THE ‘MINISTRY OF CARETAKERS’
‘This is no man of system, then; he is only a man of instincts and
insights. A man, nevertheless, who will glare fiercely on any
object; and see through it, and conquer it; for he has intellect,
he has will, force beyond other men. A man not with
_logic-spectacles_; but with an _eye_!’--CARLYLE on Mirabeau,
_French Revolution_, bk. iv. ch. iv.
The first trials of a Prime Minister are often the most severe. The most
formidable obstacles lie at the beginning. Once these have been
surmounted, the path is comparatively smooth. Nearly all the rest of
Lord Salisbury’s life was spent at the head of the Government. In a
period of seventeen years he filled for more than twelve the greatest
office in the State. Four separate Administrations were formed under his
hand. Responsibilities not less grave than those of 1885, far more
important legislation, wide acquisitions of territory, vast decisions of
peace and war attended their course. But, as with Mr. Pitt, the first
two years of his service perhaps exceeded in personal stress all the
years that were to follow. And it is probable that no part of those two
years was more clouded with anxious perplexity than the autumn of 1885.
His own position was not assured. Public confidence in his character and
judgment had yet to be won; his authority within his party had yet to
be consolidated. That party itself had struggled back to power, weak in
numbers, nervously excited by its efforts, upon curious and compromising
terms. It was torn by the very inspiration that revived its strength. It
awaited in acute apprehension an imminent and momentous election, the
result of which no man could foretell. Very different were those
after-years, when the old statesman, towering above his colleagues in
the Cabinet and commanding the implicit obedience of his followers, had
gathered patiently together round the standards of Conservatism almost
all the strongest forces in the country.
Yet while resources were still slender the difficulties and dangers of
the situation were tremendous. The dispute with Russia about the Afghan
boundary was in its most critical stage. For at least two months the
Cabinet faced the chance of war with a formidable military Empire. The
triumphant Mahdi was ravaging the Soudan, and Egypt, withdrawn behind
her narrowest frontiers, was threatened without and utterly disorganised
within. The British finances were oppressed by a deficit. Ireland
smouldered. All the elements of Irish national life were banded together
under the supreme authority of Parnell and that efficient Protestant
rebel was methodically preparing his campaign for an Irish Parliament.
In the English provinces Mr. Chamberlain, released from such partial
restraint as official obligations had hitherto imposed, unfolded the
‘Unauthorised Programme’ to an exulting Radical democracy. And behind
all ‘two million intelligent citizens,’ newly enfranchised, impatiently
awaited the opportunity of casting their votes. Such were the perils and
embarrassments amid which the ‘Ministry of Caretakers’ came into being.
Nor was it strange that eminent politicians were willing to prophesy
that after a brief and inglorious career they would be ‘swept off the
face of the earth.’ But Lord Salisbury, reminding the House of Lords
that several of the longest Administrations in English history had come
into being under precarious conditions, and fortifying himself by the
examples and experiences of Mr. Pitt in 1784, of Lord Liverpool in 1812,
and of Lord Palmerston in 1855, addressed himself to his heavy task with
serene determination.
The Fourth Party was translated bodily to a higher sphere. Lord Randolph
Churchill became Secretary of State for India--at that time, with the
exception of the Foreign Office, the most anxious and important of all
Ministerial posts. Mr. Balfour, though not admitted to the Cabinet, was
appointed President of the Local Government Board. Sir Henry Wolff was
despatched on a special mission to Turkey and Egypt with wide and
peculiar authority over the whole field of Egyptian affairs. Mr. Gorst
accepted the position of Solicitor-General. Three out of the four
friends who had worked together more or less harmoniously in Opposition
were sworn Privy Councillors upon the same cushion; and it was also
noticed that an unusual proportion of the thirty-five members who had
voted with the Fourth Party in the division upon Sir Henry Wolff’s
motion during the _interregnum_ were included in the Government.
Lord Randolph’s popularity was enhanced by his promotion. Those
commanding qualities which the House of Commons had so frankly accepted,
and Tory Democracy so loudly proclaimed, were now recognised by persons
and by classes who had hitherto schooled themselves to regard him merely
as an unedifying example of irresponsible audacity. The vigorous
assertions of youth were stamped with the seal of official authority and
over all hung the glitter of success. His friends, old and new, hastened
to offer their congratulations. One of his acknowledgments may be
recorded:--
June 25, 1885.
Dear Mr. Tabor,--I was so pleased to receive this morning your kind
letter and I trust that your congratulations may be to some extent
justified by results. As it is the fact that whatever of success I
may have attained is mainly owing to the six years which I passed
at Cheam, may I ask as a favour for a holiday for all those young
gentlemen who are now deriving from you similar advantages to those
which befell me? It would be a pleasure to me to know that I have
not asked anything which was not in your power to grant.
Yours most sincerely,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
Now that Lord Randolph had accepted ‘an office of profit under the
Crown’ his seat at Woodstock was vacated and he had to submit himself to
re-election. The leaders of the Liberal party did not encourage
opposition to Ministers in such circumstances at this juncture. When
they had themselves forced upon the Conservative party the task of
Administration, it seemed factious to impede the return of individuals
necessary for that purpose. Moreover, they were sensible of the
advantage which almost always accrues to anyone who is singled out for
attack by the opposite side. But the personality of the candidate gave
promise of distinction to his opponent, the nice balance of parties in
the old Borough held out a hope of success, and Mr. Corrie Grant hurried
down from London to voice the hot and not unreasonable resentment of the
Radical rank and file. This gentleman appealed to the electors upon a
single issue. It was not, he declared, a fight of politics against
politics, or of principle against principle--it was a fight against a
man. The statements and expressions which Lord Randolph had employed
against the Liberal party, its leaders, and in particular Mr. Gladstone,
made it necessary at all costs to challenge his return.
Because of the immense pressure of work at the India Office and also no
doubt not to treat his opponent too seriously, Lord Randolph declared
himself unable to take part in the contest personally and left his
election entirely to his constituents and friends. He contented himself
with a short address. Having never held office before, it was necessary
for him to give double the time of more fortunate persons to acquiring
knowledge of his duties. ‘Under these circumstances it is impossible for
me to leave London and to go among you as has been on former occasions
my practice and my pleasure. But I console myself with the recollection
that I am no stranger to any of you, that for nearly twelve years my
public life has been before you, and that on no occasion had I any
reason to imagine that I had forfeited your confidence or gone against
your general political sentiments.’ ‘Whatever may be, in your opinion,
the position I now occupy, that position you have made; it is mainly
your work. And that position I am perfectly certain no stranger or
carpet-bagger or any hirelings from the Birmingham Caucus will persuade
you to damage or destroy.’
The campaign was opened immediately and with determination on both
sides. Sir Henry Wolff, Lord Curzon, Sir Frederick Milner, Mr. St. John
Brodrick,[31] a nephew of the former Liberal candidate, arrived in
Woodstock to support Lord Randolph; and the Opposition was aided by a
zealous contingent from Birmingham to such an extent that at the opening
meeting Sir Henry Wolff described Mr. Corrie Grant as ‘the delegate of
Mr. Schnadhorst and Mr. Chamberlain.’ This statement caused Mr.
Chamberlain annoyance and he wrote at once to Lord Randolph disclaiming
all responsibility for the contest and any desire to cause him trouble.
Lord Randolph replied as follows:--
_To Mr. Chamberlain._
July 1, 1885.
I think the mention of your name in Wolff’s speech was either
wrongly reported or else not in the least meant ill-naturedly....
In any case, no mischief is to be made by anyone between you and
me as far as I am concerned. I was quite sure that you had nothing
to do with the Woodstock contest, but even if you had, I never
should have thought it anything else but perfectly fair and
legitimate. In the meantime many thanks for your kind letter, which
I much value. Don’t be angry with Wolff.
There were, notwithstanding, several reasons for uneasiness as to the
result. The absence of the candidate was an undoubted drawback. The
propaganda of Mr. Joseph Arch had produced a considerable impression
upon a section of the labourers. A more formidable consideration was the
attitude of the Duke of Marlborough. Lord Randolph’s father had wielded
immense personal influence in the borough and had neglected nothing that
might constitutionally be done to secure the return of his nominee. Two
years before, the new Duke would no doubt have exerted himself to the
utmost to help his brother; but the sale of the Blenheim pictures had
produced a serious quarrel in the family. Lord Randolph had vehemently
protested against the dispersal of so many of the treasures for which
Blenheim had been famous and a complete estrangement had ensued. The
Duke, moreover, after the opposition which had been threatened to his
candidature for the Carlton, had relapsed into political independence.
