord Randolph charged the Prime Minister with having ‘traduced’
his opponents by representing that Lord Salisbury had said in the course
of a confidential conversation that he would not discuss Redistribution
‘with a rope round his neck,’ and he moved the adjournment of the House.
Mr. Gladstone, violently incensed, described this word ‘traduce’--which
he declared implied a wilful and disgraceful act, not arising from
error--as ‘foul language.’ Lord Randolph immediately rose to order, and
asked the Speaker whether the Prime Minister was to be allowed to use
words which would not be tolerated in any other member. The Speaker
hoped that Mr. Gladstone would not insist on employing the expression.
The Prime Minister’s reply was accepted as a withdrawal, though his
actual words do not favour that construction. It is said that this was
the only time in his whole career when Mr. Gladstone incurred the rebuke
of the Chair. Lord Randolph seems to have been distressed at having
offended his great antagonist so deeply. Later in the debate he rose
again. ‘Recollecting,’ he said, ‘the vast difference which separates me
from the Prime Minister, I wish to say that it never has been and never
will be my intention, during the many years I hope he will remain in
this House, to use language in any way incompatible with his lofty
position.’ Mr. Gladstone received this assurance with much magnificent
urbanity. ‘I was no doubt at the moment a little irritated at language
that I thought very strong; but on reflection I must own that the noble
lord has always been very courteous to me.’
But whether, in these vexed and protracted debates, Lord Randolph
Churchill attacked the Prime Minister or harassed his own leaders;
whether he was supported by loud applauses of Conservative members or
heard by them in chilly silence; whether he seemed to be the accepted
spokesman of the Opposition or a solitary politician--his hand against
every man and every man’s hand against him--his almost unerring eye for
a Parliamentary situation, his mastery over the House and his formidable
power for good or evil upon the fortunes of his party became continually
more evident. Alone, or almost alone, he waged his double warfare
against Government and Opposition. Assailed on all sides--from the
Ministerial box, from the Front Opposition Bench, from those who sat
before him and behind him and even beside him; confronted with his own
contradictory statements, now by one side, now by the other; rebuked by
the Prime Minister, repeatedly repudiated by his colleagues and
leaders, he nevertheless preserved throughout an air of haughty
composure and met or repelled all attacks with resourceful and undaunted
pluck. ‘Tory Democracy,’ said Mr. Chamberlain during a vehement speech
in favour of the Reform Bill (House of Commons, March 27), ‘of which we
shall hear a good deal in the future, is represented in this House by
the member for Woodstock. I pay the greatest attention to anything he
says because I find that what he says to-day his leaders say to-morrow.
They follow him with halting steps, somewhat unwillingly; but they
always follow him. They may not always like the prescription he makes up
for them; but they always swallow it.’
Meanwhile the second vote of censure upon the conduct of Egyptian
affairs had been debated. On May 12 Sir Michael Hicks-Beach moved: ‘That
this House regrets to find the course pursued by Her Majesty’s
Government has not tended to promote the success of General Gordon’s
mission and that even such steps as may be necessary to secure his
personal safety are delayed.’ The attack was vigorously delivered. The
Prime Minister’s reply was judged inadequate and disquieting, even by
many of his own supporters. Mr. Forster assailed him during the debate
harshly and sternly. The weight and earnestness of Lord Hartington alone
retrieved Ministerial fortunes. Lord Randolph Churchill spoke (May 13)
to a larger audience, according to the newspapers, than had gathered to
hear any other speaker; and the benches, the gangways and the spaces
below the bar and behind the Chair were all filled to overflowing.
Despite the bitterness of the struggle in the National Union, the
wrangles over the Reform Bill of almost nightly recurrence and the
antagonisms which these had excited, the Conservative members broke into
loud acclamation at his rising. Before he had spoken for a quarter of an
hour he was sustained by the cheering of the whole party. He scourged
Mr. Gladstone relentlessly. He applied to him the well-known story of
the Duke of Wellington sitting down after making a speech on Reform amid
a great buzz of conversation and, on asking the reason for the
excitement, being told: ‘My Lord Duke, you have announced the fall of
your Government.’ It was curious, he said, how different individuals
appealed to the Prime Minister’s sympathies. ‘I compared his efforts in
the cause of General Gordon with his efforts in the cause of Mr.
Bradlaugh. If a hundredth part of those invaluable moral qualities
bestowed upon the cause of a seditious blasphemer had been given to the
support of a Christian hero, the success of Gordon’s mission would have
been assured. But the finest speech he ever delivered in the House of
Commons was in support of the seditious blasphemer; and the very worst
he ever delivered, by common consent, was in the cause of the Christian
hero.’ At this there was a great tumult.
