Union will emerge with her Loyalist crew stronger than before; but it is
right and useful that I should add that if the struggle should continue
and if my conclusions should turn out to be wrong, then I am of opinion
that the struggle is not likely to remain within the lines of what we
are accustomed to look upon as constitutional action. No portentous
change such as the Repeal of the Union, no change so gigantic, could be
accomplished by the mere passing of a law. The history of the United
States will teach us a different lesson; and if it should turn out that
the Parliament of the United Kingdom was so recreant from all its high
duties, and that the British nation was so apostate to traditions of
honour and courage, as to hand over the Loyalists of Ireland to the
domination of an Assembly in Dublin which must be to them a foreign and
an alien assembly, if it should be within the design of Providence to
place upon you and your fellow-Loyalists so heavy a trial, then,
gentlemen, I do not hesitate to tell you most truly that in that dark
hour there will not be wanting to you those of position and influence in
England who would be willing to cast in their lot with you and who,
whatever the result, will share your fortunes and your fate. There will
not be wanting those who at the exact moment, when the time is fully
come--if that time should come--will address you in words which are
perhaps best expressed by one of our greatest English poets:--
The combat deepens; on, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave.
Wave, Ulster--all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry.’
‘As I was bold enough to trouble you about your speech,’ wrote Lord
Salisbury the next day, ‘I may be allowed to say that I thought it
singularly skilful. You avoided all shoals, and said nothing to which
any Catholic could object--and yet you contrived to rouse a great
enthusiasm among the Protestants. And that I gather to be the general
opinion. I am sure the effect of the speech will be very great in
Ulster.’ Lord Salisbury made no secret of his opinion, and on March 3
publicly alluded to the Belfast speech as a ‘brilliantly successful
effort.’ The Ministerialists, upon the other hand, were furious. Lord
Randolph was accused of inciting to insurrection and treason and
denounced as ‘a rebel in the skin of a Tory.’ The Parnellites were
especially indignant that one whom they had been accustomed to regard
with friendly feelings, should so far forget his duty as to make an
inflammatory speech in Ireland; and as the delinquent entered the House
of Commons the next night, he was greeted by a loud demonstration of
hostility from the Nationalist benches, taking, if contemporary
descriptions may be trusted, the form of prolonged and dismal groaning.
[Illustration: “_Ulster will fight, & Ulster will be right._”]
On the 26th Mr. Sexton requested the Government to afford an opportunity
to the House for discussing a vote of censure upon Lord Randolph
Churchill; and the Prime Minister, in refusing, was careful to base
himself on the needs of public business alone. Lord Randolph, however,
persisted in his courses and a few weeks later, in a letter to a
Liberal-Unionist member, he repeated his menace in an even clearer
form: ‘If political parties and political leaders, not only
Parliamentary but local, should be so utterly lost to every feeling and
dictate of honour and courage as to hand over coldly, and for the sake
of purchasing a short and illusory Parliamentary tranquillity, the lives
and liberties of the Loyalists of Ireland to their hereditary and most
bitter foes, make no doubt on this point--Ulster will not be a
consenting party; Ulster at the proper moment will resort to the supreme
arbitrament of force; Ulster will fight, Ulster will be right; Ulster
will emerge from the struggle victorious, because all that Ulster
represents to us Britons will command the sympathy and support of an
enormous section of our British community, and also, I feel certain,
will attract the admiration and the approval of free and civilised
nations.’
The jingling phrase, ‘Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right,’ was
everywhere caught up. It became one of the war-cries of the time and
spread with spirit-speed all over the country. The attitude of the
Protestant North of Ireland became daily more formidable. The excitement
in Belfast did not subside. Dangerous riots, increasing in fury until
they almost amounted to warfare, occurred in the streets between the
factions of Orange and Green. Fire-arms were freely used by the police
and by the combatants. Houses were sacked and men and women were killed.
So savage, repeated and prolonged were the disturbances, breaking out
again and again in spite of all efforts to suppress them, that they
became in the end the subject of a Parliamentary Commission, the
evidence and report of which are not pleasant reading and proved, when
finally published, damaging to the Orange party.
The subject was not, however, discussed in the House of Commons until
May 20. An interlude in the Home Rule debate was required for the
passage of an Arms Bill which the state of Ireland generally, and of
Ulster in particular, had rendered necessary. Lord Randolph was, of
course, the object of severe attack from the Irish party and especially
from Mr. Parnell, who accused him of inciting, unintentionally, to
murder and outrage. To this charge, and to a statement of Sir Henry
James that his Ulster speech proved him ‘half a traitor,’ he replied
indignantly. He was able to cite the authority of Lord Althorp, Sir
Robert Peel, Mr. Morley and of the Prime Minister himself in support of
the contention that circumstances might justify morally, if not
technically, violent resistance or even civil war. He declined to recede
in any way from his words, and the Conservative party cheered him loudly
when he said so. Sir Henry James made a soft answer; but the
extraordinary feature in the debate was the intervention of the Prime
Minister. He did not arrive in the House until after Lord Randolph had
spoken, but without delay he launched out upon a sonorous denunciation
of his proceedings. He declared that such conduct reminded him of Mr.
Smith O’Brien, who in 1848 had risen in his place and announced that,
regarding constitutional means exhausted, he would forthwith return to
Ireland and proceed to levy war against the Queen. But Mr. Smith
O’Brien, argued Mr. Gladstone, was only a private member and a
representative of the people. How much more reprehensible was such
conduct when displayed by a former Minister of the Crown, by an
ex-Secretary of State and by a Privy Councillor! It almost seemed, from
the measured severity of the Prime Minister, that he intended to
conclude by intimating that he had advised the Queen to strike Lord
Randolph Churchill’s name from the list of the Privy Council. But he
avoided this natural conclusion to his argument. ‘If,’ he said, ‘we were
a weaker country, with less solid institutions, such occurrences as this
would, in my opinion, have called for severe and immediate notice.’ Mr.
Plunket from the Front Opposition Bench defended Lord Randolph, but the
Irish continued to attack him all the evening in an acrimonious fashion.
The next day Lord Randolph wrote to the Prime Minister, pointing out
some inaccuracies in the words attributed to him. Mr. Gladstone replied
tartly:--
10 Downing Street, Whitehall: May 21, 1886.
Dear Lord Randolph,--I have to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of this day, and it would be a matter of great regret to me
if I had used words which misrepresented your statements on so
important a question as that of resistance to the law.
My words rested mainly on a recollection of your speech in Ulster,
and of your letter of May 7 to Mr. Young. To abridge or avoid any
controversy which is avoidable, I will at once say I am content to
take your opinions as you have yourself expressed them in the
closing paragraph of your letter to Mr. Young.
Let us, then, if you please, consider that paragraph as already
substituted for my words.
The only difference will be that to that paragraph I should feel
constrained to apply the words in which last night I endeavoured to
describe your opinions, without any subtraction or modification, in
lieu of applying them to the description from memory which on the
moment I endeavoured to give.
I remain, dear Lord Randolph,
Faithfully yours,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
There the matter ended, being crushed in the throng of greater events.
Constitutional authorities will measure their censures according to
their political opinions; but the fact remains that when men are
sufficiently in earnest they will back their words by more than votes.
‘I am sorry to say,’ said Mr. Gladstone in 1884, in defence of Mr.
Chamberlain’s threat to march 100,000 men from Birmingham to London in
support of the Franchise Bill, ‘that if no instructions had ever been
addressed in political crises to the people of this country except to
remember to hate violence and love order and exercise patience, the
liberties of this country would never have been attained.’
Lord Randolph immediately on his return from Ulster, at the end of
February, threw himself heart and soul into his favourite project of a
coalition. To bring all Unionists together in one line of battle,
strengthened by trust and comradeship, to spread with roses the path of
every man or Minister who would separate from Mr. Gladstone, was his
unwearying endeavour. He would not allow personal differences to
disfigure that array. As early as January he had made friends with Lord
Hartington, who was still deeply offended by the ‘boa constrictor’
speech.
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Hartington._
India Office: January 13, 1886.
Dear Lord Hartington,--I learnt some time ago that you had
considered some remarks which I made in Manchester in November
concerning yourself in your public position considerably exceeded
the proper limits of political controversy. From your manner this
afternoon when we met I venture to think that you will not
misunderstand me when I endeavour to assure you that in case I am
open to blame in this matter I greatly regret it; and indeed will
admit that it is probable that on the occasion alluded to I dwelt
upon events which I feel must ever be to you of a deeply painful
memory in an unguarded and stupid manner.
There was, however, I hope you will believe, no intention on my
part to say aught that you could object to on these grounds, and I
am very sorry if it is the case that I gave you cause for
reasonable and just complaint.
Yours faithfully,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
This, of course, put everything right. Lord Hartington replied with much
cordiality, and the friendly relations thus re-established were
thereafter consistently preserved and improved.
On March 2 Lord Randolph visited Manchester again, was received by
enormous crowds in the streets and spoke at almost proportionate length
in the evening to upwards of 12,000 people in the Pomona Gardens--a
spot now occupied by the central pool of the Ship Canal. Certainly the
offer which, with Lord Salisbury’s consent, he made to the Whigs and
Liberal seceders could not well have been more fair or handsome. ‘Tell
us what you want,’ he said: ‘dictate your terms. We believe in your
hearts you are animated only by a desire for the welfare of the country;
we believe that you possess the capacity, mental and otherwise, for
contributing to that welfare. If you like to form a Government
yourselves, we will support you. If, on the other hand, you wish for our
personal co-operation in that Government, we will give it you. If there
are persons to whom you object and with whom you do not wish to serve,
those persons will stand aside cheerfully.’ And then he went on, in a
passage which those he so faithfully served ought not perhaps to
overlook, to urge the formation of a new party. ‘Do you not think,’ he
asked, ‘that the time has arrived--and fully arrived--when we might
seriously consider together how we might form a new political party in
England? Do you not think that that party might be an essentially
English party? I say English from no spirit of prejudice whatever. I
mean a party which shall be essentially English in all those ideas of
justice, of moderation, of freedom from prejudice and of resolution
which are the peculiarities of the English race. Do you not think that
such a party might be formed, which might combine all that is best of
the politics of the Tory, the Whig or the Liberal?--combine them all,
whether they be principles or whether they be men; and might not we call
that party by a new name--might not we call it the party of the Union?
Members of that party might be known as Unionists. Our opponents are the
party of Separation, and they may be known as ‘Separatists,’ because
they are a party who, in one form or another, would adopt a policy which
would be equivalent to the restoration of the Heptarchy--a policy which
would throw back our civilisation for centuries, and a policy which must
inevitably destroy that great fabric of empire which those centuries
have laboriously erected. I ask you to answer that proposition
seriously. Let us go in for a party of Union; and it is not only to be a
party of union of the United Kingdom, but it is also to be a party which
supports as its great and main and leading principle union with our
colonies and union with our Indian Empire. I offer this without further
elaboration to your most earnest attention, because I believe that it is
only by the union of all the subjects of the Queen in all parts of the
world and by the re-invigorated cooperation, cohesion and consolidation
of all parts of the widely scattered British Empire that you can hope to
restore to your commerce and to your industries their lost prosperity.’