He now declared himself so strictly neutral during the contest that Lady
Randolph and the friends who came down to fight the election for her
husband, were fain for the first night of their arrival to shelter at
the Bear Hotel. Sir Henry Wolff’s diplomacy soon proved equal to those
difficulties. Friendly relations were restored; Blenheim opened its
gates to the Conservatives; and the Duke, stung by a statement in the
press that he had himself been a party to Mr. Corrie Grant’s
candidature, finished by lending his carriages to convey Lord Randolph’s
supporters to the poll. The election was nevertheless fought under some
disadvantage as compared with former occasions.
But the Secretary for India found in Lady Randolph and in his sister,
Lady Curzon, a mainstay of support and enthusiasm. ‘I should be very
glad,’ he wrote to his wife on June 29, ‘if you could arrange to stay in
Woodstock till Friday. If I win, you will have all the glory.’ Driving
about the widely extended constituency in a smart tandem profusely
decorated with pink ribbons, well known to most and with a smile for
all, these ladies canvassed indefatigably from morn till night. Their
Primrose badges--still an object of amusement in high Tory circles--were
the first to be worn in actual political warfare; and their influence,
supplying as it did that personal element without which enthusiasm is
scarcely ever excited, became a factor in the fight, against which the
eloquence of two Liberal ladies from Girton--specially imported to meet
the emergency--was utterly unable to prevail.
The result of the election was announced on the evening of July 3:--
Lord Randolph Churchill 532
Mr. Corrie Grant 405
The majority for Lord Randolph Churchill was 127, or more than double
that by which he had been returned in 1880. Needless to relate, the
declaration of the poll was received with the utmost satisfaction by the
crowd in front of the Bear Hotel, to whom Lady Randolph, Lord Curzon,
Sir Henry Wolff, and later on Mr. Corrie Grant made brief but
appropriate speeches; and the fact that over six hundred ‘result
messages’ were despatched from the local post-office that evening showed
the interest taken by the world at large in this the last of the
Woodstock elections.
Even before Lord Randolph was re-elected for Woodstock, he was required
in the House of Commons. Portentous extracts were read from his speeches
as a private member, and his secretary in the House was cross-questioned
about them. Did he still adhere to his charges against the Khedive? Were
his views on Ireland what he had declared them to be at Edinburgh? To
all such inquiries Lord Randolph sent a simple answer, which may be
recommended to others similarly circumstanced: ‘I neither withdraw nor
apologise for anything that I have said at any time, believing as I do
that anything which I may have said at any time was perfectly justified
by the special circumstances of that time, and by the amount of
information I may have had in my possession.’
The new Ministers met Parliament with general statements of their views
and intentions on July 6. In both Houses they made a good appearance.
They achieved at once the requisite pomposity of public utterance, and
handled power as to the manner born. To the Peers Lord Salisbury
declared that the pledges of any British Government were sacred, and
that all existing obligations would be faithfully observed in the
further conduct of the negotiations with the Court of Russia. In answer
to the taunt, made out-of-doors, that the Conservatives would postpone
the date of the election for the purpose of prolonging their enjoyment
‘of what some persons are pleased to call the sweets of office,’ he
invited Lord Granville to admit that the new Government had endeavoured
to amend the Redistribution Bill so as even to accelerate the
dissolution. Lord Carnarvon justified the attempt to govern Ireland
under the ordinary law by statistics which showed the diminution of
agrarian crime. He spoke of former statesmen who had failed in
Ireland--‘so many that the wrecks of them lie strewn about’--and he
seemed to wrestle modestly, but hopefully, against the conviction that
he himself would be added to the number. In the Commons Mr. Bradlaugh
again presented himself and was received by the new Leader of the House
with the usual resolutions of prohibition and exclusion, affirmed by the
usual majorities. The next day Sir Michael Hicks-Beach explained the few
uncontentious legislative projects which the Government would try to
carry through and asked for the time of the House to enable them to wind
up the business of the Session. Mr. Gladstone declared that the request
was not unreasonable and that he would himself endeavour to help the
Ministry by his vote and by the example of his silence. Lord Randolph,
in what is called ‘a statesmanlike tone,’ described the late Prime
Minister’s conduct as magnanimous and considerate; and a Radical motion
of want of confidence in the new Administration finding only two
supporters, the prevailing harmony remained unbroken.
The position of the Government, faced by a large majority in nominal
opposition, dependent upon Nationalist favour for the avoidance of
defeat at any moment and on any question, mistrusted by many of their
own friends, bitterly hated by Whigs and Radicals, and unable to escape
from constant humiliation by resignation or dissolution, was one of
extreme discomfort. But there seemed to be a kind of truce at
Westminster, in vivid contrast to the rising strife elsewhere. Under
such happy conditions, and with the cessation of Irish obstruction, the
end of the Session proved curiously fruitful. The Budget was
uncontroversial. The Government helped Lord Rosebery to carry his
Secretary for Scotland Bill through both Houses. Lord Salisbury passed a
measure dealing with the housing of the working classes, in spite of
some murmurings among the Peers at its socialistic flavour. Mr. Balfour
took charge of a Medical Relief Bill which ultimately became law,
although the Liberal majority ‘improved’ it to such an extent that the
Government disclaimed responsibility for it. Mutual concessions and
genuine co-operation placed both a Land Bill and a Labourers Bill for
Ireland upon the statute book. The Land Bill, or the ‘Ashbourne Act,’
as it was called, took extensive effect, and was the foundation and the
precursor of all subsequent Land Purchase Acts, culminating in the Land
Act of 1903. Sir William Harcourt and the new Home Secretary aided each
other to effect most important amendments in the criminal law; and,
finally, the Colonial Secretary, firmly refusing to allow the objections
of New South Wales to defeat the wishes of the other Australian
Colonies, succeeded in passing a Federation Bill which opened the door
to a Commonwealth of Australia. Indeed, a Parliamentary Paradise, albeit
enduring only upon sufferance, seemed to have sprung into being in the
midst of a Political Inferno. The good sense and tolerance of the nation
were gathered within the sheltering walls of Parliament, while discord,
faction, and electioneering clamour reigned supreme outside.
One curious legislative feat must be recorded. An Irish Educational
Endowments Bill had been brought down from the Lords and read a first
time in the Commons early in the session (May 12) as one of Mr.
Gladstone’s Government Bills. It had been practically abandoned before
the change of Ministry. Not one of the members of the new Government had
read a line of it; but Lord Randolph--interested as ever in Irish
education--was persuaded by FitzGibbon, in the early days of August,
that the Bill might be so altered as to make a useful measure and he
exerted himself to salve the derelict. The difficulties seemed
insuperable. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir William Hart-Dyke,
indignant at a proposal to introduce important legislation in the last
week of the last session of an expiring Parliament, refused to have
anything to do with it. The Leader of the House only consented to allow
the attempt upon the condition that the session should not be prolonged
by a single day. The Bill had to be redrafted from beginning to end. It
could not be advanced a stage without the concurrence of the Nationalist
party. Three or four perfectly distinct and usually antagonistic
sections of Irish opinion had to be conciliated and the negotiations
between Lord Randolph and FitzGibbon on the one hand, and Mr. Sexton and
Mr. Healy on the other, afforded some beautiful specimens of Hibernian
diplomacy. All obstacles were surmounted. The Irish Attorney-General,
Mr. Holmes--with whom Lord Randolph had made friends--undertook the
conduct of the redrafted Bill. It was read a second time on August 11.
The amendments, covering whole pages of the order paper, entirely
altering the Bill from its original shape, unintelligible to everyone
except the Minister who moved them and the two or three Irish members
who discussed them, were considered on the 12th. On the 13th the Bill
was recommitted, to introduce the necessary money clauses, read a third
time and sent to the House of Lords: and the next day, on which the
session closed, it passed and received the Royal Assent. None of its
thirty-eight sections have given rise to any difficulty and during the
nine years which followed its passing it was constantly renewed until
the endowments and management of upwards of 1,350 Primary Schools and
more than 100 Intermediate and Collegiate Institutions had been
reorganised under its operation.