Towards the end, when he had his party thoroughly behind him, Lord
Randolph took occasion to declare, in the form of an elaborate eulogy
upon Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, his intentions as to the leadership of
the House of Commons. ‘I hear a great deal about the deplorable weakness
of the Opposition; but I did not detect any deplorable weakness in the
speech of the right honourable gentleman who proposed this motion; nor
did I detect any deplorable weakness in the sonorous and resonant cheers
which greeted that speech continually from beginning to end--a speech
with reference to which I may be permitted to remark that it was a
magnificent indictment, all the more magnificent because it was so
measured and so grave; and I think it must have recalled to the Prime
Minister himself the palmy days of Tory leadership.’
‘The Government,’ he concluded, ‘when they went to Egypt abandoned every
atom of principle which they possessed. Egypt has been a Nemesis to them
and will, I believe, be their ruin. But the whole question is at last,
thank God, presented to us in an intelligible form. Will you or will you
not rescue Gordon? Answer “Aye” or “No.” The people of England and
Scotland, and of Ireland also, I believe, say “Aye.”’ (Cries of “No”
from the Ministerial benches and cheers.) ‘The Prime Minister and a few
Radical fanatics say “No”; but great as is the Prime Minister’s power,
long as has been his career and dazzling as his eloquence is, the odds
against him on this question are so overwhelming that even he must
either submit or resign.’ The Government escaped defeat only by
twenty-eight votes. Thirty-one Home Rulers voted with the Tory party;
and fifteen, or enough to have carried the censure, voted with
Ministers. The debate and the division alike foreshadowed the events of
1885.
While the fortunes of battle in the House of Commons varied thus from
day to day, the attention of both factions in the National Union was
concentrated on the approaching Conference of delegates from all parts
of the country, when the new Council must be elected. The chairmanship
depended upon the complexion of the Council. Lord Percy, the official
candidate, and his friends entertained hopes that an appeal to the
delegates to stand by the official leaders of the party and to repudiate
disloyalty would result in the election of a Council hostile to Lord
Randolph Churchill. To this end nothing was neglected. A careful and
earnest canvass was set on foot, supported by all the influence which
the representatives of the old and high Toryism could command.
Sheffield, it appears, was specially selected for the meeting-place, as
the local members were hostile to Lord Randolph; and that authority in
its highest embodiment should not be lacking, Lord Salisbury himself
undertook to address the assembled delegates at the evening meeting.
On the other hand Lord Randolph Churchill’s friends were not idle, and
Mr. Gorst’s great experience in all matters of organisation proved
invaluable; but when all had been done, the event rested upon a popular
vote, the character of which none could forecast. The Conference was
awaited by all parties with anxiety and excitement, and passion ran high
in the weeks that preceded it. Lord Randolph had promised informally to
speak for Mr. Stuart-Wortley at Sheffield. Consequent upon that
gentleman’s hostility he now refused. He was pressed to reconsider his
decision in order to avoid making differences public. He refused. The
report of the Council of the National Union was now prepared for the
Conference. It contained a succinct account of the course of the
quarrel, with many of the letters published in the last chapter. It was
felt that its circulation would be damaging to party interests. Mr.
Hartley, ‘at risk even of annoying you,’ wrote (July 9) to urge that it
should be suppressed or modified. Lord Randolph curtly replied that the
report unanimously adopted by the Council for presentation to the
Conference could not now be altered without authority. A requisition
under the rules of the National Union, duly signed by five members of
the Council, was forwarded to Lord Randolph (July 10) demanding a
special meeting for the purpose of revising the report. Availing himself
of the discretionary power reserved to the Chairman under by-law No. 23,
Lord Randolph declined to act upon the requisition.
The following correspondence also passed at this time between him and
Sir Stafford Northcote:--
_Sir Stafford Northcote to Lord Randolph Churchill._
_Private._
30 St. James’s Place, S.W.: July 10, 1884.
Dear Lord Randolph,--Will you be able to give me a few minutes’
conversation after Mr. Gladstone has made his statement to-night?
We ought, I think, as soon as the intentions of the Government have
been disclosed, to come to some arrangement for a meeting in
London (either St. James’s Hall, Duke of Wellington’s Riding
School, or elsewhere, but _not_ out of doors) in order to give the
keynote for the party in the country. I would not make it a meeting
about the Reform Bill exclusively, but have three or four
resolutions--one a general review of the Ministerial misdeeds;
another a growl about Egypt; another on the question of the
Franchise Bill; and a concluding one urging a dissolution, unless
Gladstone has already announced one.