Meanwhile the preparation of the Irish Bills was jealously guarded from
the public eye. Rumours and reports of their character, and of the
resistance they were encountering in the Cabinet, multiplied and
perished daily. Whigs and Moderate Liberals arraigned before anxious
local associations defended themselves in one way or another from
charges of ‘insubordination’ and ‘lukewarmness.’ Even those who had
refused great office were subjected to severe examination. But while the
agitation and excitement in the country mounted steadily, the
proceedings in Parliament were tame and dull. ‘Les jours se passent et
se ressemblent,’ wrote Lord Randolph. ‘Waiting on the G.O.M. is weary
work.’ Radical resolutions in favour of Disestablishment and the
abolition of the House of Lords failed to rouse the smallest interest.
All debates on other than Irish subjects were unreal; and as the
Government reasonably claimed sufficient time to present their policy in
due form, discussion on Ireland degenerated into desultory skirmishing.
A Scottish Crofters Bill and the colourless ‘Cottage Budget’ slipped
easily through. An unrestful hush preceded the storm.
In this interval Lord Salisbury retired to the Riviera and Lord Randolph
kept him supplied, as usual, with every kind of rumour, chaff, gossip
and circumstantial information, which his wide and various
acquaintanceship enabled him to collect. These chatty letters do not
lend themselves to reproduction. They are too full of sharp phrases and
personal confidences. But in the main they show only the utter
uncertainty and confusion that reigned in the political world and how,
even to those best able to judge, much that seemed trivial, turned out
to be true and important and much that looked substance, proved
moonshine.
Lord Salisbury himself was far-sighted, but not sanguine. He was
doubtful of a Whig coalition:--
It was said of the Peelites of 1850 [he wrote on March 16] that
they were always putting themselves up to auction and always buying
themselves in. That seems to me the Whig idea at present. I do not
think it is necessary to make any more advances to them. The next
steps must come from them.
I have great doubts about _your_ being the impediment. I observe
that Hartington, whenever he has the chance, dwells with so much
conviction upon my ‘rashness, &c.,’ that I suspect I am more the
difficulty than you. I believe the G.O.M., if he were driven to so
frightful a dilemma, would rather work with me than with you; but
that with Hartington it is the reverse.
And a fortnight later:--
It does not seem to me possible that we should attempt to govern by
a majority of which Hartington, Trevelyan and Chamberlain will be
important parts. On the other hand, a dissolution by us, as a
‘Government of Caretakers,’ would be hazardous. It would give both
the Chamberlain and Hartington sections an opportunity of wooing
back their old supporters by abusing us on some point or other that
is sure to arise and so escaping from the necessity of fighting the
election campaign mainly on Home Rule. It would be much better for
us that the dissolution should take place with Gladstone in power,
and upon the Home Rule question. It will then be impossible for the
three sections of Liberals to coalesce against us, and the moderate
men will be compelled to give us (at the election) some friendly
guarantees. But Gladstone may, if he is beaten, decline either to
dissolve or to go on. I see no hope of good Parliamentary
government in England unless the right wing of the Liberals can be
fused with the Tories on some basis which shall represent the
average opinion of the whole mass. But I see little hope of it. The
tendency to grouping, caused mainly by the exigencies of various
cliques of supporters, is becoming irresistible.
* * * * *
I doubt any popular stirring on this question. The instinctive
feeling of an Englishman is to wish to get rid of an Irishman. We
may gain as many votes as Parnell takes from us; I doubt more.
Where we shall gain is in splitting up our opponents.
But in the last week of March the situation cleared and hardened.
Descriptions more or less accurate and detailed of the Home Rule Bill
and its companion measure had leaked out. The division in the Cabinet
became open. Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan had, it now appears,
already wished to resign on the 16th. Mr. Gladstone persuaded them to
remain, at any rate until the Irish proposals could be presented to his
colleagues in a concrete form. On the 26th the Prime Minister faced his
powerful lieutenant for the last time across the Cabinet table. The
differences of opinion and mood were not to be reconciled or covered by
verbal concessions, however ingenious. Even with goodwill on both sides
they could not honestly have come to an agreement. And by this time
personal goodwill had ceased to be the determining factor in the
decisions of either. The resignations were announced forthwith. Persons
were found, as is usual in such circumstances, to occupy rather than to
fill their places. Together, in the ensuing five years, Mr. Gladstone
and Mr. Chamberlain could have carried almost any measure of Liberal or
Radical reform upon which they were resolved. The champion of Tory
Democracy, the cautious leader of the Whigs, the astute Conservative
general, would have resisted them in vain. But the separation proved as
lasting as it was complete and the war declared upon March 26, 1886, did
not cease until after Mr. Gladstone had finally retired from the
political arena.
Ever since their reconciliation after the Aston Riots, Lord Randolph
Churchill and Mr. Chamberlain had been good friends. The Radical leader
had been the first to offer his congratulations upon the defeat of ‘the
old gang’ in June 1885. He had discountenanced the opposition to Lord
Randolph’s re-election on taking office, and had been displeased that a
contrary action should have been attributed to him. The bickerings and
wranglings of the General Election in Birmingham had left their personal
relations quite unaffected. They had fought with fairness, and even with
courtesy in public speech, and without rancour of any kind. The
friendship that existed between them was now to have an important
bearing upon the course of events.
In various ways Lord Randolph Churchill was the only prominent man in
the Conservative ranks with whom Mr. Chamberlain could easily deal. Lord
Salisbury represented opposite ideas, and his antagonism had been so
recent and marked that direct association was impossible, even in this
great crisis. But Lord Randolph had been so roundly charged, both by his
Conservative comrades and his regular opponents, with being ‘a Radical
in disguise,’ and was, in fact, so far advanced on many questions, that
Mr. Chamberlain could consort with him without embarrassment or flagrant
incongruity. Lord Randolph therefore became a natural and indispensable
link. The force of political circumstances was strengthened by personal
predilection. Both men liked each other’s company. Their moods and ways
of looking at things--to some extent their methods--were not altogether
dissimilar. Both were popular leaders drawing their strength from
democracy. Both were bold, determined, outspoken and impulsive by
nature. Both had been joined to their orthodox party colleagues by
slender and uncertain bonds. So long as Chamberlain was a Minister,
their communications were necessarily restricted; but as soon as he had
resigned, he was free, and the two came together in close and cordial
co-operation.
Mr. Chamberlain was not likely to be turned from his purpose by the
difficulties and dangers of his position. The determination of such men
is only aggravated by these elements. Their doubts are hardened into
convictions at the whisper of compulsion. He had made up his mind, and
he would certainly not have been bullied out of it. All sorts of
ingenious and substantial alternatives occupied his imagination. An
Irish National Assembly, sitting at Dublin, ‘free to make bye-laws,’ but
‘subject to the authority’ of Parliament--able to levy rates, but
leaving ‘the Queen’s taxes to be settled at Westminster,’ would not have
driven him away. But on the main point he would not budge, any more than
Mr. Gladstone. He would not on any account erect ‘another sovereign
authority similar to the Imperial Parliament.’ Rather than consent
thereto he would face political ruin. And, indeed, it might have come
very near to that latter conclusion in the summer months of 1886.
Lord Randolph Churchill now set himself to work by every means in his
power to make the path of such an ally easy and smooth. To bring ‘the
great Joe,’ as he is so often called in the Churchill-Salisbury
correspondence, into the main line of the Union party seemed to him,
indeed, a worthy aspiration. He possessed in private life a personal
attractiveness and a wonderful manner--at once courtly, frank and
merry--which he did not by any means always display. Only his intimate
friends saw his best side. He now exerted himself to comfort Mr.
Chamberlain in the difficulties by which he was beset, and to make him
feel, in the midst of so much anxiety, that he was not without generous
friends in the Conservative party, who were ready to work with him in
this great fight without conditions or explanations of any
kind--without, indeed, one thought beyond the immediate overpowering
issue of the hour. The two men dined together often; they corresponded
freely; they consulted almost every day.
The Ministerial resignations and the imminence of the Parliamentary
crisis induced Lord Randolph to urge by telegraph Lord Salisbury’s
return. The latter was, however, not well enough to travel for several
days and in the meanwhile his lieutenants were in much perplexity. Lord
Randolph wrote to Lord Salisbury on March 29:--
Joe’s conversation last night was somewhat to this effect: He has
separated from Gladstone on account of the question of keeping the
Irish M.P.’s at Westminster. Chamberlain’s Parliament or Council
would be little more than a kind of central vestry, and the Irish
M.P.’s would remain at Westminster as they now are. Gladstone’s
Parliament is a real Parliament, and contemplates the departure of
the Irish M.P.’s. Chamberlain is very anxious, and cannot count for
certain on Radical support. He is rather ‘drawing a bow at a
venture.’ He is much exercised because G.O.M. will not let him make
any explanation of his resignation until after he has introduced
his Bill. Thus G.O.M. has the advantage of first bark. I am going
to dine with Joe to-night at his house, _tête-à-tête_, and shall
learn more. Last night there were too many others present for much
close conversation. Caine, on being asked to stand for Barrow, made
a _sine quâ non_ that he was to oppose Home Rule, and the Barrow
Liberals have accepted him on this platform. This is not without
significance. Gladstone declares he will have a majority of 100;
the Government Whips say 20; R---- says he will be beaten by 70.
Joe told me he had not exchanged a word with John Morley for six
weeks. Ashbourne was commenting last night on the fact that
Archbishop Walsh had swallowed John Morley’s atheism. ‘Ah,’ said
Morris, ‘John Morley spells God with a small _g_; but he spells
Gladstone with a big _G_, and that satisfies the Archbishop.’
I shall write to you again to-morrow and tell you what I hear
to-night.
_March 30._--I hope this will catch you before you leave Monte
Carlo. I learnt a good deal from my friend Joe last night.
Gladstone’s scheme, when Chamberlain retired, was roughly to this
effect: An Irish Parliament of one Chamber, with political powers
equal to the constitution of Canada, controlling all sources of
revenue, raising any taxes, with Ministers responsible to Irish
Parliament. Some kind of shadowy veto reserved to Crown. No other
guarantees or safeguards. The fiscal arrangement was to this
effect: At present Ireland pays by taxation 8,000,000_l._ to
Exchequer; of this England spends 4,000,000_l._ on expenses of
Irish Government, and takes the balance towards service of debt,
army and navy. In future Ireland is to pay 3,500,000_l._ to the
Exchequer towards these three latter objects, and to pay for her
Government as best she can.