Mr. Holmes, the Attorney-General, like many others who worked under Lord
Randolph Churchill, became warmly attached to him. Their joint labours
on this Bill impressed him with the extraordinary power of conciliating
persons and overcoming difficulties possessed by a man so often
associated only with violence. Above all he admired his courage. ‘I
feel,’ he wrote two years afterwards, when the leader of Tory Democracy
was leader no more, ‘like one of Rupert’s soldiers serving under a Dutch
Burgomaster.’
One harsh note jarred upon the ears of these Elysian legislators. The
new Ministers had scarcely taken office before the shadowy relations
which existed between the Conservative Government and the Irish party
issued in a substantial form. Nationalist opinion in Ireland had long
been excited over one of those dark and curious police cases the
savagely disputed details of which are thrust from time to time before
the House of Commons, to the bewilderment of British members. In August
of 1882 a whole family of the name of Joyce had, with the exception of
one young boy, been murdered under circumstances of peculiar atrocity at
Maamtrasna. Ten men were arrested upon the evidence of three witnesses
who professed to have seen them enter the house in which the crime was
committed. This evidence was confirmed by two of the prisoners who
turned approvers. After three successive trials three men were condemned
to death and executed, and the remaining five, having pleaded guilty,
received death sentences, afterwards commuted to penal servitude for
life. So far the story was grimly simple. But it was now alleged that
two of the murderers hanged had, in their dying depositions, declared
the innocence of the third, Myles Joyce; while this man himself had
protested always and to the last that he was not guilty. One of the
informers next came forward and swore that he had been told by an
official that his evidence would not be accepted by the Crown unless it
applied to all the prisoners, that he was given twenty minutes to
decide, and that then from ‘terror of death’ he had been induced to
swear away the life of Myles Joyce. An appeal from the Archbishop of
Tuam to the Lord-Lieutenant had led to an inquiry by Lord Spencer and
this inquiry resulted in the conclusion that the verdict and sentence
were right and just.
Hatred of a Coercion Viceroy and the profound distrust which divided all
who administered the law in Ireland from the mass of the people,
magnified this squalid tragedy into a political issue of importance. It
was asserted that as a result of Coercionist procedure and the
overweening desire of the Government to secure convictions, not only had
an innocent man been done to death, but that some of those still in
prison had been wrongfully convicted. When the case was raised in
Parliament during the Autumn Session of 1884, the Government,
representing the vote as one of confidence or want of confidence in Lord
Spencer, refused all further inquiry. In this they were generally
supported by both great parties and the Irish motion was rejected by 219
to 48. But Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Wolff, and Mr. Gorst had
voted in the minority with the Nationalists and Lord Randolph had spoken
strongly in their favour.
Almost as soon as the formation of the new Cabinet was complete Mr.
Parnell moved (July 17) a resolution reflecting on Lord Spencer and
demanding a fresh inquiry. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach opposed this
resolution in the name of the Government; but at the same time he said
that it was the right of every prisoner at any time to appeal to the
Lord-Lieutenant for the reconsideration of his sentence. ‘The present
Lord-Lieutenant [Lord Carnarvon] has authorised me to state that, if
memorials should be presented on behalf of those persons referred to in
this motion, they will be considered by him with the same personal
attention which he would feel bound to give to all cases, whether great
or small, ordinary or exceptional, coming before him.’ That was all; and
it may not seem a very large concession to Irish national feeling, but
it was enough to draw upon the head of the Minister a storm of reproach.
Sir William Harcourt, undisturbed by the significant absence of Mr.
Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke, rose to express the indignation of
the Liberal party that law and order should be subverted to political
expediency and the decision of a Viceroy impugned. These sentiments were
received with undisguised approval on the Conservative benches. Lord
Randolph Churchill replied. So far as he was personally concerned his
task would have been easy. He, at least, had consistently supported the
Irish demand for an inquiry. He was to defend in office a smaller
concession than he had urged in Opposition. But what with Ulster
growlings, sympathetically echoed by the Tory party on the one hand, and
on the other the plain need of Nationalist good-will, if peace and order
were to be maintained in Ireland under the ordinary law, the path was
not easy to find and perilously narrow to tread. His speech, in fact,
resolved itself into a series of depreciatory comments upon Lord
Spencer’s administration. Sir William Harcourt had spoken of it with
pride. ‘We were proud of the administration of Lord Spencer.’ Who did
‘_we_’ include? It was the prerogative of royalty to speak in the plural
number. Sir William Harcourt had once before electrified the country by
claiming royal descent. Was it in that exalted character that he used
the ‘we,’ or did he mean that the late Cabinet were united in their
admiration of Lord Spencer’s Viceroyalty? The division list would show.
For himself he had had no confidence in the administration of Lord
Spencer. For that reason he had a year before voted in favour of an
inquiry into this particular case. The new Government ought not
unnecessarily to go out of their way to assume responsibility for the
acts of the late Administration. They would now pronounce no opinion
upon the merits of the case. The new Lord-Lieutenant would inquire
carefully and impartially into it; and pending that inquiry, having full
confidence in Lord Carnarvon, Ministers would vote against the motion of
Mr. Parnell which seemed to prejudge the issue. On this Mr. Parnell rose
at once and said that he was content to await Lord Carnarvon’s decision.
He therefore asked leave to withdraw his motion. But the discussion did
not terminate. The Ulster members and their friends--always so powerful
in the Conservative party--were offended by the concession, small though
it was, which had been made to their hereditary foes. The friendly tone
of the Irish leader, and the Nationalist cheers with which Lord
Randolph’s strictures upon Lord Spencer had been received, excited
Orange wrath and Tory disapproval. Liberals who had smarted under the
taunt ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ were not slow to retort ‘Maamtrasna Alliance.’
Mr. Brodrick, a young Conservative who had not been included in the new
Government as his talents deserved, and who believed, perhaps with
reason, that his exclusion was due to the fact that he had voted with
Sir Stafford Northcote and against Lord Randolph Churchill in the
_interregnum_ division, expressed with much force the Conservative
discontent. He was supported by the vehement outcry of an Ulster member.
Mr. Gorst, who now for the first time defended the Government as
Solicitor-General, unwittingly fanned the flames by allowing himself to
use the candid but unfortunate expression ‘reactionary Ulster members.’
The stern reproaches with which Lord Hartington closed the debate, were
endorsed by many Conservatives in the House and by an influential
section of the party press.
The Maamtrasna incident was a factor in great events. It profoundly
disturbed the Conservative party. It thrust the Whigs for a space back
upon Mr. Gladstone. It prepared Mr. Gladstone’s mind for the reception
of other impressions which were to reach him later. Upon Lord Spencer
its influence was perhaps decisive; and the Viceroy who for three years
had ruled Ireland with dignity and courage, yet with despotic power,
whose name had become a synonym for the maintenance of law and order by
drastic measures, finding the standard of Coercion abandoned even by
Tory Ministers, came by one wide yet not irrational sweep to the
conclusion that Home Rule in some form or other was not to be prevented.
There can be no doubt that he was deeply wounded by Lord Randolph
Churchill’s speech. Connected though they were by many ties of kinship,
their friendly relations were not for several years repaired and were
never perfectly restored.
Heavy censures have been laid upon Lord Randolph Churchill for his share
in this affair. The Maamtrasna inquiry has often been described as part
of the purchase price paid by the Conservative party to Irish
Nationalism for power. On this a word may be said. Although no bargain
of any kind existed, it is obvious that Lord Salisbury’s
Government--which had come into office upon Nationalist votes, which was
forced to govern Ireland by the ordinary law, and which possessed no
majority in the House of Commons--was dependent largely upon Nationalist
good-will. To preserve that good-will was vital to their power to bring
the necessary work of the expiring Parliament to a creditable conclusion
and to the success of their struggle with Mr. Gladstone. Many other
issues of domestic and Imperial politics, far greater in their
importance than Irish affairs, were at stake in the approaching
election. The times were tempestuous; the need was great; the concession
pitifully small. In the event, Lord Carnarvon received, considered, and
in due course rejected the memorials which were sent him. No decision
was reversed; no prisoners were released; but the Irish people,
satisfied that the inquiry had been fair, accepted its conclusions. It
would not be difficult, from another point of view, to justify on its
merits an examination into the administration of justice in an island
which for five years had lain in the grip of what was almost martial
law, where the most elementary civil rights had been in abeyance and
where nearly every safeguard of British judicial procedure had been
destroyed--more especially when that examination was demanded by
recognised representatives from a Government of which they were in a
sense constituents. This is, however, to raise questions beyond the
scope of these pages. The merits of the Maamtrasna inquiry will be
variously appraised. Lord Salisbury’s first Administration must
collectively share the responsibility, as they shared the advantage.