I should like to consult you about the resolutions and about some
other points.
I remain
Yours very faithfully,
STAFFORD H. NORTHCOTE.
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Sir Stafford Northcote._
2 Connaught Place, W.: July 10, 1884.
Dear Sir Stafford Northcote,--It is my duty always to hold myself
at your service whenever it may be your pleasure to do me the
honour of asking my opinion on any political question; at the same
time I feel bound to remark that former occasions on which on your
invitation I have offered an opinion have almost invariably led to
considerable misunderstandings, for which, of course, I blame no
one but myself.
The Conference of Associations which is to meet on the 23rd will
have to decide upon important and serious differences which have
arisen between myself and certain other parties who claim to be
acting (with what amount of justice I cannot determine) as the
representatives and agents of yourself and the Marquis of
Salisbury; and till that Conference has taken place I am certain
that it is not in my power to attend public meetings with the
slightest usefulness or effect.
Believe me to be
Yours very faithfully,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
The Conservative Associations assembled at Sheffield on July 23. Lord
Randolph did not attend Lord Salisbury’s meeting, though Mr. Chaplin
naïvely assured him that he would have been welcome. Upwards of 450
delegates gathered under his presidency in the Cutlers’ Hall. He made a
conciliatory speech, urging the necessity of adapting the organisation
of the Conservative party to the changed political requirements of the
day. He expounded the report at length and concluded by declaring that
in the contest between himself and Lord Percy he was actuated by no
personal ambition, but anxious for the welfare of the party. Lord Percy
thereupon attacked him, asserting ‘that he had broken away from the
leaders of the party and not adhered to them as he ought to have done.’
It was known that he spoke with official authority and that the
candidates whom he proposed were those favoured by Lord Salisbury and
Sir Stafford Northcote. After a long debate the delegates voted. Lord
Randolph Churchill was placed at the head of the poll by 346 votes. Mr.
Forwood, his principal supporter, was second, but after a great interval
(298). Six of his nominees occupied the first six places. Lord Percy did
not appear till the eighth place (260). Lord Salisbury’s private
secretary, who was also a candidate, was rejected. Out of thirty
candidates proposed by Lord Randolph Churchill, twenty-two were elected.
The whole official authority of the party exerted by Lord Percy secured
only eighteen out of thirty-six put forward by him. ‘The result,’ said
the _Times_ (July 24), ‘showed that the substantial victory rested with
Lord Randolph Churchill.’ His main reforms in organisation had been
conceded by the Central Committee and adopted by resolution at the
Conference. His own re-election as Chairman was assured.
But now a strange and unexpected turn was given to the course of events.
Lord Randolph Churchill’s victory, remarkable as it was, had been
narrowly won. A powerful and inflamed minority remained upon the Council
of the National Union to hamper and assail the leader of Tory Democracy.
The proverbial three courses lay before him. To renew his chairmanship
and to continue an internecine quarrel up to the very verge of the
General Election; to withdraw for a time from public life; or to make a
peace with Lord Salisbury. He chose the third. Sir Henry Wolff was
authorised to open negotiations. Mr. Balfour’s good offices were freely
tendered. Lord Salisbury was prompt in seizing the opportunity. Indeed,
the suicidal results to the principals and to their party of a
continuance of the quarrel were obvious. Terms of reconciliation were
speedily arranged. The Central Committee was abolished, and the
democratic reforms in the organisation of the National Union were
confirmed; the Primrose League was formally recognised and supported by
the official leaders. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who had been elected to
the Council of the National Union as an independent member on the list
of neither contending faction, and who was liked and trusted by both
sides, was nominated as the new Chairman. There was, moreover, a
general understanding that Lord Randolph Churchill and his friends were
to act in harmony with Lord Salisbury and were to be treated with full
confidence by him and the ruling members of the Conservative party.
Such were the conditions, so far as they could be, or have ever been,
put on paper. But it is evident that their moral consequences were of
much graver importance. No record has been preserved of what passed at
the interview between Lord Randolph Churchill and Lord Salisbury. But
certain very significant facts are plain. Lord Salisbury did not select
a lieutenant. He formed an alliance on terms of comradeship for the
general advantage of the party. The two men met as chiefs of almost
equal powers. Although Lord Salisbury’s primacy was never disputed by
Lord Randolph Churchill, they exercised from the very first a divided
authority; and it is in the light of this unusual relationship--based
not, indeed, upon any definite agreement, but arising out of the hard
facts of the situation--that the conduct of both, amid the political
turbulence of the next two years, can alone be fairly judged.