The land scheme contemplated the issue of Consols to selling
landlords at a rate which was the same all over Ireland, but which
was to some extent influenced by the size of the holding. If
everybody interested in land took advantage of the scheme
simultaneously, the amount of Consols to be issued would be
220,000,000_l._; but by various dodges this was not to take place,
and the estimated gross issue of Consols was placed at
120,000,000_l._ On this advance Ireland would have to pay 3 per
cent. interest and 1 per cent. sinking fund, or something over
4,000,000_l._ a year. So that the total payments to the Exchequer
would be about what Ireland pays now--viz. 8,000,000_l._--for which
she would receive the land of Ireland and political independence.
Chamberlain thought the whole scheme might be altered by the G.O.M.
between last Friday and Thursday, 8th; but such it was in rough
outline when he left them. Can you imagine twelve men in their
senses silently swallowing such lunatic proposals?
Chamberlain said he could not support opposition to the
introduction of this Bill; so that, I suppose, no such opposition
will be pressed. He said that it was everything that the country
should see the G.O.M. had had the fairest of fair play. He is going
to reply to the G.O.M. on the 8th, and I could see he contemplates
a smashing speech--in fact, a speech for dear life.... No doubt
Chamberlain’s defection has increased Hartington’s numerical
following, and it has also rather fluttered him, for fear he should
be cut out by Chamberlain taking the lead. Chamberlain told me that
there was not a chance of his ever serving in the same Cabinet with
Goschen. This will make a reconstruction of the Liberal Government
under Hartington impossible.
Political apprehension increased as the date for the declaration of the
Irish policy drew near. This event, after various postponements, was
finally fixed for April 8. Early in the month Lord Randolph persuaded
Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Salisbury to meet. The Turf Club was the
neutral ground selected. Thither Lord Salisbury repaired--not, as it
appears, without trepidation and misgivings, and in the little dingy
downstairs room where visitors are received, was begun that strange
alliance afterwards so powerfully to affect the course of history. ‘I
was very anxious to see you to-day,’ wrote Lord Randolph to Mr.
Chamberlain on the 5th, ‘but learn you are gone home. Your friends, of
whom you have many, of whose existence you are not perhaps aware, are
desperately anxious that in any reply which you may make to Gladstone on
Thursday, you should not commit yourself to, or acknowledge the
authorship of, any alternative scheme. It would be a very dangerous
piece of manœuvring with such a skilful opponent as the G.O.M., and
besides might scatter dissension among the allies without conciliating
estranged Radicals or infuriated Irish. Don’t be cross with me for
troubling you. The situation is so critical for everybody that any
genuine opinion is worth consideration.’
And again later from the House of Commons:--
‘My anxiety about Thursday forces me to write to you again to remind
you, in case of forgetfulness among many other anxieties, that the
Queen’s consent to a detailed explanation of Cabinet proceedings is
required, which consent I am informed on high authority must be asked
for in a formal letter.... The G.O.M. is capable of trying to trip you
up on any formality.’
Mr. Chamberlain replied on the 6th. He was vexed with Lord Hartington,
who had changed his mind about the arrangements of the debate and who
now wished to follow Mr. Gladstone immediately. To this Mr. Chamberlain
had assented, not without irritation. ‘The whole matter,’ he wrote, ‘is
rendered more uncertain by the fact that the permission from the Queen
is curiously worded. It seems to preclude reference to Land Purchase;
and as this is bound up with the scheme of Home Rule, I shall decline to
say a word unless I am free to tell the whole story. I have written to
Mr. Gladstone, but at present have no idea whether or when I shall
speak.’
Lord Randolph answered:--
House of Commons: April 7, 1886.
I and my friends pressed very strongly on Hartington and his lot
your indefeasible title to speak after G.O.M. if you chose to do
so, and last evening they finally agreed to this. Now things are
again in confusion ... if we do not act symmetrically and in union,
we shall all get muddled up. Lord H. tells me he is going to see
you this evening. I want to see you first. Could you meet me at the
Athenæum, and, if so, at what hour? Send reply by bearer to
Carlton.
Lord Salisbury tells me G.O.M. has no right to prevent you from
making a full explanation of your reasons for quitting H.M.’s
service, and that if you write direct to H.M. and send it by
special messenger he (Lord S.) is pretty certain she will give you
leave, and you can snap your fingers at the G.O.M.
The irresolution and indecision of the Whigs is most baffling. I am
certain Hartington means nothing but what is right and fair towards
you, but you know there are one or two round him who are very
jealous of you. Don’t blame him, and if you see him this evening
before I see you don’t let him think you are riled with him.
We shall have a desperate fight with this artful G.O.M., and
nothing will win but the wisdom of the serpent.
But in the meanwhile Mr. Chamberlain had abandoned all idea of speaking
on the first day. The uncertainty as to whether the Bill had been
changed or not seemed to him a good reason for delay. His doubts about
the Land Bill had, moreover, been removed. ‘Mr. Gladstone,’ he writes
(April 7), ‘makes no objection to my referring to the Land scheme; so
this difficulty will not arise.’
The debate was marshalled with the utmost care. Lord Randolph feared
lest some trifle might make the mutual relations of his two powerful
allies more difficult than they were already. He understood how easily
vast consequences may in times of strain and emergency arise from
personal matters.
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury._
Turf Club, Piccadilly, W.: April 7, 1886.
Dear Lord Salisbury,--Hartington is to see Chamberlain to-night,
and will let me know the result of the interview here about twelve
this night.
He anticipates great difficulty with Chamberlain, because it
appears now that he wants himself to move the adjournment on
Thursday night, and that he may cut up very rough if again
interfered with. Lord H. says if Joe refuses to give way on this
point he (Lord H.) will not press it, and will decide to follow on
immediately after the G.O.M.
I trust it may be arranged in accordance with my views, because,
from my knowledge of the House of Commons under the Gladstone
spell, if the angel Gabriel was to follow the G.O.M. to-morrow
nobody would report him or care what he said; but by Friday morning
all the glamour will have disappeared, and the Hartington
brandy-and-soda will be relished as a remedy for the intoxication
of the previous evening.
I have written to Chamberlain asking him to see me this evening
before he sees Lord H.
I shall send you a line this evening about twelve in case anything
of interest ‘transpires.’
Yours most sincerely,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury._
April 7, later.
Dear Lord Salisbury,--I had a long and most satisfactory interview
with Chamberlain this evening. In consequence he met Lord H. in a
friendly manner, and arranged as follows: that he (Joe) will move
the adjournment on Thursday evening, and that Lord H. is to speak
Friday, either before or after dinner--for preference before.
Trevelyan will speak to-morrow. Lubbock and Lymington will also
represent Whig impartiality and patriotism if required.
Therefore we have to find dinner-hour speakers, and Plunket as a
ten o’clock man. The debate is to be carried into next week. If
G.O.M. insists upon Monday for his Budget, Tuesday will be taken
for Home Rule.
I hope you may approve of all this.
Yours most sincerely,
RANDOLPH S. C.
The famous ‘Bill for the better government of Ireland,’ after various
delays, came before the House of Commons on April 8, and was expounded
by the Prime Minister with his usual power and more than his usual
restraint. The Chamber, crowded from floor to ceiling with persons of
distinction and authority, the purlieus of Parliament invaded by an
excited throng, reflected the anxiety of his opponents and enforced the
memorable importance of the day. It was discovered that the Irish
members had taken possession of many places on the Conservative benches
above the gangway. The group of ex-Ministers, clustered together as if
on an island, seemed surrounded on every side by the exultant cheers of
their opponents. And as they listened to the oratory of their grand
antagonist and to the loud applauses which were raised from all parts of
the House, more than one heart sank at the onslaught which must now be
met.
Mr. Chamberlain did not speak till the following afternoon. Lord
Randolph’s anxiety about the exact terms of the Royal permission was
justified by the event. So soon as Mr. Chamberlain, in the course of his
explanation, found it necessary to refer to the Land Bill, ‘a very
startling proposal, involving the issue of 120,000,000_l._ Consols,’ Mr.
Gladstone rose at once to remind ‘his right honourable friend,’ as he
was always careful to call him, that the permission obtained from the
Queen on his behalf had no relation whatever to the Land Bill, but
referred to the Government of Ireland Bill alone. Mr. Chamberlain at
once asserted that he had resigned on the Irish policy as expressed in
the two Bills, and his explanation could not be complete unless he was
allowed to refer to both. He asserted that he had asked the Prime
Minister to obtain for him permission to read his letter of March 15,
which dealt exclusively with the Land scheme, and that Mr. Gladstone had
consented to this. The Prime Minister suavely observed that he could not
recollect what letter was written to him on March 15, and that he had no
power to extend the Queen’s permission beyond the limits of the
Government of Ireland Bill. The situation was painful and acute. Mr.
Chamberlain found himself in a position of astonishing difficulty. Quite
apart from the painful nature of a misunderstanding upon matters almost
of personal honour between distinguished men who had hitherto belonged
to the same party, his whole speech--the ‘speech for dear life,’ on
which so much depended--must at every step in the argument be
interrupted, restricted and recast. In the hush of a great assembly,
stirred by passions the fiercer that they were restrained, surrounded by
political opponents and personal enemies, menaced by the rancorous
attitude of the Nationalist members, and confronted by the greatest
Parliamentarian of the age, the resigning Minister had to make up his
mind whether to go on and defy the Prime Minister, whether to sit down
at once and refuse to attempt a mutilated explanation, or whether to
submit and say what could be said as well as possible. He chose the
last, and he succeeded in delivering a speech of nearly an hour which
proceeded by steps of close and sustained argument to a triumphant
conclusion. Lord Randolph Churchill’s admiration for this memorable
personal and Parliamentary feat was boundless. ‘By a supreme and
unequalled effort,’ he wrote at once, ‘you have reasserted your position
as leader of the Radical party, and on questions of Imperial policy you
have gained the confidence of the country. I never heard anything
better.’
In spite of all its unexpected restriction the speech of the resigning
Minister had proved damaging to Bill and policy. But a more formidable
shock was to follow. Mr. Chamberlain has been censured for having joined
the Government of 1886 at all; and at the time, while passion was hot,
he was freely accused of having joined it in order to wreck it. The
letter which he had written to the Prime Minister before accepting
office on January 30, asserting his opinions in perfectly unmistakable
terms upon the Irish Question, and the ‘unlimited liberty of judgment
and rejection’ which Mr. Gladstone had formally accorded him, are in
themselves a powerful defence of his action. But Lord Hartington, who
had from the very first held aloof, occupied a far stronger position;
and from that position, with the ‘hereditary virtue of the whole House
of Cavendish,’ in his usual temper of sober integrity, and in that style
of homely yet profound argument which has always influenced the English
mind, he now delivered a tremendous blow. For a long Parliament he had
led the Liberal Opposition; for almost a generation he had filled great
office; on a hundred important occasions he had been the spokesman of a
Government and a party, and yet until he sat down after his speech on
the introduction of the Home Rule Bill, no one on either side of the
House knew what he could do. Mr. Chamberlain could answer the Prime
Minister, Lord Randolph could attack him and fight him, Mr. Goschen
could rate him; but Lord Hartington on this occasion did that to Mr.