But, whether right or wrong, Lord Randolph Churchill’s personal
sincerity cannot be doubted by anyone who reads his consistent
declarations upon this and kindred Irish subjects or who studies his
life and opinions as a whole.
The feeling excited among the Ulster members and so largely shared by
orthodox unbending Conservatives was not concealed. The _Standard_
abused the Tory leaders in the Commons as vigorously as any Liberal
newspaper. Lord Randolph Churchill had promised to attend a great
meeting at Liverpool at which Conservative working men from all parts of
Lancashire were to present him with a great number of addresses. July 29
was fixed for the ceremony. On the afternoon of the 28th he learned that
Lord Claud Hamilton, one of his old opponents in the National Union
fight, and another local member declined to attend. Regarding this as a
deliberate insult to the Government and to himself, he telegraphed at
once to the Chairman of the meeting:--
_Telegram from Lord Randolph Churchill to A. B. Forwood, Esq._
Lord Claud Hamilton has just informed me that he and Mr. Whitley do
not intend to be present at the meeting to-morrow, assigning as
their reason that they disapprove so strongly of the policy of the
Government on Irish questions that, if they were present, they
would be obliged to express publicly their disapproval. Under
these circumstances I distinctly decline to attend a meeting of the
Tory party in Liverpool at which the two senior members refuse to
be present. I think it in the highest degree ungenerous and
unpatriotic that two gentlemen professing Tory principles should
show at a difficult and critical time such a deplorable want of
confidence in a Government which, in all other parts of the United
Kingdom, has received from its friends a hearty and cordial
sympathy.
From this determination the most frantic appeals from Liverpool failed
to move him, and the meeting was abandoned at the last moment, to the
great disappointment and inconvenience of all concerned. The Lancashire
Tories were not, however, to be discouraged from their purpose and
resolutions were immediately passed by the Liverpool Conservative
Association inviting Lord Randolph to another similar meeting a few
weeks later and urging the local members to attend.
The relations of Ministers with the Irish party which were thought so
improper by good Conservatives, and were certainly compromising, did not
end with the Maamtrasna inquiry. The appointment of Lord Carnarvon as
Viceroy had been a part of the general policy of concession to Irish
feeling which the new Government was forced to adopt. His opinions were
known to be sympathetic to Irish aspirations and he was for that reason
agreeable to the Nationalist party. That he had carried Federation in
Canada, had tried to carry it in South Africa, and was well known to be
familiar with the machinery of subordinate legislatures and Colonial
Parliaments, were facts not in those days devoid of significance. His
first speech, in the House of Lords, as Lord-Lieutenant had been a
declaration of the abandonment of Coercion and an appeal, in terms of
generous sincerity, for a kindlier feeling between the two countries.
Beginning thus, Lord Carnarvon was soon treading that path of hope and
peril which seems to possess an almost irresistible fascination for
English statesmen who are invited to watch at close quarters the
detailed workings of Irish administration.
Lord Randolph Churchill was always inclined to blame Lord Ashbourne for
his absence from Ireland at this critical time. ‘The Irish Chancellor’s
constant presence in Dublin,’ he wrote in 1889 in the memorandum already
quoted, ‘might have been of inestimable service to the Viceroy and the
Government.... Lord Carnarvon, a nobleman of broad sympathies, liberal
mind, and warm imagination, was left alone, without any previous
knowledge of the country, to survey Ireland, to realise its condition,
to appreciate the difficulties of its government, under the influence
and guidance of Sir Robert Hamilton, at that time permanent
Under-Secretary, who was possessed of great ability and long experience
of the Civil Service, and who had some time previously arrived at the
conclusion that the concession of Home Rule in some shape or other was
inevitable. There was no countervailing influence of knowledge and
authority with the Viceroy such as Lord Ashbourne might have afforded
and Lord Carnarvon glided gently into the heresy which so grievously
embarrassed and damaged his colleagues and correspondingly strengthened
the party of Repeal.’
At the end of July Lord Carnarvon’s opinions were so far advanced that
he sought an interview with Mr. Parnell. The famous ‘empty house’
meeting was arranged. In a drawing-room in Grosvenor Square, dismantled
and deserted at the end of the London season, the representative of the
Queen in Ireland and the executive head of the Irish Government met the
man whom the mass of the English people, high and low, had been taught
during five years, by the leaders of both political parties, to regard
as guilty at least of high treason and probably of complicity in murder.
From the accounts which have since been made public, the conversation
that ensued seems to have been interesting and agreeable. Lord Carnarvon
carefully explained that he spoke for no one but himself, that he sought
for information only, and that as the Queen’s servant he could listen to
nothing inconsistent with the Union of the two countries. After this
formality had been assented to by Mr. Parnell, the two rulers of
Ireland--coroneted impotence and uncrowned power--rambled discursively
over such topics as self-government and national aspirations, Colonial
Parliaments and a central legislative body which might, it appeared,
possess--a remarkable licence--the right of protecting Irish industries.
Altogether a very instructive afternoon!
When Lord Carnarvon first explained this incident in the House of Lords
(June 10, 1886) he stated emphatically that he had had no communication
with the Cabinet on the subject either before or after the interview
took place and that he had received ‘no authorisation’ from the Cabinet.
Not until two years more had passed (May 3, 1888) did he reveal the fact
that he had acted throughout with Lord Salisbury’s consent. ‘I should
have been wanting in my duty if I had failed to inform my noble friend
at the head of the Government of my intention of holding that meeting
with Mr. Parnell, and still more should I have failed in my duty, if I
had not acquainted him with what had passed between us at the interview,
at the earliest possible moment. Accordingly, both by writing and by
words, I gave the noble Marquess as careful and as accurate a statement
as possible of what had occurred within twenty-four hours after the
meeting and my noble friend was good enough to say that I had conducted
that conversation with perfect discretion.’[32]
Lord Salisbury, however, kept this matter entirely to himself. No one of
his colleagues, not even the Leader of the House of Commons, was made
aware of the incident until the fact was declared in Parliament. Lord
Randolph Churchill was subsequently both astonished and offended at this
concealment of such an important political event from Cabinet Ministers
by the head of the Government.
The fact that Lord Carnarvon met Mr. Parnell and, with the knowledge and
assent of the Prime Minister, discussed at large with him projects of
Home Rule, has been held by many people to prove that the Tory Cabinet
was considering such a policy in the autumn. But, as Lord Salisbury
never apprised his colleagues of this interview, the inference is
obviously incorrect. No Home Rule proposals were ever submitted to the
Cabinet of 1885. Had proposals of this kind been submitted, taking the
form of the establishment of a Parliament in Ireland, the Cabinet would
inevitably have rejected them. If Lord Salisbury had been a convinced
Home Ruler he could not have imposed his view upon his colleagues.
Principle, prejudice, obstinacy, conviction, would each and all together
have paralysed him. Apart from the Irish Viceroy, the two Ministers who
might have been expected--according to prevailing impressions and
suspicions--to give the most favourable consideration to such proposals
were Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. It is certain
that both Lord Randolph and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach would have resigned
rather than support such proposals, still less be responsible for their
conduct through the House of Commons; and in resigning they would have
been followed by the great majority of their colleagues. If these two
leading Ministers had agreed with Lord Salisbury upon a plan, the
Cabinet would have broken in pieces; and even if the entire Cabinet had
agreed, it is by no means likely that they would have succeeded in
carrying the Conservative party with them.