Lord Salisbury was loyal throughout to Sir Stafford Northcote, even in a
degree which was often detrimental to party interests. But, whatever his
wishes may have been, the settlement of the National Union dispute
sealed that unfortunate statesman’s fate--so far as the leadership of
the House of Commons was concerned. The dinner to which, in celebration
of the peace, Lord Salisbury invited the Council of the National Union,
including a majority of those who had been his most active opponents
during the past year, was the public acceptance of Tory Democracy in the
councils of the Conservative party. The great meeting held in the Pomona
Gardens at Manchester in August and addressed by Lord Salisbury, Lord
Randolph Churchill, and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, was a plain indication
of the Cabinet and Parliamentary arrangements which would be a necessary
consequence of that acceptance.
Sir Henry Wolff, who had been throughout these conflicts Lord Randolph’s
most intimate and trusted friend, entirely approved of the steps which
had been taken to end the quarrel.[24] Mr. Gorst also wrote to Lord
Randolph on July 27, 1884, expressly and explicitly signifying his
concurrence and describing Lord Randolph Churchill’s refusal to continue
as Chairman of Council of the National Union as ‘a good stroke of
policy.’ But it has since been suggested, upon apparently unimpeachable
authority,[25] that Mr. Gorst disapproved of the reconciliation; that he
thought greater advantage to the Conservative party would have followed
from the prosecution of the dispute; and that he conceived himself in
some measure deserted by its abandonment. Of Lord Randolph’s behaviour
to his able, energetic supporter the reader will be able to judge before
the story is complete. But there is no doubt that Mr. Gorst was for a
time, after the _concordat_, in a position of much weakness and
isolation. He had incurred very bitter enmities by the part he had taken
in the quarrel. It was especially resented that those talents of
organisation which had so greatly aided the Tory victory of 1874, should
have been employed against the recognised leaders of the Conservative
party ten years later. Men who did not think it wise, in view of what
had happened in the past, and still more of what might happen in the
future, to anger Lord Randolph Churchill, were glad enough to indulge
their spite upon Mr. Gorst. His real feeling--that he had been thrown
over--must have become apparent to Lord Randolph Churchill, in spite of
his written agreement in the course adopted; and a coolness ensued
between them, diversified with occasional heats.
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach laid the National Union peacefully to rest in an
obscurity from which its members have only emerged at infrequent
intervals to pass Protectionist resolutions. Nearly twenty years elapsed
before it recovered, at another Sheffield Conference, a passing shadow
of its old importance, and the distinction which it achieved on that
occasion may excuse the hope that its future repose will long remain
unbroken.
The reconciliation of Lord Randolph Churchill with Lord Salisbury which
followed on the Sheffield Conference, was comprehensive and loyally
observed. The tactics of the Opposition became more effective in the
House of Commons and their councils more harmonious. But strife in the
constituencies was to succeed this session of storm and effort. Faced
by the rejection of a great popular measure at the hands of hereditary
legislators, the Liberal Government did not waver. The autumn was
consumed in angry agitation and Parliament was specially summoned for a
winter session to pass the Bill again. The Radicals were full of hope
that no compromise would be offered or accepted. Never before or since
had they laid hands upon so good a battering-ram as the Franchise Bill.
Never since those days has the House of Lords placed itself on ground so
insecure. But the pressure of public opinion proved effective; Mr.
Gladstone was benevolent; and the Queen urgent for a settlement. Lord
Randolph Churchill was deeply impressed with the danger of a continuance
of the constitutional struggle between the Lords and the Commons. ‘It
was not a little owing to the urgency,’ writes Sir Michael Hicks-Beach,
‘with which he pressed on me the need of some arrangement that, with the
consent of Lord Salisbury and Sir Stafford Northcote, I had the
preliminary conferences with Lord Hartington which led to the more
formal meetings of the leaders of both parties.’ Finally, after weeks of
haggling, expostulation, menace, and intrigue, it was finally arranged
that the Franchise Bill should pass first and that Redistribution upon
lines agreeable to both parties should follow forthwith.