Gladstone which no other living man could do, and which Disraeli himself
had seldom done--he rebuked him.
Beside these speeches the rest of the debate, distinguished as it was by
so much wit and vigour, lay somewhat in shadow. The Chief Secretary, as
the living embodiment of the new Irish policy, was heard with the
greatest attention when he closed the discussion for that evening. In
arraigning the late Government for their bewildering changes of mood and
action towards Ireland, he fastened upon Lord Randolph a sharp
adaptation of a famous verse which was devoid neither of justice nor
severity:--
Stiff in opinions, often in the wrong,
Was everything by turns, and nothing long,
And in the course of one revolving moon
Was green and orange, statesman and buffoon.
Lord Randolph, when he resumed the debate next day, chose, like a good
general, other ground to fight upon than that selected by his adversary
as suited to attack. He spoke with unusual moderation, paying many
elaborate tributes to the Prime Minister’s eloquence and glory, and
dealing mainly, in laborious detail, with the fiscal and financial
proposals of the Bill. He contrived, without actually applying the
quotation, to remind the Chief Secretary of Grattan’s description of a
speech of Lord Clare. ‘Great generosity of assertion, great thrift of
argument, a turn to be offensive without the power to be severe--fury in
the temper and famine in the phrase.’ He kept his most effective retort
till the end. Mr. Morley had suggested that the consequences of the
rejection of the Bill might be an outbreak of crime and outrage in
Ireland, and against those responsible for its defeat. Lord Randolph
rejoined with force and dignity that such considerations ought not to
influence the House. ‘Are these new dangers? Have we never known of a
“No Rent” Manifesto? Have we had no experience of dynamite explosions?
The right honourable member for Bury can tell the House how we were
providentially, and almost miraculously, preserved from an awful
disaster. But the dynamiters--the people who were inculpated in these
atrocities--are now undergoing what has been called a living death....
Then, sir, as to assassination. Assassination is one of the rarest
incidents in modern political life. It used to be a common method of
political warfare; but the growth and progress of civilisation has
demonstrated its utter folly and inutility. A man in public life ought
not to be deterred by the knowledge that by some mischance some day or
other he might be the mark of a lunatic or criminal, any more than
anybody contemplating a railway journey would be deterred by the fear of
an accident.’ All this was greatly approved. ‘I think you must be quite
satisfied,’ wrote Lord Salisbury, ‘that your care over your speech was
not thrown away. Everybody acknowledges it to have been admirably
judicious.’ But Lord Randolph did not set much store by his effort. ‘It
appears,’ he wrote to his wife, ‘to have been rather a _succès d’estime_
than anything else; but the Whigs were very grateful to me for not being
abusive of the G.O.M. or violent.’ And again to FitzGibbon: ‘I fear you
must have thought my speech dull, but I was under an apprehension of
saying anything to hurt the susceptibilities of timorous Whigs and
Radicals, which made me very ineffective.’
No division was taken upon the first reading out of consideration for
these same susceptibilities, and the debate was terminated on the 13th
by Mr. Gladstone in another great oration. The introduction of the Bill
being thus formally agreed to by Parliament, the agitation in the
country and the fusion of the opposing forces proceeded amain. On the
next day a meeting was held in Her Majesty’s Theatre, at which Lord
Hartington appeared on the same platform as Lord Salisbury. The chair
was taken by Lord Cowper, Mr. Gladstone’s late Viceroy, and he was
supported by such representative men as Mr. Smith, Mr. P. Rylands and
Mr. Goschen. The great company who assembled, mainly Conservative in
their character, had no difficulty in coming to agreement upon a
resolution hostile to the measure. Lord Randolph Churchill, for reasons
which do not appear, thought this demonstration, known to history as
‘the Opera House meeting,’ a mistake, and he describes it in his private
letters as a ‘piece of premature gush.’ He was inclined to attach more
importance to a private conclave of Whig Peers which was held two days
later at Derby House, which he attended, and of which he kept a record.
All Mr. Gladstone’s Peers were present, there were scarcely any
absentees and much practical business was settled. The Duke of Argyll
and Lords Derby, Hartington, Camperdown, De Vesci, Ribblesdale and
Selborne, all spoke. Lord Hartington explained that there was no
question of a coalition. He said that nothing could exceed the loyalty
and good faith of Lord Salisbury and the Tories. In his opinion they
were fighting for the unity of the Empire, and not for personal
advantage. He could not make any definite statement; but he told them
they might take it for granted that the Tory party would loyally
support all Unionist candidatures. The Lords were urged not to be afraid
to use their influence upon local Liberal leaders; to tell the members
that their seats would be unsafe if they supported the Bill; and to
attend meetings, if possible, under Liberal auspices. If the Bill ever
reached the House of Lords great efforts must be made to reject it
unanimously. Meanwhile it was arranged that opposition to the measure
was to be fanned by all imaginable means. The meeting separated in much
enthusiasm and determination. ‘The feeling against the whole policy,’
wrote Lord Randolph to FitzGibbon the next day, ‘grows steadily; it is
an undercurrent which the outside public cannot detect.’
Upon the Parliamentary tactics Lord Randolph had the clearest views:--
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Hartington._
April 14, 1886.
Dear Lord Hartington,--I hope you will not think me officious or
presumptuous if I venture to urge upon you my views of the enormous
desirability of your giving notice to-morrow of your intention to
move the rejection of the Bill. Such a move will be the best answer
to the event of last night and the logical result of the meeting
this evening.
I cannot refrain from expressing the opinion that this Bill ought
to be dealt with on its merits, quite apart from any Land Bill, and
that delay in giving notice of rejection until after Friday would
be open to misinterpretation.
There are many waverers. The only way, to my mind, of leading such
persons is by resolute, prompt and decisive action.
Please forgive me for troubling you with these lines.
Yours very truly,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
The second half of Mr. Gladstone’s Irish policy--the Land Bill--was
brought before Parliament on April 16. The Prime Minister had shown no
apparent eagerness to make public this plan, and was credited by his
opponents with intending to hold it back till after the Easter Recess,
in order that the consideration of the Home Rule Bill might not be
prejudiced and complicated. Any misgivings which he may have felt, were
fully justified by the event. The measure was on all sides ill received.
The landlords, whom it was meant to conciliate, would have nothing to do
with it. Radicals disliked buying them out at such a price. Economists
deplored the drain on national credit. The Irish members denounced the
appointment of a Receiver-General. The Press, Metropolitan and
provincial alike, was almost uniformly hostile. The Bill scarcely
survived its birthday. No further progress was made or attempted with it
in Parliament. It perished meanly, and its carcass was kept by enemies
only in order to infect its companion.
The Easter holiday was a period of intense political activity. The Prime
Minister must, of course, have known from the beginning that the Home
Rule Bill would be thrown out in the Lords. The stakes were high. A
direct conflict between the two Houses and a dissolution thereupon was
an inevitable and perhaps an indispensable consequence of his policy. A
defeat in the Commons would shield the Lords from the responsibility.
They would not be concerned in any way. The issue would be confined to
Home Rule alone, and democratic wrath could fall only upon the members
of a representative assembly. It was therefore vital to Mr. Gladstone to
secure the passage through the House of Commons of at least one of the
two Bills, and every exertion was made by both sides to win the
dissentients who held the fortunes of the struggle in balance.
The machinery of the Liberal party acted as machinery is intended to
act. If the changes the leader of the party had proposed, had been twice
as vast, and half as reasonable, it would have been equally obedient. If
he had been an ordinary politician, instead of a great and famous man,
he would, consciously or unconsciously, have controlled it still.
Although Mr. Gladstone knew little of its ordinary workings, and would
have been disquieted had he known more, it responded readily to his
will. All its gigantic force began to grind up against the men who
withstood him, and to it was added the fierce wave of enthusiasm that
his magic drew from the Radical electorate. Nothing availed his
opponents within their own party. Long, distinguished, faithful service,
earnest agreement on all other subjects, the comradeship of battles
scarcely ended, the chances of victories yet to come--all ceased to be
worth consideration. Local Associations hastened to pass resolutions of
confidence in the Prime Minister. To all members who were declared or
reputed opponents of his measures--right or wrong--a hard and growing
pressure was applied. Lord Hartington was required to explain his vote
on the Jesse Collings amendment and his presence at the Opera House
Meeting to the satisfaction of the Rossendale Liberal Council. ‘I have
retracted,’ he said, ‘no word of condemnation or censure which I have
uttered in regard to Conservative policy; and in regard to any question
which is at issue between Liberals and Conservatives outside this
question of the future government of Ireland, I hold that I am as free
and as uncommitted as I ever was. Much as I value the unity of the
Liberal party, I value the unity of the British Empire much more, and I
will not be prevented by any party consideration from doing what, in my
opinion, may be best fitted to maintain that union.’ Yet these brave,
honest words from a representative so long trusted, preceded as they
were by a letter from John Bright himself declaring that Lord
Hartington’s attitude was thoroughly consistent with true Liberalism,
failed to win a vote of confidence, and the most that could be obtained
from the Rossendale Liberals was an expression of thanks for their
member’s address.
The course of events in Birmingham was, for reasons some of which belong
to this narrative, more remarkable. In all the arts of political
warfare, especially in that which concerns the management of
constituencies and electoral machinery, Mr. Chamberlain was unrivalled.
The forces at his disposal were small; but he did not throw away a man
or a chance. The introduction of the Land Bill gave him the opportunity
of reading his letter of March 15 which Mr. Gladstone had formerly
denied him, and of making many damaging criticisms upon that measure.
Yet the tone which he adopted was more friendly than had been generally
expected and his closing words, in which he expressed a hope that the
differences between him and the Prime Minister would not prove
irreconcilable or lasting, were warmly cheered from the Liberal benches.
Mr. Chamberlain has stated with the utmost frankness, in an interview
with Mr. Barry O’Brien,[52] that his intention ‘all the time’ was to
kill the Home Rule Bill. ‘I was not opposed to the reform of the land
laws. I was not opposed to Land Purchase. It was the right way to settle
the Land Question. But there were many things in the Bill to which I was
opposed on principle. My main object in attacking it, though, was to
kill the Home Rule Bill. As soon as the Land Bill was out of the way, I
attacked the question of the exclusion of the Irish members. I used that
point to show the absurdity of the whole scheme.’ The belief in an
accommodation was therefore baseless, and neither Mr. Chamberlain nor
the Prime Minister could share the hopes of their followers.
The war on both sides was fair and fierce. Mr. Chamberlain was
throughout at heart uncompromising; but he practised a conciliatory
manner so that he might carry Birmingham with him. The Prime Minister,
on his part, was duly grateful for his ex-colleague’s kindness; but he
allowed the necessary preparations to go steadily forward for twisting
from Mr. Chamberlain’s hands the organisations, local and national, he
had so long controlled. ‘Gladstone,’ wrote Lord Randolph to FitzGibbon
on the morrow of the Land Bill debate, ‘is pretending to make up to Joe,
in order to pass his Bill; and Joe is pretending to make up to
Gladstone, in order to throw out his Bill. Diamond cut diamond.’