What ground is there for believing that Lord Salisbury was ever inclined
towards Home Rule, or contemplated, even in the vaguest terms, making
proposals to the Cabinet? No one knew better than he the character of
his party and the disposition of his Government. His method had always
been to obtain and use power only _through_ the party and _by_ the party
and no English statesman in the nineteenth century was less likely to
split his party or to lead some forlorn, uncalculated crusade of
enthusiasm or adventure. Certainly, if any idea had crossed his mind of
making a settlement on Nationalist lines with Mr. Parnell, Lord Randolph
Churchill would have been the Minister he would earliest have
approached. Lord Salisbury was on intimate terms with Lord Randolph.
They communicated with the greatest freedom and fulness almost every day
and almost always by letter. In all the extensive correspondence that
remains no trace can be discovered which suggests even remotely the
existence or the recognition of such an idea. The Prime Minister’s
letters to Lord Randolph, so far as they relate to Ireland, proceed on
the fundamental assumption that they are leagued together to resist Home
Rule. They speak of the ‘onslaught that is impending.’ They examine the
resources with which it can be met. But that either or both could join
the attacking forces is a suggestion in itself so widely improbable, of
such inherent absurdity and unimagined remoteness, that it is not even
mentioned for the purpose of being dismissed. The same may be said
generally of the correspondence of the 1885 Cabinet of which Lord
Randolph’s archives contain an extensive store.
Why, then, did Lord Salisbury allow and authorise the Irish Viceroy to
confer with Mr. Parnell? It is not for me to attribute motives to
persons with whom this story is only indirectly connected; but the
question cannot be avoided and certain interpretations of his action
irresistibly obtrude themselves. It seems, in the first place, a
reasonable assumption that Lord Salisbury allowed the Viceroy to meet
Mr. Parnell because the Viceroy was anxious for such a meeting and
because Lord Salisbury did not think that such a meeting would do any
harm. If the officer responsible for the Government of Ireland thought
that his task would be made easier by private consultation with any
particular Irishman, why should the head of an Administration avowedly
pursuing a conciliatory policy to Irish Nationalism and earnestly
endeavouring to preserve order without a special Act, refuse to allow
such consultation? Lord Carnarvon was warned to make it perfectly clear
that he was acting for himself and by himself, that the communications
were from his lips alone, that the conversation was with reference to
information only, that no agreement or understanding--however
shadowy--was in question, and that the Viceroy must neither hear nor say
a word that was inconsistent with the union of the two countries. Lord
Carnarvon always asserted that he had made these conditions perfectly
clear. Mr. Parnell did not in all respects concur. He declared that he
did not recollect that these conditions were made. The conflict of
evidence was direct. Even if it were admitted that Lord Carnarvon
failed to convey fully to Mr. Parnell these important preliminaries to
their discussion, the fact that he honestly tried to do so to the best
of his ability and believed that he had in fact done so, relieves him
from any imputation of intentional bad faith as regards Mr. Parnell and
clears _à fortiori_ the Prime Minister--a person more remote from the
transaction. But if Mr. Parnell chose to place upon Lord Carnarvon’s
words a construction which they would not bear or to attach to them an
authority which they did not possess; if he chose deliberately, or
through natural inclination, to magnify the importance of the whole
incident, to treat it as a formal negotiation of a treaty, was Lord
Salisbury to blame for that? And if Mr. Parnell thought fit for his own
purposes to convey a detailed and highly-coloured account of his
interview to Mr. Gladstone and other Liberal leaders, was Lord Salisbury
responsible for that? And if Mr. Gladstone jumped at conclusions upon
insufficient and questionable evidence, was Lord Salisbury responsible
for that? Could he foresee these possible consequences of the permission
he had given to Lord Carnarvon? Ought he to have foreseen them; and if
he had foreseen them, ought he to have refused to allow the meeting to
take place? These are questions which it is difficult to answer here. A
sufficient explanation is that Lord Salisbury allowed the interview to
take place in order to pacify the Viceroy and soothe Mr. Parnell and
that he did not communicate the fact to his colleagues because he
thought the matter would make more trouble in the Cabinet than it was
worth. Mr. Parnell’s biographer has explained with ingenuous candour the
delicate and elaborate manœuvres in which his hero was at this time
engaged. ‘The course of the Irish leader,’ he tells us, ‘was perfectly
clear. He had to threaten Mr. Chamberlain with Lord Randolph Churchill,
and Mr. Gladstone with both, letting the whole world know meanwhile that
his weight would ultimately be thrown in the scale that went down upon
the side of Ireland.’ Tactics like these, though perfectly legitimate
for a public object earnestly cherished, are not of a character to
entitle those who adopt them to any special consideration.
The session had no sooner ended than the campaign in the country began.
The Liberal party went down to the General Election of 1885 in a spirit
of comfortable over-confidence. Their leaders occupied themselves more
in correcting each other than in assailing the Conservative Government.
Indeed, it would seem that in the fulness of their power, with all the
prestige of the ‘Old Man’ and the ‘old cause’ and the expected
reinforcement of ‘two million intelligent citizens,’ they believed
sincerely that the future lay exclusively in their hands and that the
only questions of real importance were those which divided the ranks of
the predominant party. Of these questions, however, there seemed to be
no lack. Mr. Chamberlain’s views upon Local Government, free education,
graduated taxation and, above all, upon the transfer, tenure, and
compulsory acquisition of land, set forth in a series of remarkable
addresses, soon drew him into a lively controversy with Lord Hartington
and Mr. Goschen. Speech for speech they followed him about the country,
until in the end he declared that he would accept office in no
Government which ‘deliberately excluded’ the reforms he had
advocated--in other words, in no Government of which they were members.
Next came the question of Disestablishment, raised by stern Liberals,
who found phrases about ‘the old cause’ and ‘the old ship’ soothing
rather than satisfying in point of precision and substance. It was
supported positively, as it appeared, by 374 Liberal candidates, and
eagerly snatched at as a bone of contention by Wales and by English and
Scotch Dissenters on the one hand and by Tory Churchmen and--let it be
added--Tory politicians, on the other. In the last week of August Mr.
Parnell demanded a national Parliament for Ireland. The whole press,
Metropolitan and provincial, Liberal and Conservative, denounced his
claim as destructive and impossible. ‘There was no sign,’ said the
_Manchester Guardian_, ‘of any appreciable section of Englishmen who
would not unhesitatingly condemn or punish any party or any public man
who attempted to walk in the path traced by Mr. Parnell.’ Lord
Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain--differing so widely on all
else--representing as they did the extreme limits of Whig and Radical
opinion, rivalled each other in terms of prompt, explicit, and
unqualified condemnation. Ministers were silent. Lord Randolph
Churchill, speaking at Sheffield a few days later, ranged over many
subjects, dwelt long upon the state of Ireland and the decision not to
renew the Crimes Act, but made no reference of any kind to Home Rule.
Upon all these grave matters Mr. Gladstone was called to pronounce; and,
like other party leaders under similar circumstances, he exerted himself
rather to find a common basis of agreement between followers who
fundamentally disagreed than to point a path of his own. He would
apparently go as far with Mr. Chamberlain in domestic reform as he could
carry Lord Hartington. Disestablishment, he observed cautiously, was a
gigantic question, ‘and I am very far from saying that if I were twenty
years younger, and circumstances were ripe for taking a matter of this
kind in hand--either on the one side or the other--I should urge you not
to give it the first place in your thoughts and actions.’ Upon Ireland
and the future he was majestically mysterious and uttered stately
phrases about the supremacy of the Crown, the unity of the Empire, and
the authority of Parliament, mingled with aspirations towards ‘an
equitable settlement’ and ‘another effort to complete a reconciling
work.’ Mr. Gladstone’s utterances were officially declared to have
united the Liberal party and, fortified by this assurance, all its
sections resumed their warfare with ever-increasing turbulence, amid a
babel of conflicting voices.
From this clamour and darkness the lines of battle slowly but surely
ranged themselves much as Lord Randolph Churchill had expected and
desired. The menace to the Established Church and to denominational
teaching consolidated the Conservative party. It provided a new and
perfectly unimpeachable bond of union between them and the Irish
Nationalists. The cry of the ‘Church in danger’ rendered Lord Salisbury
very tractable on all other questions. To preserve that sacred vessel,
to him precious beyond all else in English life, there was scarcely any
concession he was not prepared to make--no merchandise he would not
jettison. At Newport (October 7) he showed in unmistakable language that
he was ready to make common cause with Tory Democrats, though they were
Radicals at heart, and with Irish Nationalists, who were rebels by
profession, thereby the better to resist the onslaught of secularism and
atheism. Viewed in this light, boycotting seemed to him a very small
matter, probably intangible to the law, depending ‘on the passing humour
of the population,’ ‘more like the excommunication or interdict of the
Middle Ages than anything we know now’; and in fine his Conservative
principles made shift to accommodate themselves to a political programme
which was morosely admitted by friends and foes alike to be little less
than the Gladstonian manifesto.