To mark and proclaim the newly compacted alliance within the
Conservative party, Sir Stafford Northcote came during the autumn recess
to speak in Lord Randolph’s support at Birmingham. Of all the
demonstrations organised against the House of Lords for its rejection of
the Franchise Bill scarcely any had exceeded that held at Soho Pool,
near Birmingham, on Bank Holiday. Aston Park, in the same neighbourhood,
had been secured on October 13 by the Conservatives for a
counter-demonstration, which was to open a week of campaigning
throughout the district. Besides Sir Stafford and Lord Randolph
Churchill, Colonel Burnaby and many other members of Parliament and
candidates were to address the concourse at five simultaneous political
meetings, and the well-known attractions of the Park and of the orators
were to be strengthened by bands of music and a firework display.
According to the Conservatives, the Aston demonstration was to represent
the Midlands in general and Birmingham in particular, and special trains
were run from all the surrounding constituencies with detachments of
enthusiastic Tories and holiday-makers.
These well-conceived arrangements caused much offence to the Radicals of
Birmingham. They declared that an attempt was to be made to misrepresent
the feeling of their city by importing outsiders and excursionists to
swell the numbers of the demonstrators; and as the meetings had been
called from the citizens of Birmingham and were in local parlance ‘town
meetings’ rather than ordinary ‘party meetings,’ they resolved to attend
them too. Admission to Aston Park was by ticket. It was stated that
120,000 tickets would be issued to those who applied for them. Everyone
applied. Trade Union secretaries, great Liberal manufacturers like the
Tangyes, officials of the Radical organisations, applied for, in some
cases, as many as 800 at a time. The promoters of the demonstration
became alarmed; and as it was now clear--and even avowed--that the
Radicals would attend in force and spoil the effect, the issue of
tickets was stopped and the applications were refused. Elaborate,
formidable, and, as it proved, thoroughly effective measures were
thereupon adopted to enable the voice of Birmingham to be heard. It
became known that large numbers of tickets were being forged. Of course,
no one in authority in the Liberal party lent any countenance to such
proceedings. Mr. Schnadhorst went away for the day upon important
business. A few working men--a mere handful of trampled
toilers--spontaneously, with no help from their party, inspired by no
other emotion than zeal for freedom and Reform, organised a
counter-demonstration. The place of meeting was selected, by an unlucky
coincidence, just outside the walls of Aston Park; and there also it
happened that, on the appointed day, a cart containing ladders and other
useful appliances drew up. The bills announcing this innocent
counter-demonstration summoned the ‘Men of Birmingham and the Midlands’
to assemble for deliberation in Witton Road (just outside the Park),
after which ‘let all who can get admittance attend the Tory meetings,
wear the Gladstone badge, and show you are not ashamed of your
colours.’ In order that nothing should interfere with the discharge of
these civic duties, Tangye’s and other large works in the city closed
for the afternoon.
The day arrived. The weather was suitable to outdoor political debate.
The holders of tickets--forged or genuine--assembled by road and rail
from all parts of the Midlands. The Aston grounds were soon crowded with
demonstrators. Outside, the counter-demonstration, made up of three
large processions, estimated at 15,000 strong, converged upon a waste
plot of land hard by the Park wall. Individuals began to climb over but
were stopped by broken glass. Earnest hands seized the ladders which
stood there by chance and the broken glass was demolished. A waggon
which had served as the platform was dragged towards the wall; and by
this, by the ladders, and also, it appears, by a convenient tree, many
persons swarmed over. Inside they found a single policeman, who could do
nothing to gainsay them, and a tool-house containing a number of planks.
By using the planks as battering-rams a breach was made in the wall and
thousands of excited people poured through it into the Park to join by
force their friends who had entered by fraud.
The open-air meetings were broken up by riot. Stones, potatoes, and even
chairs were flung at the members of Parliament who attempted to address
the crowd. The platform of the great hall was stormed. Sir Stafford
Northcote, who showed much pluck throughout these turbulent experiences
which his physical condition ill fitted him to endure, and Lord
Randolph Churchill were overwhelmed by furious clamour and finally
driven from the hall in the midst of a battle royal of sticks and
chair-legs. Lord Randolph, not following promptly enough, was picked up
and carried away bodily by a burly admirer from Wolverhampton. The crowd
at first followed at a walk and afterwards at a run, and so menacing and
dangerous was their temper that Sir Stafford Northcote was dragged along
by his guards at full speed and even so narrowly avoided capture. Other
members of Parliament had rougher experiences and Mr. Darling[26] was
lucky to make an escape from a window before the door of the room in
which he had taken refuge was battered down. The platform of the Skating
Rink collapsed while a free-fight was raging upon it. The fireworks
perished ignominiously in broad daylight; the set-piece of Sir Stafford
Northcote being received with storms of groans and fired off, by a
refinement of cruelty, _upside down_. Such were the Aston riots. No
persons were actually killed in them, but not a few were seriously
injured, and hundreds carried away scars and bruises from the fray.