On April 21 the Liberal ‘Two Thousand’ assembled in the Birmingham Town
Hall to hear their member’s explanations. The meeting, which densely
crowded the building, had been organised by Mr. Schnadhorst, and the
exertions of that astute person to obtain a vote favourable to the Prime
Minister had been unremitting. The speaker was not slow to understand
the dangerous blow by which he was threatened. He excelled himself. If
speeches rarely turn votes in Parliament, it is otherwise in the
country. The man himself, their fighting leader, their most
distinguished fellow-citizen, appealing for support from his own people,
using arguments which none could answer, with a skill which none could
rival, was irresistible. Mr. Chamberlain turned the meeting. Some were
moved by the hopes--which he was careful not to destroy--that, after
all, there would be peace. Others resolved to share with him the
fortunes of the struggle. They came to curse; they remained to bless.
Before he had finished, it was evident that he had won. The officials
on the platform saw themselves almost deserted. In vain they pleaded for
delay, for an adjournment, for anything rather than a vote from an
assembly so moved. But Chamberlain demanded an immediate decision, and
the meeting thought his demand was just. By an overwhelming majority--it
is said, with only two dissentients--they passed a resolution of
‘unabated confidence’ in their member, and later a resolution which,
though courteously worded, was in effect a condemnation of the Land
Bill.
On May 3 Mr. Gladstone published a manifesto practically declaring that
the Land Bill was no longer an essential article of the Liberal faith,
and that in the Home Rule Bill all questions of detail were subsidiary
to the one vital principle--the establishment of a legislative body in
Dublin empowered to make laws for Irish as distinguished from Imperial
affairs. On paper this should have met Mr. Chamberlain’s principal
objections. Yet two days later, without waiting for any fresh
declaration from him, the official Gladstonians carried at a special
meeting of the National Liberal Federation a series of resolutions
pledging that body--upon which Mr. Chamberlain’s influence had hitherto
been supreme--to an unconditional support of the Government. The policy
of making diplomatic concessions while fleets and armies are moving into
advantageous positions, seldom leads to peace, and Parliament met after
the Easter Recess more confused and divided than ever before.
The Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill had been fixed for May 6, the
anniversary, as Lord Randolph Churchill lost no time in pointing out, of
the Phœnix Park murders. It was postponed until the 10th, and on that
day began the protracted and memorable debate that ended the Parliament
and shattered the Liberal party. Up to the time when the Land Bill was
introduced Ministers believed that they would certainly carry Home Rule
through the House of Commons. But day by day the Parliamentary situation
grew darker. Lord Hartington moved the rejection of the Bill in an
impressive speech. Fifty-two Liberal and Radical members met Mr.
Chamberlain on the 12th to concert resistance and request him to
negotiate no longer. Sixty-four, including thirty-two who had been at
the former meeting, assembled at Devonshire House on the 14th. By the
18th Lord Hartington felt himself strong enough to make at Bradford
declarations which foreshadowed a hostile vote. On the 22nd the National
Liberal Union was formed of the principal Liberal dissentients all over
the country; while in Birmingham Mr. Chamberlain actually created an
entirely new democratic caucus of his own, to replace the organisation
which Mr. Schnadhorst had wrested from him.
But at the last moment everything came near being thrown into the
melting-pot again. On May 27 Mr. Gladstone called a meeting of the
Liberals at the Foreign Office. Above 260 members attended. The
proceedings were harmonious, and the speech of the Prime Minister most
conciliatory. He said that the Government desired by a vote on the
Second Reading no more than to establish the principle of the measure,
which was the creation in Ireland of a legislative body for the
management of affairs exclusively and specifically Irish. If the Second
Reading were affirmed, no further steps would be taken for passing the
measure that session; it would be withdrawn, and could be proceeded with
in an autumn session, or reintroduced in a new session with the clauses
which presented most difficulty remodelled or reconstructed. Moreover, a
vote for the Second Reading of the Irish Government Bill given by an
independent member, left the giver absolutely free as to his vote on the
Land Purchase Bill.
The plan was at once practical and alluring. The House was invited to
pass little more than an abstract resolution. The controversy of the
Land Bill was put aside; many of the controversies of the Home Rule Bill
would be relegated to the Committee stage. Yet, once the Second Reading
was passed, the Government would be immensely strengthened. A great
decision favourable to them would have been taken by Parliament. Above
all, there would be delay. Time would be secured to the Government to
win back their followers by blandishments and concessions, as well as by
the pressure of local organisations. Time was offered to the waverer and
the weakling--and among all the plain men jostled and buffeted in this
fierce contention there were many such--to put off the evil and
momentous hour of decision and to cling for a while to a middle course.
Time, too, would be at work among the slender new-formed Unionist
alliances. Was it strange that the rank and file of the Liberal party
should welcome this easy yet honourable escape and certain respite amid
alternatives so full of hazard?
The dangerous character of this manœuvre, not less than its extreme
ingenuity, was patent to the Unionist leaders. The Whigs were
embarrassed and perplexed, and Mr. Chamberlain’s position became one of
aggravated and peculiar difficulty. On all sides forces laboriously
accumulated threatened to dissolve. In this crisis Lord Randolph
Churchill’s instinct and resolution were decisive. One course opened
perfectly clear and distinct before him. A hot debate must be forced at
once and at all costs in the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone must be
stung into reply; and then, what with the taunts and interruptions of
the Opposition and the powerful influence of the Irish audience--not
represented at the Foreign Office meeting--he would in all probability
be driven to a more uncompromising declaration. As soon as he came down
to the House on Friday the 28th, he thrust this forward upon his
colleagues on the Front Opposition Bench and urged that Smith or Beach
should move the adjournment without delay. The others hesitated. The
movers of the adjournment would be on very weak ground and possessed, as
it seemed, but a slight and doubtful pretext. The skill of the Prime
Minister in explanations soothing to all parties was measureless and
unrivalled. A Parliamentary rebuff at such a moment might have the most
serious consequences. But Lord Randolph clinched the matter.
At the conclusion of questions Sir Michael Hicks-Beach rose and invited
the Prime Minister to declare definitely his intentions in regard to the
Bill. Mr. Gladstone’s reply was suave, and ended as follows: ‘Reference
must be made elsewhere before I proceed to give authoritative
information to the House; but there is nothing at all improper in asking
for that information, and on an early day I may be in a position to give
it.’ Forthwith Sir Michael Hicks-Beach asked leave to move the
adjournment of the House, and in spite of the angry cries of ‘No’ which
were raised by Ministerialists he handed to the Speaker a written notice
of motion, which the Speaker somewhat doubtfully accepted. All the
members on the Opposition benches and a few on the Government side of
the House rose amid much cheering and some laughter in its support. Sir
Michael then delivered a vigorous and provocative speech. Mr. Gladstone
had said that the Bill was urgent: yet now it was to be postponed for
five months. He had declared that the Government had a plan, that no one
else had a plan, and that their plan held the field: yet now the House
was asked to give an indefinite vote on some undefined principle of
autonomy for Ireland, which might mean anything or nothing and was, in
fact, a mere abstract resolution. If the Second Reading of the Bill were
carried under conditions like that, it would be nothing more nor less
than a ‘Continuance in Office Bill.’
This was all received with great Opposition cheering, and Mr. Gladstone
laid aside the letter he was writing and rose to reply. He began in his
most majestic manner. He was struck by the warmth of the speech to which
they had listened. He would not imitate it. The imputation that the
Government were considering their own continuance of office was one he
would not condescend to discuss. That he left to the generous
consideration of his countrymen. But as his speech proceeded, the cheers
of his followers and the wealth and splendour of his language and ideas
produced an exhilarating effect. ‘We have before us a conflict in which
we are prepared to go through to the end--(_loud cheers_)--and in which
we are perfectly confident of the final issue. (_Renewed cheers._) But
we will not take our tactics from the Opposition.’ (_Cheers._) And then
followed a passage which proved of momentous importance. ‘The right
honourable gentleman says that we are going to give an indefinite vote,
and that the Bill is to be remodelled. I think that happy word is a pure
invention. I am not aware that there is a shadow or shred of authority
for any such statement.’
LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Reconstructed.
MR. GLADSTONE: The noble lord says ‘reconstructed’ was the word. It is
quite true that the word ‘reconstructed’ was used. (_Loud Opposition
cheers and laughter._) What confidence these gentlemen who use those
means of opposition must have in the rectitude of their own cause and
the far-seeing character of their own statesmanship! (_Cheers._) The
word ‘reconstructed’ was used. Does the noble lord dare to say it was
used with respect to the Bill?
LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Yes.
MR. GLADSTONE: Never! Never! (_Cheers._) It was used with respect to one
particular clause of the Bill. This grand attack, founded upon the fact
that our Bill was to be remodelled, therefore fails. What a woeful
collapse! It is not the Bill that is to be remodelled, it appears, after
all. (_Home Rule cheers and laughter._) The noble lord spoke boldly of
my speech, but now it turns out that he read it wrong. (_More
laughter._)
Seldom has rhetorical success been more dearly purchased. If Mr.
Gladstone had made a lame and ineffective speech, if he had contrived to
sit down leaving the impression that he was hesitating and uncertain,
the course of history might have run very differently. The support of
wavering friends might have been secured. A word would have reassured
Parnell. The Second Reading might have been carried. But the very
excellence of his arguments defeated his schemes and his uncompromising
statements settled the fate of the Bill. ‘Never! Never!’ was the last
word in the negotiations with the Liberal and Radical Unionists; it was
the wrench which broke finally and for ever the many ties of sentiment
and interest which bound them to their party: henceforth they looked
back no more, and strode forward into the future, anxious but not
undecided.
Some realisation of the possible effect of his words seemed to come to
the Minister after they were spoken, for he lapsed into ambiguity and
reservations; ‘and,’ said he before sitting down, ‘if we had made some
great error in the management of this Bill, the right honourable
gentleman would not have interposed to-day with his motion for
adjournment, but would probably have sat with folded arms, delighted to
see how we walked into some one of the many snares set for us.’
Lord Randolph Churchill followed in debate. It was not possible then to
know how deep was the impression made upon the Liberal-Unionists by the
uncompromising statements of the Prime Minister, and Lord Randolph, in a
speech which provoked the occupants of the Treasury Bench, which many
mistook for a mere taunting attack, but which was, in reality, a very
adroit and skilful performance, endeavoured with no little success to
extort from Mr. Gladstone and the Home Rulers repeated admissions that
the division on the Second Reading was to be a real trial of strength
and repeated denials that the Bill was to be dropped or reconstructed.