The Irish vote came over solid and unstinted into the Tory lines upon a
Parnellite denunciation of Mr. Gladstone and all his works, which in
tone and language might have been an extract from one of Lord Randolph’s
speeches. ‘In 1880,’ ran this document,[33] ‘the Liberal party promised
peace, and it afterwards made unjust wars; economy, and its Budget
reached the highest point yet attained; justice to aspiring
nationalities, and it mercilessly crushed the national movement in Egypt
under Arabi Pasha. To Ireland more than to any other country it bound
itself by most solemn pledges. It denounced Coercion, and it practised a
system of Coercion more brutal than that of any previous Administration,
Liberal or Tory.’
Among the millions who at the General Election of 1885 exercised, many
of them for the first time, the proud privilege of the franchise, no
human being could have explained with any approach to accuracy what a
vote for either of the great parties in the State actually involved,
whether in principle or action. Leaders on both sides, swept to and fro
by turbulent cross-currents, took refuge in ambiguous obscurity, even
where the most fiercely contested questions were concerned. Official
Liberalism had no decided opinion about Disestablishment, nor Toryism
about Fair Trade. Every politician had his own ideas about a social
programme; and Ireland was a riddle at which neither party cared to
guess in the absence of the electoral returns. What a mockery of
statesmen’s leadership and foresight the future was to unveil! The
Parnellite manifesto and the Irish vote weakened, perhaps fatally, the
Liberals who a few months later were to stake their fortunes upon Home
Rule. Sir William Harcourt, who derided the Conservative party for
‘stewing in Parnellite juice,’ was himself to stew in that juice for
the rest of his life. Lord Salisbury, whose philosophic defence of
boycotting had excited general consternation, stood on the threshold of
a Coercion Bill and ‘twenty years of resolute government.’ Mr.
Gladstone, appealing for a majority independent of Irish members, became
evermore dependent upon them. Mr. Chamberlain was soon to fight for
political existence side by side with that same Lord Hartington whom he
now described as Rip Van Winkle, to sit for years in the same Cabinet as
the Mr. Goschen he now ran up and down the land to denounce, and to be
driven from the Liberal party, locked in fast alliance with the very
Whigs he was now striving in the name of Radicalism to expel. Whether
Lord Randolph Churchill surpassed these standards of consistency the
reader will be able to judge as the account proceeds.
These were perhaps the busiest days of his life, and the amount of work
of the most exhausting character which he contrived to discharge
astonished all who knew him. Besides the anxious and incessant attention
which the India Office required, and the ordinary labours of a Cabinet
Minister, he had to watch the Irish situation and to prosecute his
Birmingham candidature from week to week. In addition to all this he
darted to and fro about the country--to Dorsetshire, Sheffield,
Worcester, Lynn, Manchester--commending the Conservative cause to the
electors in speeches in which serious argument was garnished with a
vigour of metaphor and a raciness of language that delighted the Tory
Democracy and attracted universal attention. Lord Salisbury, who knew
what the management of the India Office at this time involved, seems to
have been genuinely concerned lest his lieutenant should break himself
down by attempting a platform campaign as well as his departmental work.
‘The strain of doing the two things together,’ he wrote (September 13)
in a letter almost paternal in the kindness of its tone, ‘is enormous:
and if you once go a step too far--if you once break the spring--you may
take years to get over it.’ But Lord Randolph persevered; and though he
was forced by ill-health to take a few weeks’ rest at the end of
September, he managed to carry out nearly all the engagements he had
undertaken.
Such brief leisure as he could secure he spent mainly salmon-fishing in
the Carron at Auchnashellach--a house and river in Scotland then the
property of his brother-in-law, Lord Wimborne. Thither also went Sir
Frederick Roberts before leaving to take up the Indian command. Lord
Randolph was delighted to renew a friendship so happily begun the year
before at Rewah.[34]
_To his Wife_.
Auchnashellach: September 27.
I have written twenty-one letters to-day, some of them long ones,
so you won’t be vexed if I only send a short scrawl. I think your
letter to Lady Dufferin admirable and all your plans with regard to
her Fund most excellent. I am sure Moore will do anything you want.
I should advise you to get hold of Mr. Buckle and fascinate him,
and make him write you up. I have been very glad to get Sir
Frederick Roberts here, and have had long conversations with him on
many Indian subjects. Did you not find him very nice? It has been
everything for me getting him up here. I never could have had any
real satisfactory _pow-wow_ in London. He is coming to dine with me
on October 6, to meet some of the other Ministers--only a man
party. I hope the new cook will be on his mettle....
He found time to pay a flying visit to Howth--thus combining pleasure
with certain matters of importance which drew him to Dublin.
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Justice FitzGibbon_.
Auchnashellach, Dingwall, N.B.: September 21, 1885.
A line to tell you that on Tuesday, 29th inst., I commence my
journey to Howth. A considerable business. I shall go by Carlisle
to Holyhead, and imagine I ought to arrive at Kingstown on Thursday
morning. From there I shall proceed to the Attorney-General’s abode
at Monkstown, and later in the day move on in the direction of ‘the
Eye.’[35] Will you keep me for two nights? I have asked the
Lord-Lieutenant to let me go to him on the Saturday. Can you
possibly manage to put up my secretary, Cecil Wolff? He is here
with me and, while we are exploring the bay and deluding the wily
lobster, will decipher telegrams and look after papers--a work I am
perfectly unequal to. I hope the ‘Tutissimus’[36] will be on the
spot and David Plunket--also I shall have to go and see O. V. G.
L.,[37] who wrote to me from Buxton the other day; and there are
many other old friends I am greatly looking forward to seeing
again--you first.
Auchnashellach, Dingwall, N.B.: September 27, 1885.
Many thanks for your letter and telegram. My complete physical
restoration absolutely depends upon an evening with Father James
Healy.
I shall try to get to you early Saturday morning, and I fear I must
leave Monday night, as our great Prime Minister has summoned a
Cabinet for Tuesday. I shall go to the Attorney-General’s on
Thursday morning in order to get myself into a proper state of mind
and body before meeting the Lord-Lieutenant. Could you not run out
to Monkstown in the early morning, in order that we may deliberate
as to the proper employment of Saturday and Sunday and Monday, and
also that I may hear at first hand from authentic sources what the
FitzGibbon Commission (Endowed Schools) has been up to. I see you
have made a lot of jobbing appointments. Wolff is very pleased with
your kind letter.
Can’t you get O. V. G. L. over to Howth on Sunday? This would be
better than any amount of Church.
Please tell Baillie Gage privately that an intelligent telegraph
clerk at Howth while I am there would be a great advantage. The
cypher telegrams require care, or else are worse than useless. They
come pretty thick now.
The Irish capital under Lord Carnarvon was disturbed by many whisperings
of Parnellite intrigue, Maamtrasna alliances, Catholic Universities and
Repeal. What if they had known of the conversation in Grosvenor Square?
Lord Randolph’s sudden arrival in Dublin created a new flutter. It had
been very freely said that he had committed himself to the Parnellites
on Home Rule, and his visit was attributed in some newspapers to the
purpose of further negotiation. He soon reassured his Irish friends. At
the Vice-Regal he had a long conversation with Lord Carnarvon. The
Viceroy made no mention of his communications with Parnell; but his
language excited Lord Randolph’s suspicions. He called upon Mr. Holmes,
the Attorney-General, early one morning, as he had proposed. They
talked much on Irish politics. At length Lord Randolph got up to go. As
he reached the door he paused, and, pointing with his finger, said,
almost harshly and in a tone of command: ‘Now, mind. None of us must
have anything to do with Home Rule in any shape or form.’ For the rest
of his visit he amused himself at Howth, playing whist, chaffing his old
friends, and catching lobsters in the bay. The cypher telegrams came in
thickly. The short holiday was soon at an end.