The indignation caused among the Conservatives of Birmingham, and indeed
throughout the country, by these events was fierce and bitter. Lord
Randolph Churchill turned to the fullest advantage the blunder into
which his adversaries had been drawn. Every day for a week, in spite of
repeated threats of personal violence, he journeyed to and fro in
Birmingham and in a series of speeches, published and read in every part
of the country, he fastened the responsibility for disorder and
intimidation upon Mr. Chamberlain and his Caucus. He urged Conservative
working men to take effective measures to protect themselves from
tyranny and not to hesitate to meet force by force. ‘I do not think,’ he
said, ‘the Conservative party ought to look to the police for
assistance. We are quite capable of taking care of ourselves.’ Formal
resolutions were accordingly passed by Conservative Clubs, pledging
themselves to take concerted measures of defence and of reprisal. Upon
the connection of the Birmingham Corporation with Radical politics he
was explicit.
The contest in Birmingham is not a contest, such as is carried on
in other constituencies in England, between party and party. It is
a contest between popular self-government and a corrupt oligarchy;
between electoral freedom and Russian despotism; between open
dealing and Venetian espionage; between individual security and
public order and all the resources and ingenuity of terror and
intimidation. The whole of the governing power of the borough of
Birmingham is almost absolutely in the hands of the Caucus. The
patronage disposed of is enormous. The Caucus, acting under the
name of the Corporation, own the gasworks; they own the water
supply; they control the lunatic asylums; they control the grammar
school; they control some large establishments in the nature of a
drainage farm; they manipulate the borough funds to the extent of
nearly one million a year; they pay something like 80,000_l._ a
year in wages; and their number of employees, as far as I can
ascertain, is about 25,000. And all these enormous resources are
directed principally, not so much to the good of the town of
Birmingham, as to the maintenance of the power of the Caucus. Every
one of their employees knows that he holds his office, his
position, his employment, upon the distinct understanding that in
all political and municipal matters he must blindly submit himself;
and upon the slightest sign even of independence--to say nothing of
opposition--he will lose his employment; he will be thrown upon the
world with all his family, even if it should lead to his ruin or
his starvation.
These charges were furiously denied, and were no doubt exaggerated in
form; but they bore a sufficiently accurate and substantial relation to
circumstances well within the knowledge of Birmingham citizens to be
highly damaging. Moreover, the argument that the Radical party, although
already possessed of all the machinery of national government, were
preparing--by the abolition of the Second Chamber on the one hand, and
the suppression of public meetings on the other--to subvert the
Constitution and to enter upon revolutionary paths, gained acceptance in
England far beyond the ordinary limits of Conservative opinion.
So soon as Parliament met, a week later, for the winter session, Lord
Randolph placed upon the paper an amendment to the Address taking the
form of a vote of censure on Mr. Chamberlain for speeches which
encouraged interference with freedom of discussion and incited to riot
and disorder. The debate was heralded for several days by much
preliminary snarling. Mr. Chamberlain, irritated by constant
cross-questioning, referred to Sir Henry Wolff as Lord Randolph
Churchill’s ‘jackal.’ ‘With his usual insolence,’ observed Sir Henry
Wolff in reply; and, on being rebuked by the Speaker, he substituted
‘with his usual courtesy.’ Mr. Chaplin inquired whether the President of
the Local Government Board would not proceed to describe his opponents
as ‘hyænas’; and Lord Randolph Churchill, availing himself of the
Speaker’s ruling that the word ‘jackal,’ if looked upon as a figurative
expression, was not out of order, proceeded to state that at the
earliest possible opportunity he would move his amendment and ‘draw the
badger.’