To do this it was necessary to assert the contrary in an exaggerated
form--yet without exciting suspicion; and anyone who may chance to read
the speech from this point of view will discern the artifice lurking in
every part. The offer which the Government made to the House was, he
suggested, this: ‘If you vote for the Second Reading of this Bill, we
will withdraw the Bill, and you shall never hear of it again’; and when
this excited protests he swiftly changed his ground and declared that
the Prime Minister was speaking with two voices--‘a voice to the Irish
members that the Bill is not to be reconstructed--[_No!_]--a voice to
the Liberals below the Gangway that it is to be reconstructed.’ [_No!
No!_] He asked Mr. Gladstone why he would not ‘present a fair issue and
stick to his guns,’ adding, amid a storm of Ministerial wrath, ‘we are
being jockeyed.’ Why was it necessary to delay the Bill? ‘The right
honourable gentleman says he has no time. Why has he no time? To whom is
it principally due that this debate has been so protracted? Who refused
to take it _de die in diem_? Who interposed every obstacle which
Parliamentary experience and ingenuity could suggest? Why, sir, if it
had not been for the obstacles interposed by the Prime Minister himself,
we might have divided on this Bill a week ago. And what is the remedy?
“The question,” says the Prime Minister, “is very urgent. I still hold
to the doctrine of extreme urgency; but we have no time to deal with it
this summer and we will therefore put off further dealing with it till
the end of the year.” [_Mr. Gladstone dissented._] The Prime Minister is
very captious about dates. We will put off dealing with the Bill then to
some period in the future marked out for us by those “limitations which
are imposed upon us by the revolutions of the heavenly bodies.” The
right honourable gentleman complains of want of time, and he says: “We
will not send the Bill up to the House of Lords in August.” Because why?
Because the House of Lords will seek refuge in the excuse that they
cannot consider the measure in the time at their disposal. [MR.
GLADSTONE: ‘Hear! Hear!’] Sir, I dare say that the Prime Minister is far
better acquainted with Peers than I am. He has made a great many of
them--but whatever course the House of Lords may take will not, I am
certain, be based upon such frivolous grounds as that, and I am
perfectly convinced that he need not have the smallest fear whatever
that the question of time will be raised. I have not a doubt about it
that the decision of the House of Lords upon this Bill will be serious,
calm, immediate and final.’ After complaining that information should be
given to one group of members at the Foreign Office and refused to the
House of Commons as a whole, Lord Randolph proceeded: ‘What has been the
great bribe offered by the Prime Minister--a bribe as great as any
offered at the time of the Act of Union? “If you vote for the Second
Reading of a Bill which you do not approve of in your hearts and which
you disbelieve in, I promise that at any rate for another twelve months
you shall not be sent back to your constituencies.” This is the noble
policy of the right honourable gentleman, and the noble motives by which
he appeals to Parliament: “Vote for anything you like; you are committed
to nothing.”’
MR. GLADSTONE: Oh no.
LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: What? Then they are committed!
MR. GLADSTONE: Certainly.
LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: The Prime Minister surprises me. I did not
think it possible to be surprised by him. Does he contend, from a
Parliamentary point of view, that members by voting for the Second
Reading of the Bill can be committed to the Bill if that Bill dies or is
withdrawn?
MR. GLADSTONE: The principle of the Bill.
LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Never was such a view held in Parliament
before. I venture to say never; and that is why the Prime Minister holds
out to members the bribe that if they will only vote for the principle
of the Bill, which they disapprove of, and which is going to be
withdrawn and possibly never heard of again, he will consent to give
them a little longer lease of political life. The manœuvres of the
Government were such as might be expected from ‘an old Parliamentary
hand’; they were not those which statesmen like Lord Russell, Lord
Althorp or Sir Robert Peel would have contemplated; and, having drawn
forth one final demonstration from the Ministerial benches by protesting
in a concluding sentence against this attempt to ‘hocus’ the House of
Commons, Lord Randolph sat down well satisfied.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose to reply. In his most impressive
style he undertook to administer a solemn rebuke for the use of such
words as ‘jockey’ and ‘hocus.’ ‘This, sir,’ he said portentously, ‘is
the language of the Derby.’ ‘No,’ retorted Lord Randolph across the
table, in one of those penetrating half-whispers with which he so often
riveted his hearers, ‘it is the language of the Hoax.’ It was some time
before Sir William Harcourt was able to regain the serious attention of
the House.
The manœuvre had indeed been successful--but how successful could not
yet be known. Mr. Chamberlain summoned a meeting of his followers for
May 31, finally to determine whether to vote against the Bill or to
abstain. ‘Everything,’ he wrote to Lord Randolph (May 29), ‘turns on
Monday’s meeting’; and it is clear from his letter that he had not
absolutely decided upon his course. He even states elaborately the
reasons which made for abstention instead of a direct vote. Lord
Randolph ventured upon a final appeal. He wrote:--
May 29, 1886.
I feel almost certain that if you remain as firm in the future as
you have been in the past the Bill will be destroyed now; otherwise
it will only be ‘scotched,’ and will wriggle about more venomous
and mischievous than before. I think you must be satisfied with
your decision to delay your meeting and your speech. I am sure that
the greater bulk of your followers will stick to you, and stick to
you with all the more admiration and fidelity, if you keep your
foot down. Every day is showing more distinctly what madness it is
to trust the G.O.M.... It seems to me that if you allow your party
to give way, now that they know that the Bill in the autumn will
not be a reconstructed Bill, but the same Bill, both you and your
party will occupy a position of much humility, and you will have
missed at the last moment the prize which was actually in your
grasp. If you have any who are very weak about their seats let me
know the names, and I will do my best to secure them from Tory
opposition. But I do implore you to stick to your guns.... You
won’t mind my troubling you with these lines.
All went well at the meeting. A letter from Mr. Bright is said to have
turned the scale. Fifty-five gentlemen attended, and their resolve to
vote against the Second Reading doomed the Bill. Radical Associations
might assert their loyalty and support; democratic enthusiasm might rise
to fever-heat in the country; but, so far as Parliament was concerned,
the issue was settled. After this eventful interlude there was little
left but to go to a division, and at the end of the next sitting Sir
Michael Hicks-Beach announced that the Front Opposition Bench would take
no more part in the debate. Yet the discussion was prolonged throughout
another week, in the hopes that wavering rebels might return; and to
that end every influence which the Government could employ, from the
personal power and charm of the Minister to the discontent of local
organisations, was sedulously employed.
At last the day of decision came. An anxious crowd hung about the
precincts of Westminster. The House was packed in every part. A final
sensation remained. Mr. Parnell had waited till the end of the debate
and he had something in reserve which might well have shaken opinion.
‘When the Tories were in office,’ he said, in the course of one of his
ablest speeches, ‘we had reason to know that the Conservative party, if
they should be successful at the polls, would have offered Ireland a
statutory legislature with a right to protect her own industries, and
that this would have been coupled with the settlement of the Irish Land
Question on the basis of purchase, on a larger scale than that now
proposed by the Prime Minister.’
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, when his turn came to conclude the debate on
behalf of the Conservatives, met this statement with the bluntest of
denials. ‘I must for myself and my colleagues,’ he said, ‘state in the
plainest and most distinct terms that I utterly and categorically deny
that the late Conservative Government ever had any such intention.’
Parnell’s answer was staggering. ‘Does the right honourable gentleman
mean to deny that that intention was communicated to me by one of his
own colleagues--a Minister of the Crown?’ ‘Yes, sir, I do,’ said the
Leader of the Opposition at once; and then he added prudently, ‘to the
best of my knowledge and belief; and if any such statement was
communicated by anyone to the honourable member, I am certain he had not
the authority to make it.’ ‘Name! name!’ cried the members imperiously
in their excitement. ‘Will the honourable member,’ said Sir Michael, ‘do
us the pleasure to give the name to the House?’ ‘I shall be very glad,’
replied Parnell, amid renewed cries of ‘Name!’ from all sides, ‘to
communicate the name of that colleague when I receive that colleague’s
permission to do so.’ Every eye was turned upon Lord Randolph Churchill,
sitting on the Front Opposition Bench. But he remained gravely silent,
twisting his moustache moodily. Not until Lord Carnarvon’s explanations
two days later in the House of Lords was he relieved from a suspicion so
injurious to his character.
This was the end; and after it Mr. Gladstone brought this great debate
to a close in a manner worthy of its memorable importance and surpassing
all the fire and eloquence which had illumined its progress.
‘I do not deny,’ he said, ‘that many are against us whom we should have
expected to be for us. I do not deny that some whom we see against us
have caused us by their conscientious action the bitterest
disappointment. But you have power, you have wealth, you have rank, you
have station, you have organisation, you have the place of power. What
have we? We think that we have the people’s heart; we believe and we
know we have the promise of the harvest of the future. As to the
people’s heart, you may dispute it, and dispute it with perfect
sincerity. Let that matter make its own proof. As to the harvest of the
future, I doubt if you have so much confidence, and I believe that there
is in the breast of many a man who means to vote against us to-night a
profound misgiving, approaching even to a deep conviction, that the end
will be as we foresee, and not as you--that the ebbing tide is with you,
and the flowing tide is with us. Ireland stands at your bar, expectant,
hopeful, almost suppliant. Her words are the words of truth and
soberness. She asks a blessed oblivion of the past, and in that
oblivion our interest is deeper than even hers. My right hon. friend Mr.
Goschen asks us to-night to abide by the traditions of which we are the
heirs. What traditions? By the Irish tradition? Go into the length and
breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find, if
you can, a single voice, a single book--find, I would almost say, as
much as a single newspaper article, unless the product of the day, in
which the conduct of England towards Ireland is anywhere treated except
with profound and bitter condemnation. Are these the traditions by which
we are exhorted to stand? No, they are a sad exception to the glory of
our country. They are a broad and black blot upon the pages of its
history, and what we want to do is to stand by the traditions in which
we are the heirs in all matters except our relations to Ireland, and to
make our relations to Ireland conform to the other traditions of our
country. So I hail the demand of Ireland for what I call a blessed
oblivion of the past. She asks also a boon for the future; and that boon
for the future, unless we are much mistaken, will be a boon to us in
respect of honour no less than a boon to her in respect of happiness,
prosperity and peace. Such, sir, is her prayer. Think, I beseech
you--think well, think wisely, think not for a moment but for the years
that are to come, before you reject this Bill.’
The House proceeded immediately to the division. A Whig and a Radical
were named jointly tellers for the ‘Noes.’ The whole Conservative party
with two exceptions--one because of divergence and the other through
serious illness--passed into the Lobby. Yet such had been the strain of
the conflict, so many the uncertainties, so powerful this last supreme
appeal, that--pledges, agreements, careful calculations
notwithstanding--the issue seemed to hang in the balance; and Lord
Randolph Churchill, staring at the crowd as they shuffled by, thought
them so shrunken that he loudly exclaimed: ‘There are not three hundred
men with us.’ So great, indeed, was the excitement and apprehension that
after they had quitted the Lobby scores of Unionist members, instead of
going to their seats in the Chamber, remained massed about the doorway,
eagerly counting with the tellers; and when the three hundred and
thirty-sixth man was told, and it was certain that the Bill was
rejected, such a shout went up as Parliament has seldom heard. The
Government was defeated by 341 votes to 311.