Election oratory is not illuminating. The tags, the personalities, the
arguments which spring into being in the excitement of the moment, may
pass muster in the scrimmage. It were a harsh measure to call them forth
one by one in cold blood to justify themselves before austere tribunals
of taste and truth. The passions of these stormy months drew Lord
Randolph Churchill into a dispute with Lord Hartington very soon to be
regretted by both. It was natural that Whigs and Tory Democrats should
eye each other with mutual dislike. The Whigs saw with jealousy the hold
which the Tory party were gaining upon popular sympathies; with disgust
their readiness to outbid old-fashioned Liberalism in all that appealed
to the new democracy; and with alarm the excesses to which their own
Radicals were encouraged or goaded thereby. The Tory Democrat, on the
other hand, was incensed to see the ægis of aristocracy and wealth and
all the solid assurance of respectability spread, however reluctantly,
in protection over levelling and revolutionary doctrines. Both exerted
influences upon their respective parties--the one of restraint, the
other of propulsion--contrary to the general tendency of those parties.
It needed but a step from these considerations for each to regard the
other as insincere. The Whig accused the Tory Democrat of unscrupulous
opportunism; the Tory said that the Whig was a humbug.
The actual dispute arose in this wise. Lord Hartington’s examination of
Mr. Chamberlain’s programme led him to utter many sentiments about the
rights of property which were not less gratifying to the Conservative
party than his blunt repudiation of Mr. Parnell and Home Rule. ‘If,’
said Lord Randolph Churchill at Sheffield, after reading one of Lord
Hartington’s speeches, ‘this is really all you can bring yourself to
utter on political questions, you cannot indicate any difference between
yourself and your friends and the Government now in power. If, on the
contrary, you are compelled by the honesty of your nature to indicate
the strongest possible difference with a certain section of the Liberal
party with whom for years you have hopelessly and vainly tried to agree,
then I say you have no longer the right as a patriot and a citizen to
oppose the Conservative Government simply on the ground of antiquated
names; nor the right to act with Mr. Chamberlain and his friends, who
would not only destroy the Constitution, but would destroy with it that
great party of the Revolution--the Whigs--under whose guidance that
noble Constitution was framed.... I say to Lord Hartington before you
all--not by any backstairs intrigue, not by any secret negotiations, but
in the face of this meeting and before all England--to Lord Hartington,
to his friends, and to his following, words which were said to men
nearly two thousand years ago, who were destined to become great
political guides, “Come over and help us.”’
This invitation was rejected by Lord Hartington with some asperity. It
was comically suggested that he had written to inquire ‘Who’s “us”?’ and
had received the answer ‘“Us” is me.’ Radicals earnestly besought him to
follow the advice which had been offered. He would be much happier in
the Conservative camp. It would be better for all parties if he took the
plunge. To a proud man profoundly attached to historic Liberalism,
painfully conscious of the increasing difficulties of his position,
these taunts were galling in the extreme. In more than one speech he
denounced the New Conservatives, of whom he said that they arrogated to
themselves the title of Tory Democracy, had no distinctly marked
political opinions, and looked on politics only as a game by which they
might attain office. One shaft at least was shrewdly aimed. He taunted
Lord Randolph Churchill with going about the country with ‘a great
policy of grand pretensions but absolutely no legislation.’
The Secretary of State for India spoke in Manchester on November 6. It
was the eve of the poll. The election fever was at its height. The
streets leading to the St. James’s Hall were impassable, through the
crowd waiting to catch a glimpse of their favourite.[38] The vast hall
itself was crammed with excited people. Lord Randolph was in his
element. He cast away every kind of restraint and devoted himself for an
hour and a half with zeal and relish to an unmeasured attack upon the
Whigs, their record, their leaders, their influence, and their aims. He
showed how Lord Hartington had opposed almost every reform that the
Liberal party had ultimately carried--the ballot, household suffrage,
the abolition of flogging in the army--and yet under pressure had in the
end consented to them all; how he was still professedly opposed to
manhood suffrage and Disestablishment, but how in the near future he
would be forced to support them; how he already advocated that extension
of Local Government to Ireland which only the year before he had
denounced. This was political principle! And now? ‘Did any of you ever
go,’ inquired the speaker, ‘to the Zoological Gardens? If you go there
on some particular day in the week you may have the good fortune to
observe the feeding of the boa-constrictor, which is supplied with a
great fat duck or a rabbit. If you are lucky and patient and if the
boa-constrictor is hungry, you may be able to trace the progress of the
duck or the rabbit down his throat and all along the convolutions of his
body. Just in the same way, by metaphor and analogy, the British public
can trace the digestion and the deglutition by the Marquess of
Hartington of the various morsels of the Chamberlain programme which
from time to time are handed to him; and the only difference between the
boa-constrictor and the Marquess of Hartington is this--that the
boa-constrictor enjoys his food and thrives on it and Lord Hartington
loathes his food and it makes him sick....’ ‘Ah! the Whigs hate the New
Conservatism and the Tory Democracy because they are democratic and
because they are popular. They hate the Tory Democracy because it has
cut the ground from under their feet; because Tory Democracy has taken
the place of the Whigs and swept away that baffling and confusing medley
party which at every crisis obscures the issues before the people. No; I
quite admit that there is nothing democratic about the Whig. He is
essentially a cold and selfish aristocrat who believes that the British
Empire was erected by Providence and exists for no other purpose than to
keep in power a few Whig families, and who thinks that our toiling and
struggling millions of labourers and artisans are struggling and toiling
for no other purpose than to maintain in splendour, opulence, and power
the Cavendishes and the Russells.’
The audience were delighted at this hard hitting. Certainly Lord
Randolph had set his mark upon the Whig leader in unmistakable fashion.
It is said by some who were present and who followed his movements
closely, that on no occasion in Lancashire, not excepting the celebrated
‘Chips’ speech at Blackpool in 1884, was his command from minute to
minute of a meeting containing a large proportion of opponents so
strikingly displayed. Lord Hartington was deeply and personally
offended. ‘I hear,’ wrote Lord Randolph to his wife a few days later,
‘that Hartington says he will never speak to me again. _Je m’en moque._’
But ‘never’ is a hard word in political strife.
The contest in Birmingham was watched with the keenest interest all over
the country. The fame of Mr. Bright, the popularity of his young
challenger, the antagonisms which Mr. Chamberlain and his doctrines had
excited, the daring of the assault upon the stronghold of Radicalism,
the incidents of the Aston Riots, still fresh in the public mind, united
so many picturesque and personal elements that the rough and tumble of a
modern election assumed the glamour of a Homeric combat. Even Mr.
Balfour seems to have become enthusiastic. Considering how intimate his
relations with Lord Randolph must have been during these years, it is
curious how few of his letters are to be found among Lord Randolph’s
extensive correspondence. But the Birmingham election drew from him a
warm private message of encouragement and congratulation, written in his
own hand, in the midst of his own fight in Manchester. Every word
uttered by Lord Randolph was diligently reported. Not merely the regular
speeches in the Town Hall with which the campaign was opened, but
accounts of every petty ward meeting were telegraphed verbatim to the
newspapers. Lord Randolph’s address[39] had been issued as early as
October 10. From October 24 till the poll a month later he prosecuted
his candidature with seemingly inexhaustible vigour and fertility; and
as the days slipped by the tide of popular approval seemed to flow ever
more strongly in his favour. At the Radical headquarters there had been
at first some disposition to treat the attack with indulgent and
superior contempt. But soon feelings of incredulous anxiety broke in
upon complacency, and Mr. Schnadhorst and his myrmidons bent again over
their finished--‘perhaps too highly finished,’ as Lord Randolph
suggested--organisation, ciphering their pledged electors out again by
wards and streets and alleys with all that American thoroughness for
which the Caucus was remarkable. The progress of the fight, strangely
enough, provoked no personal ill-feeling between Lord Randolph and Mr.
Chamberlain. Their renewed friendship continued unimpaired. They
exchanged various small civilities and avoided, so far as possible,
attacking each other in irritating terms. When, for instance, Mr.