This occasion was provided on October 30, and led to a singularly
unpleasant debate. Lord Randolph Churchill quoted numerous extracts from
Mr. Chamberlain’s speeches. He asserted that no Minister of the Crown
had ever used such language and that Irish members had been committed to
prison for language much less strong. He declared that Mr. Chamberlain
knew beforehand of the counter-demonstration and of what it was intended
to effect and that he might easily have prevented the riot had he chosen
to do so. Mr. Chamberlain exerted himself greatly, and not
unsuccessfully, in replying. He in his turn was able to discover in Lord
Randolph Churchill’s speeches some traces of violent language. He flatly
denied that he had had any personal complicity in the riot, which, he
explained, had arisen solely from the mismanagement of the Tory
organisation and from their attempt to give their meeting the character
of a national demonstration. But the most effective part of his speech
consisted in a number of affidavits of roughs, said to have been engaged
by the Secretary of the Conservative Association to turn out Liberals
from the meeting, whose violence it was alleged had provoked the
outbreak. When he sat down he had in great measure stemmed the tide
which had been running strongly against him. As his speech was drawing
to a close Lord Randolph leaned across the gangway and asked Sir Michael
Hicks-Beach if he would reply. Sir Michael, much impressed by Mr.
Chamberlain’s argument, declined; but Sir Hardinge Giffard, to whom Lord
Randolph then turned, stepped into the breach, and with little
premeditation made a most admirable and effective rejoinder, which
swayed the opinion of the House and threw the gravest doubt upon the
authenticity and credibility of the documents from which Mr. Chamberlain
had quoted. Upon the division Lord Randolph’s amendment was defeated by
214 to 178. ‘The majority,’ observes the _Annual Register_, ‘exonerating
Mr. Chamberlain from any blameworthy act, was far smaller than a member
of the Cabinet commanding the confidence and sympathy of his supporters
had a right to expect.’
The dispute was then carried by both parties into the Courts. The
summonses and counter-summonses were heard together at Birmingham on
successive days during the month of November, and when Mr. Chamberlain
was examined as a witness (November 26) attempts were made to fix upon
him the responsibility of suggesting that the affidavits should be
procured. But he denied it. On December 6, the compromise upon the
Franchise and Redistribution Bill having been achieved nearly three
weeks before, the proceedings came to an abrupt close. But at the
Assizes (February 28 and March 2, 1885) a man named Peter Joyce, said to
be ‘Larry Mack,’ a notorious rough whose affidavit had been quoted in
Parliament, was tried before Mr. Justice Field on the charge of criminal
libel and sentenced, despite the lukewarmness of the prosecution and
strong recommendation to mercy, to six weeks’ imprisonment. A Liberal of
respectable antecedents was found guilty of having had the ‘forged
tickets’ printed and was heavily fined. No evidence was ever produced to
sustain any charge against Mr. Chamberlain of having himself fomented
the disorders; but an impression was created that the whole
affair--especially the discharging of the fireworks upside down--showed
that he had been only partially successful in exerting those influences
of moral restraint which are so much to be commended in political
leaders during times of popular excitement.
The Aston riots led to some curious consequences. When Lord Randolph was
arranging for the prosecutions of the ‘roughs’ whose depositions Mr.
Chamberlain had read to the House of Commons, he asked one of his
friends to find him a lawyer of repute who would conduct the case so as
to make ‘as much political capital out of it as possible.’ A Mr. Henry
Matthews--already a barrister of distinction upon the Midland
Circuit--was recommended to him. They met at dinner on two successive
nights. Lord Randolph was perfectly delighted with his conversation and
his personality and formed the very highest opinion of his powers. At
his insistence Mr. Matthews became a candidate for a Birmingham seat.
Eighteen months later, when he was reading in the Athenæum Club the
newspaper rumours of the composition of Lord Salisbury’s second
Administration, he was startled and astonished by Lord Randolph breaking
in upon him with the offer of the office of Home Secretary.
The course of their violent political quarrels and the harsh language
and personal charges with which they were accompanied produced a total
breach in Lord Randolph’s private friendship with Mr. Chamberlain. They
no longer addressed or saluted each other and such correspondence as was
necessary was conducted on both sides with frigid formality. Thus:--
House of Commons: October 28.
Mr. Chamberlain presents his compliments to Lord R. Churchill and
begs to thank him for his courtesy in communicating the grounds on
which he is prepared to support the charge which he has brought
against Mr. Chamberlain.
Lord Randolph had been much exhausted in health and strength by the
unremitting exertions of the year, and late in November it was announced
that he purposed to start almost immediately for a four months’ holiday
to India. Mr. Chamberlain no sooner heard this than he was anxious to
make friends. His letter speaks for itself:--
_Mr. Chamberlain to Lord Randolph Churchill._
40 Prince’s Gardens, S.W.; November 27, 1884.
My dear Churchill,--You see that I have returned to the old
superscription. If you object, I will not offend again; but I do
not like to allow you to leave the country for what, I understand,
is a long voyage, necessitated by circumstances that I sincerely
regret, without saying that recent occurrences have, in my case at
all events, left no personal bitterness behind.