Like Sir Robert Peel forty years before, Mr. Gladstone must now face the
spectacle, melancholy even to an opponent, of the break-up of a great
party. Few were left to him of all that able band who in such good heart
had joined his Government of 1880. Bright had parted from him; Forster
was dead; Hartington and Goschen and James were gone; Chamberlain was a
bitter and formidable foe. The Liberal party was shattered. The Whigs
had marched away in a body. The Radicals were torn in twain. The
Parliament so lately returned in his support had destroyed itself,
almost before it had lived, rather than follow him further. His friends
estranged, his enemies united, the faithful in jeopardy, the deserters
confident; the wealth, the rank, the intellect of England embattled and
arrayed against him; the Bill on which he had set his heart cast out by
the House of Commons; what wonder, then, that this proud old man,
feeling that the years were drawing to a close, yet remembering his
triumphs and conscious of his power, should reach out for the
sledge-hammer of democracy, and fiercely welcome the appeal to the
people!
Parliament was dissolved on the twenty-seventh of June.
CHAPTER XIV
LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
‘Solos imperantium Vespasianus mutatus in melius.’--TACITUS.
‘It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit whom honour
amends.’--BACON.
The General Election of 1886 surpassed, in the importance of the issue,
in the confusion of parties and the sincerity of the combatants, any
election since the first Reform Bill. Partisanship had grown rancorous
during the eventful course of the controversy; rancour was fanned into
passion by the excitement of decision; and to all was added the extra
and unusual bitterness of a party split. The Liberal dissentients were
brought at once to the uttermost wrench. Everywhere their own
organisations turned against them. Everywhere they struck back with all
their force. Everywhere they and the bold minority who stood by them,
looked for the aid of their former opponents. The Conservative leaders,
on their part, grudged nothing and neglected nothing that could
contribute to the strength of the seceders. To every member who voted
against the Bill they had promised whole-hearted support; and such was
their authority and the discipline of their followers that in nearly
every case the local associations obeyed them. Tory candidates withdrew
patriotically in favour of their late antagonists. Others were frowned
and hustled from the field. Old comradeships and old prejudices faded
together. Life-long friends drummed each other out of political clubs.
Life-long opponents fought side by side. Home Rule was the one and vital
test. The whole force of the machinery of the Liberal party--national
and local--was used uncompromisingly. No Liberal-Unionist who could be
attacked with any prospect of success, was spared. The purge was
complete.
The Home Rulers entered upon the struggle in good hopes. They were
assured of the obedience of the organisations. They saw the intense
enthusiasm--‘never before equalled’--of the Liberal and Radical masses.
They counted vastly upon the Irish vote in the English boroughs; and,
above all, they trusted in Mr. Gladstone’s mighty personality. But the
forces against them were tremendous. The statesman who would effect a
revolution in Great Britain must not only persuade a party, he must
convince the nation; and opposed to Mr. Gladstone were almost all the
men whose names were widely known or had been long respected--John
Bright, by himself a tower; Salisbury and Hartington; Beach and James
and Goschen; Chamberlain and Churchill! All the protagonists of former
conflicts were formed in one line of battle.
Lord Salisbury in the closing years of his life once said that Mr.
Gladstone in struggling for Home Rule, ‘awakened the slumbering genius
of Imperialism.’ Beneath the threshold of domestic politics during the
long years of Liberal prosperity the modern conception of Britain as a
world-power, the heart of an Empire, the inheritor and guardian of a
thousand years of sacrifice and valour, had lived and grown. It had been
cherished by the somewhat tardy recognition of Lord Beaconsfield. It had
been violently stimulated by the disastrous events of the Parliament of
1880. Although Lord Randolph Churchill was never what is nowadays called
an Imperialist and always looked at home rather than abroad, his
followers in the Tory Democracy were already alive with the new idea. A
single touch sufficed to rouse it into a vital and dominant activity
which for nearly twenty years has shaped the course of British history,
and in spite of extravagances, puerilities and even turpitudes, has left
a permanent imprint upon the national mind. It was this rising temper of
opinion that Mr. Gladstone’s Irish policy, embodied in his own majestic
personality, seemed now to challenge directly.
The personal element was the keynote of Lord Randolph Churchill’s
address. That surprising document was made public on June 20, and as a
specimen of savage political invective is not likely soon to be
excelled.[53] It will no doubt be severely judged, now that nothing
remains except the ashes of the great blaze of 1886. At the time many
eminently respectable people who stood some distance from the actual
fighting, as eminently respectable people are apt to do, were horribly
shocked. Even Mr. Chamberlain was startled. ‘Your manifesto,’ he wrote,
‘was “rather strong”; but I suppose the Tories like it.’ But if the Tory
candidates blushed when they read it in the morning paper, they did not
forget to quote it at the evening meeting. Its jingles and its
arguments--for it abounds equally in argument and in abuse--ran like
wildfire along the skirmish lines. The working man laughed over them in
his home and disputed with his mate upon them in the workshop. People
remembered epithets who could remember nothing else, and uttered taunts
when other ammunition failed. One phrase at least, ‘An old man in a
hurry,’ has become historic. If the address was vulgar, it was also
popular. If it was reprobated, it was also used. The anger of that time
has cooled, and its expression is worth preserving, though it may now
provoke nothing worse than a smile.
Lord Randolph spoke only twice during the election, for the exertions of
the Session forced him to seek a rest. He visited Manchester on June 28
and, although he had been there often in the last three years, so great
were the crowds that the traffic of the city was completely suspended
while he made a triumphal progress through the streets. Two days later
he addressed his own constituents in Paddington. His most important
work, however, in the 1886 election lay in Birmingham, where only six
months before he had led the Conservative attack against Mr. Bright and
Mr. Chamberlain. The Tory party in that city, by tremendous efforts,
then first asserted itself as a political force; and, although beaten in
every division, their minorities were well organised and enthusiastic
and amounted in the aggregate to more than 20,000 voters. They did not
easily forget that for years and years they had been kept by the Caucus
and by the genius of Mr. Schnadhorst in a condition of political
subjection. They had almost triumphed in 1885. The turn of events now
threw their arch-enemies absolutely into their hands, and there were not
wanting among their leaders those to whom the divided state of the
Radical party offered the strongest temptations. It was fortunate for
the Unionist cause that there was at hand an influence to which the
whole Conservative party in Birmingham would readily respond.
Disagreeable speeches made by local politicians filled Mr. Chamberlain
with anxiety, and the difficulty and isolation of his own position
inclined him at first to take a gloomy view. Lord Randolph hurried down
to Birmingham on June 19, and by his influence and that of Mr. Rowlands,
the leader of the Conservative party in Birmingham, all difficulties
were smoothed away. ‘I have seen the Birmingham Tories to-day,’ he wrote
to Mr. Chamberlain (June 19). ‘Henry Matthews has consented, after much
pressing, to stand against Cook. We shall run no other candidate and
shall give all our support to the Liberal-Unionists, asking for no
return and making no boast or taunt.’ This letter he signed ‘Yours
ever’--an unusual subscription with him. Again the same day: ‘I will
engage that all your Unionist candidates shall have the full support of
our party. I have telegraphed to Rowlands to see me on Monday.
Schnadhorst’s only chance is that you should seem to be afraid of him.
Why does not Mr. Bright intervene? I am looking forward most anxiously
to the account of your meeting and speech to-night. I think there is a
great deal of froth about the Gladstone proceedings, and all my
information up to now makes me confident that the voting will be heavy
against him. Don’t get down-hearted.’
‘Thanks to your intervention,’ replied Mr. Chamberlain (June 20),
‘matters look better here. The meeting last night was a tremendous
success. Only fifty or one hundred dissentients out of 4,000, all
electors marked off on register. This meeting will, I hope, have a great
effect in other divisions, and I think we shall get Collings chosen in
Bordesley. If so, we ought to carry seven Unionists for Birmingham....’
‘I was greatly relieved,’ replied Lord Randolph (June 21), ‘to see by
your letter this morning that you were in better spirits. Your meeting
was indeed a tremendous success, and your speech, as usual, most
excellent. I hope my address has not given you a fit. I have only said
what you and Hartington are longing to say, but dare not.... My own
opinion is that we shall roll the old man over.’
So in the end it proved. The elections began on July 1, and from the
very first the results were disastrous to the Liberal party. The
enthusiasm of the Liberal and Radical masses and the obedience of the
organisations were unavailing. They sufficed only to drive from the
Liberal ranks into irreconcilable opposition every man who would not
accept the Irish policy. They were unable to secure a majority for Home
Rule. They wrought havoc, but failed to achieve victory. The bulk of
both parties voted in the ordinary way, according to their colours and
their watchwords; but in every constituency men who had hitherto fought
for the Liberal cause fought fiercely against it. The margin in many
seats was so narrow that the resolute resistance of individuals and
their adherents turned the scale. The dissentient Liberals with their
personal following, supported by the whole Conservative vote, proved the
most secure of any class of candidates. Of ninety-four who had voted on
June 8, sixty-three were returned to the House of Commons. It had been
asserted, and to some extent believed, that the Irish vote would turn
the balance in forty constituencies. It was, however, discovered that
the entire Irish vote in Great Britain could scarcely exceed 40,000
persons, of whom three-fourths were resident in London, Liverpool and
Glasgow, while the remainder were too scattered to be effective. The
great city of Birmingham returned a solid body of Unionists in the place
of an equal number of Liberals elected in 1885. London became
overwhelmingly Tory. The English and Welsh boroughs, which in the
previous autumn had returned 118 Conservatives and 118 Liberals, now
returned 169 Unionists and only 67 Liberals. The counties were not less
remarkable. The 1885 election had returned 152 Liberals and 101
Conservatives; six months later the results showed 81 Liberals and 172
Unionists. Even in Scotland, Mr. Gladstone’s stronghold, his immediate
followers fell from 61 to 43. The British Gladstonians (191), with the
Nationalists (85), were in a minority of 40 as compared with the
Conservatives (316), without counting on either side the 78 dissentient
Liberals who followed Lord Hartington or Mr. Chamberlain. The opponents
of the Irish policy numbered 394, as against 276 in its favour, and the
Unionist majority was therefore 118. Face to face with this decision,
which in such a short space of time had altered--and altered, as it
proved, for more than a generation--the whole complexion of the English
constituencies, Mr. Gladstone did not linger. A Cabinet Council
assembled on July 20 and formally decided to resign. The resignations of
Ministers were accepted the next day, and Lord Salisbury was for the
second time summoned by the Queen.