Chamberlain described Lord Randolph’s address as ‘colourless’ and the
reporters wrote ‘scurrilous,’ Mr. Chamberlain at once telegraphed to
explain the mistake and added a friendly inquiry about Lord Randolph’s
health. For the rest, the contest in all the seven divisions was bitter
and fierce. Lord Randolph was helped from morn till night by his wife
and his mother, at the head of their Primrose Dames. These ladies
canvassed the whole of the Central Division street by street and house
by house; and the Duchess of Marlborough--who was, as these pages
perhaps suggest, a woman of remarkable character and capacity--visited
the factories and addressed the workmen effectively on her son’s behalf.
If it were in human power to command success, the Central Division of
Birmingham would have been won. Against any other candidate Lord
Randolph must have prevailed. But the personal loyalty of the people to
their famous representative resisted all efforts. ‘I like your husband,’
said an old fellow to Lady Randolph on one of her canvassing tours, ‘and
I like what he says; but I can’t throw off John Bright like an old
coat.’
Not until the very eve of the General Election did the Liberal party
realise that their victory in England and Scotland would not be complete
and was even doubtful. For the first time since the Conservatives had
taken office in June all talk of triumphant and crushing Gladstonian
majorities died away. Tales of distress came in on every hand from the
boroughs. Crowds of ardent Conservative working men--utterly unexpected
phenomena--assembled to cheer and support the Government candidates. The
Conservative party was found, moreover, to have gained vastly in
prestige by its short tenure of power. Lord Salisbury’s conduct of
foreign affairs extorted admiration even from his opponents. The Afghan
difficulty had been removed and the Russian crisis was at an end. The
Egyptian settlement was proceeding smoothly. Good relations had been
restored between Great Britain and the two Empires of Germany and
Turkey, from which under the late Government she had been estranged.
The charges of ‘rashness’ and ‘Jingoism’ which it had been so
fashionable to make against Lord Salisbury found their answer in actual
events. The new Ministers had shown themselves competent and capable
men. It was no longer denied that the Conservative party could produce
an efficient alternative to any Government Mr. Gladstone might form.
The voting began on November 23. Forty-four borough constituencies which
had been represented in the late Parliament by 35 Liberals and 20
Conservatives now (after redistribution) returned 26 Conservatives and
18 Liberals. Liverpool elected 8 Conservatives and 1 Parnellite (Mr. T.
P. O’Connor); Manchester 5 Conservatives to 1 Liberal; Leeds and
Sheffield 3 Conservatives each to 2 Liberals. Other large towns like
Stockport, Blackburn, Oldham, Staleybridge, Bolton, Brighton, hitherto
for the most part strictly Liberal, were now represented mainly or
wholly by Conservatives. London, which in 1880 had sent up 14 Liberals
and 8 Conservatives, now returned 62 Members, of whom 36 were
Conservatives and 26 Liberals. Wherever the influence of Lord Randolph
Churchill upon the Tory Democracy had been the strongest, that is to
say, in the great centres of population and of active political thought,
victory--all the more dazzling because so desperately won--rested with
the constitutional cause. Two ex-Cabinet Ministers and quite a litter of
underlings from the late Government fell before the storm. Whereas, in
1880, 287 English borough members had mustered only 85 Conservatives;
in 1885, 226 English borough members numbered 116 Conservatives to 106
Liberals, 3 Independents, and 1 Parnellite. And it was, moreover,
noticed that even in boroughs where the Tories were outnumbered the
increase in their vote was heavy and almost universal.
Yet it is remarkable that, amid so many successes, the Conservative
party should have derived enormous encouragement from a defeat. The
result of the Birmingham election was declared late on the night of the
24th. Seven Liberals or Radicals were returned for its seven divisions.
But the Conservative minorities were everywhere largely increased, and
raised in the aggregate from 15,000 voters to 23,000. Whereas in 1880
the proportion of Liberals to Tories in Birmingham was as 2 to 1, it was
in 1885 as 3 to 2. Mr. Alderman Kenrick, the Chairman of the National
Liberal Federation, saved his seat by scarcely 600 votes from Mr.
Matthews. In the Central Division Lord Randolph Churchill was defeated
by Mr. Bright by 4,989 votes to 4,216, a majority of less than 800. It
was claimed by Conservative, and generally admitted by Liberal, writers
that no more significant proof of the change of opinion in English
cities could be furnished than this result. But while the political
world was fully aware of the meaning of the Birmingham elections, the
Tories who had fought the battle with so much earnestness and enthusiasm
were bitterly disappointed. Hope, growing stronger, had even ripened
into confidence as the contest had proceeded, and the crowd of local
leaders in the Midland Conservative Club awaited the declaration of the
poll in intense excitement. As one by one the adverse results came in,
the hum of eager conversation died away and gloom overspread every face.
The figures of the Central Division were still delayed. ‘Churchill’s
in!’ shouted a voice from the street; and a frantic cheer went up. ‘At
the bottom!’ cried the mocker; and fled. Then the truth arrived. There
was a sickly silence. In a moment Lord Randolph was upon his feet.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘the man who cannot stand a knock-down blow isn’t
worth a damn.’ The Midland Conservative Club were accustomed to regard
this remark with a respect which they did not always extend to more
edifying political pronouncements.
Lord Randolph returned to London next day and was almost immediately
elected by a majority of more than 2 to 1 for South Paddington, where he
then lived. The Fourth Party had fought everywhere in the front line.
Mr. Balfour, forsaking the shelter of Hertford, had captured an immense
working-class constituency in Manchester. Mr. Gorst was returned again
for Chatham. Only Sir Henry Wolff--still far away in Egypt--fell at
Portsmouth, and passes as a Parliamentary politician out of this story
altogether. Tory confidence flared high during the first few days of the
election and ‘Back to 1874’ was everywhere the word. Lord Justice
FitzGibbon was in London when the returns from the boroughs were coming
in, and after spending the small hours among an excited crowd at the
tape machine in the Grand Hotel, he hurried round to Connaught Place to
see his now famous friend. ‘Ah!’ said Lord Randolph, pacing up and down
in excited satisfaction, ‘the Whigs can no longer call us the party of
the classes. If they do, I’ll chuck big cities at their heads.’
But after the boroughs, the counties. While Liberals all over the
country were beginning to lose heart, while whispers of utter defeat and
panic were flying about among the wire-pullers, Mr. Gladstone stoutly
proclaimed his undiminished confidence that the new voters would reverse
the decision of the old; and so it proved. Scotland voted solidly
Liberal--only nine Conservatives being returned. In the English counties
the agricultural labourers tramped doggedly to vote down the farmers’
and landlords’ candidates. Mr. Farrer Ecroyd’s Fair Trade movement,
which had proved so popular in Lancashire towns, exerted an opposite
effect in villages, where Corn Law memories were still wakeful. Mr.
Chamberlain’s speeches had fallen upon a fertile soil. The country
party, with all its immense territorial influence and candidates of
county families, was shattered, never to be restored, except as a shadow
of its old strength. Henceforth the Conservative leaders, if they were
to rule the land, must build in town and country upon the foundation of
democracy.
[Illustration: _Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of “Punch.”_
THE WAITS.
_Punch._ December 26, 1885.]
Ireland was a portent. Not a single Liberal was returned. The Irish
Whigs were as a party and a force totally exterminated. Ulster elected
16 Tory members and 17 Nationalists. Out of 89 contests Mr. Parnell
won 85, the greater part by overwhelming majorities. Upon such national
authority could he base his demand for Home Rule. The leaders of both
the great English parties understood the meaning of the Irish elections.
On November 30 Mr. Gladstone was still appealing to his counties for a
clear and strong majority over the combined forces of Conservatives and
Parnellites. ‘There seems to be still hope,’ wrote Lord Salisbury to
Lord Randolph Churchill, as late as December 3, ‘that we may be above
low-water mark--_i.e._ Tories + Parnellites = Liberals.’ The hopes of
both were falsified by the event. The final result of the General
Election of 1885 sent to the House of Commons 335 Liberals, 249
Conservatives, and 86 Parnellites. ‘Low-water mark’ it was.
‘What will happen now?’ Lord Randolph was asked by a friend. ‘I shall
lead the Opposition for five years. Then I shall be Prime Minister for
five years. Then I shall die.’ In respect to the span of his life the
words came true almost to the day. But his personal fortunes and the
destinies of Britain were about to receive a vast and unanticipated
twist.