I am sorry that we have been forced into public conflict; I should
be still more sorry if political opposition degenerated into a
private quarrel.
I heartily wish you a pleasant holiday, and hope that rest and
change of scene may thoroughly restore your health and strength.
Believe me,
_Sans rancune_,
Yours very truly,
J. CHAMBERLAIN.
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Mr. Chamberlain._
2 Connaught Place, W.: November 27, 1884.
My dear Mr. Chamberlain,--I hasten to answer your very kind letter,
which caused me the greatest pleasure.
I had always hoped that the friendship which existed between us and
which, for my part, I most highly valued, might at all times be
altogether unaffected by any Parliamentary conflicts, however
brisk, and even sharp, the latter might be.
It is indeed very pleasant to me to know from the generous
expressions in your letter that my hopes are in no way illusory,
and as long as I continue in politics it will be a source of pride
to me to endeavour to the best of my abilities to mitigate the
asperities of party warfare as far as you and I are concerned. I am
not likely to forget that in the last Parliament you gave me the
most valuable and effective support in a matter in which at that
time I was greatly interested, without which support I should have
been unsuccessful.
I like to think that it is neither impossible nor improbable that
political circumstances may from time to time find us again in
agreement; and although your position and power will be far above
mine, I shall be on the look-out for those occasions.
Believe me, I am very sensible of your amiable wishes as to the
results of my travels to India, and that I hope always to remain
Yours very sincerely,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
One more incident which arose out of the Reform Bill must be noticed in
its place. When Parliament assembled for the winter session the
Conservative leaders agreed with Lord Randolph Churchill to offer a
regular though perfunctory resistance to the second passage of the
Reform Bill through the House of Commons, in order to strengthen the
position of the House of Lords in effecting the compromise which was now
recognised as inevitable. Lord Randolph accordingly placed on the paper
an amendment to the second reading, setting forth ‘that any measure
purporting to provide for the better representation of the people must
be accompanied by provisions for the proper arrangement of electoral
areas.’ This seemed to repeat as a general principle the amendment which
Colonel Stanley had moved as a precise instruction on May 23, when the
Bill was for the first time in Committee, which amendment Lord Randolph
and the Fourth Party had opposed and indeed denounced. The political
situation was entirely changed; but the verbal similarity did not escape
one acute, retentive mind.
In Lord Randolph’s absence at the funeral of Lord Londonderry his
amendment was moved by Mr. Stanhope. To the surprise of his party Mr.
Gorst rose from below the gangway and thereupon criticised and opposed
the amendment in terms which bore a sufficiently close resemblance to
those in which Lord Randolph had opposed it when it had last been moved.
By this very able and perfectly consistent speech Mr. Gorst gave great
offence to all sections of the Conservative party, who were now united
in an embrace of unaffected love. Lord Randolph, when he read the
newspapers next day, accepted it as a personal declaration of war. He
was very angry. ‘Gorst,’ he said, ‘must be punished’; and accordingly on
the next sitting of the House (November 7) he administered to his
mutinous lieutenant a castigation prolonged, deliberate, and severe. ‘I
have yet to learn,’ he observed, with undisturbed gravity, ‘that either
the traditions of party warfare or Parliamentary etiquette teaches one
to desert one’s party and stand aloof from it and refrain from giving
assistance to it, simply because of the very inadequate and miserable
reason that in one’s own poor and very feeble judgment one does not
altogether approve of the course which may have led them into that
difficulty.’ The mirth which this grimace excited was strengthened by
the joy and relief alike of Government and Opposition at the breaking-up
of the formidable confederacy at whose hands they had endured so much.
On December 3 Lord Randolph sailed in the _Rohilla_ for India. Since the
beginning of history many travellers have visited the East. Few have
neglected to record their adventures. But if the reader is inclined to
follow the subject of this story into an atmosphere remote from that of
Westminster his own letters will be found to supply an easy and
connected narrative.[27] After several years of strife he entered upon a
brief interval of peace. The battles of the Reform Bill had ended in a
compromise far less unsatisfactory to Tory interests than could have
been expected. The agitation which menaced the House of Lords was at an
end. His dispute with Lord Salisbury was settled. The Conservative party
had acclaimed the return of the prodigal son. The Aston riots were
forgotten in his renewed friendship with Mr. Chamberlain. And as the
English coast-line faded, a passing temper of tranquil benevolence led
him to send through Wolff messages of amity to all his friends--‘even to
the erring Gorst.’