Lord Randolph, who was himself returned for Paddington by a majority of
more than three to one,[54] did not wait for the results of the
elections. While politicians crowded around the tape machines in the
London clubs or harangued excited meetings in the country, he fled
silently and swiftly abroad, and by a Norwegian river awaited the
result without impatience or anxiety. To his wife he wrote:--
Torresdal: July 10, 1886.
It is certainly a tremendous journey up here. We arrived last
Wednesday, at about eleven o’clock at night, after a very long
drive, in carrioles, of seventy miles. We calculate we are about
1,500 miles from Connaught Place. I caught three fish on
Thursday--12 lbs., 12 lbs., and 15 lbs.--and lost three; yesterday
I killed three--20 lbs., 18 lbs., 20 lbs.--and lost one. The
weather has been rainy and raw, but on the other hand we have no
flies; I believe, if it is hot, the flies here are terrible. I have
heard no election news since Tuesday, when things seemed to be
going well. This is doing me a lot of good. I felt very seedy
leaving London, and it took me some days to get right.... This is a
most delightful spot, and very solitary; no tourists, no natives.
The house, which is rough to look at, is comfortable enough inside,
and Tommy is as amiable and charming as ever. On Saturday, by law,
you may not fish after six in the evening till six on Sunday
evening. It certainly is very curious having broad daylight at
midnight. Fishing after dinner is very pleasant if the night is
fine, and I am very glad to have seen this part of the world....
Post has just come in with telegrams from Moore and Rothschild.
Certainly most satisfactory news, which confirms all my
expectations.... I believe my address did no end of good, but, of
course, no one in London will agree. I expect the Tories will now
come in, and remain in some time. It seems to me we want the
5,000_l._ a year badly. But really we must retrench. I cannot
understand how we get through so much money....
From Norwegian delights he was soon recalled to the business of
Cabinet-making.
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Justice
FitzGibbon._
_Very private._
2 Connaught Place, W.: July 25, 1886.
It was very pleasant to me to find on my return yesterday morning
your very interesting letter. I showed it to Smith and Beach, who
were much impressed. Things at the present moment are chaotic, and
will not commence to resolve themselves into order until Lord S.
returns from Osborne to-morrow.
Hartington and Co. definitely decline to join us, but will be the
most efficient buttress. They mean to have their own Whips and
their own organisation and probably will sit below the gangway on
the Ministerial side of the House. If we play our cards well, we
ought to remain in office for a long time. I am much in favour
myself of the immediate resumption of the policy of January 26, and
going on at once with the remaining business of the Session,
instead of waiting till October. It will be a big fence to clear,
but the horse is fresh; and, once cleared, the government of
Ireland would be much simplified.
I fear the ‘periplus’ is very doubtful this year, and might have to
be undertaken under the auspices of the R. I. Constabulary assisted
by Scotland Yard. Possibly Londonderry will become Lord-Lieutenant.
All this, besides being very doubtful, is quite secret.
Lord Salisbury accepted the commission from the Queen in 1886, with
leave to resign it, if necessary, to Lord Hartington. Forthwith he
strongly pressed the leader of the Whigs to form a Government and
assured him, if he did so, of Conservative support. Lord Hartington knew
that any Government he could form would be practically Conservative in
its composition, and must be called by that name. He believed that in
these circumstances the Liberal Unionist party would dissolve, Mr.
Chamberlain and the Radical section splitting off and probably rejoining
the Liberals. He therefore declined; but the fact that the offer had
been fairly made placed him in much closer relation with Lord Salisbury,
and seemed to secure for a Conservative Administration definite
assurances of Whig and Liberal Unionist support. Lord Salisbury, having
explained these proceedings to the satisfaction of a meeting of his
party at the Carlton Club, then proceeded to form a regular Conservative
Ministry. As is usual on these occasions, every rumour found its
believers and every conceivable appointment had its advocates. Lord
Randolph was variously named for the Indian, the Irish and the Foreign
Secretaryships. It was also spitefully suggested in many newspapers that
an intrigue in his interests was on foot to eject Sir Michael
Hicks-Beach from the Leadership of the House of Commons.
After the meeting at the Carlton Lord Salisbury sent for Sir Michael
Hicks-Beach and Lord Randolph Churchill. ‘I declined,’ wrote Sir Michael
Hicks-Beach in after years, ‘to continue Leader of the House of Commons.
I felt that Lord Randolph Churchill was superior in eloquence, ability
and influence to myself; that the position of Leader in name, but not in
fact, would be intolerable; and that it was better for the party and the
country that the Leader in fact should be Leader also in name. Lord
Salisbury very strongly pressed me to remain, saying that character was
of most importance, and quoting Lord Althorp as an instance; but I
insisted. I had very great difficulty in persuading Lord Randolph to
agree. I spent more than half an hour with him in the Committee Room of
the Carlton before I could persuade him, and I was much struck by the
hesitation he showed on account of what he said was his youth and
inexperience in taking the position. He insisted on my going to Ireland,
pointing out that I could only honourably give up the Leadership by
taking what was at the moment the most difficult position in the
Government.’ The matter was arranged accordingly, and Lord Randolph
became in addition Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Leadership of the
House of Commons having been settled, other appointments proceeded
rapidly. Lord Randolph secured the appointment of Mr. Henry Matthews to
the Home Office. Mr. Raikes took the Post Office ‘with a growl.’ Mr.
Chaplin indignantly declined the Presidency of the Local Government
Board[55] because the offer was unaccompanied by a seat in the Cabinet;
and Lord Salisbury, having consulted with Lord Randolph, appointed Mr.
Ritchie to that office. Mr. Chaplin received from the Chancellor of the
Exchequer a fatherly letter of remonstrance, written more in sorrow than
in anger, which he may have read over with satisfaction by the light of
subsequent events. One letter on these delicate matters may, perhaps,
be printed without impropriety:--
_Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury._
2 Connaught Place, W.: July 30, 1886.
Dear Lord Salisbury,--Your letter received this morning contains so
much good news that I am encouraged to press you very earnestly to
consider--if possible, favourably--the arrangement of Stanhope for
India, Holland for the Colonies, with Gorst as Education Minister.
I feel certain that this arrangement would be agreeable to all your
colleagues and encouraging to the party, while to the general
public it gives an appearance of symmetry to the Government which
the appointment of ---- would hopelessly disfigure....
I do not press Gorst for Education, because, if Stanley takes the
Board of Trade, you may want to put Ritchie or Forwood at the
Education Office; but I feel certain you would be pleased with the
effect of Holland and Stanhope in the two high offices. In case you
should wish to see me, I shall be in town until four o’clock this
afternoon.
Yours most sincerely,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
Lord Randolph Churchill accepted the responsibilities of his high
offices without elation. ‘How long will your leadership last?’ asked a
Liberal friend. ‘Six months,’ replied Lord Randolph gaily. ‘And after
that?’ ‘Westminster Abbey!’ He had neither the time nor the inclination
to dwell upon the many twists of fortune that had served him or the
dangers and obstacles he had escaped. If he had cherished the ambition
of leading a great party, he had not scrambled for place. He had driven
Sir Stafford Northcote from the House of Commons, but he had not counted
upon being his successor. He would have been perfectly content to serve
under Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. He had fought fiercely and ruthlessly for
his opinions and to have things settled as he thought they should be
settled; but not consciously for his own interests. These had followed
in the track of the fighting. His advancement had been the result, and
not the reason, of his exertions. Real leaders of men do not come
forward offering to lead. They show the way, and when it has been found
to lead to victory they accept as a matter of course the allegiance of
those who have followed. His personal ascendency was not the result of
calculations. It was natural; and it was everywhere recognised, even by
those who disliked and distrusted him--and that was a numerous band--as
a fact ascertained and indisputable. It could not have been created by
any process of scheming. Indeed, as this account has witnessed, he had
more than once offered to stand aside to promote a coalition which must
have excluded him for years from any chance of leading the House of
Commons. He had lingered at his salmon-fishing, after the election was
determined, in the expectation of a coalition and anxious not to disturb
it.
It is easy to deal with men whose motive is self-interest. Others can
cypher out the chances, too. The influence which Lord Randolph Churchill
exerted upon the men with whom he came in closest contact, upon Lord
Salisbury and upon Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, could never have been
acquired by a self-seeker, however brilliantly endowed. A veil of the
incalculable shrouded the workings of his complex nature. No one could
tell what he would do, or by what motive, lofty or trivial, of
conviction or caprice, of irritation or self-sacrifice, he would be
governed; and in these good days of fortune the double fascination of
mystery and success lent him an air of authority which neither
irreverent language nor the impulsive frankness of youth could dispel.
He became Leader of the House of Commons, not because he had schemed for
it, nor because it was his right in lawful succession, not assuredly
because the Conservatives loved him or felt they would be safe in his
hands. He _was_ the leader at that moment--natural, inevitable and, as
it seemed, indispensable.
Yet the world, when confronted with the result, was astonished. No
appointment--not all the appointments together--created such a stir of
interest and dispute. Not only at home, but in Europe and in the United
States, it was universally the subject of anxious or sympathetic
comment. In the House of Commons, where men eye each other so narrowly
and where capacity can be judged so exactly, the fact was accepted
without demur. It was right, it seemed, that the prizes of that assembly
should go to those who were in fact its leading spirits. The part he had
played in the decision of the Home Rule battle had been unsurpassed in
importance. He had never wavered. He had named the Unionist Party. He
had been a principal agent in the electoral compact on which it was
based. He was the link with Chamberlain. His authority had roused
Belfast and soothed Birmingham. His dexterous energy had foiled Mr.
Gladstone’s last attempt at compromise. Much, though not all, of this
was understood by politicians.
To the Tory Democracy no news could be so good as his success. The
English like to be governed by men they know. The working-class
electors, who had voted at two rapidly succeeding elections against Mr.
Gladstone, saw in Lord Randolph Churchill their favourite and champion.
They recalled the disasters and depression of their party in the past
and the political convulsion from which it had at length emerged. They
saw it triumphant where it had lately been despised. They saw it united
where it had lately been distracted; and, with what measure of reason
the reader can judge, they attributed this revolution to Lord Randolph
Churchill more than to any other man.
But other classes have to be considered in Great Britain besides
politicians and working men. All sorts of persons of influence and
station in their different spheres had been offended by the very process
which had attracted the democracy. ‘An insular people,’ wrote Disraeli
in ‘Endymion,’ ‘subject to fogs and possessing a powerful middle class,
requires grave statesmen.’ And there were many who saw in Lord Randolph
only an audacious fellow, whose methods were shocking to serious folk,
whose violence impaired the dignity of public life and whose headlong
career seemed strewn with the wreckage of overturned authority. How,
they asked, was such an impatient person to endure the vexations of a
Parliamentary session? How could a young man of thirty-six possess or
obtain the knowledge necessary to deal with the varieties of complicated
questions upon which a Leader is required to pronounce? How was this
spirit of strife and revolt to reconcile differences between colleagues
and exact discipline from a party? How was the flagrant obstructionist
of 1884 to direct the course of business in 1886? How was the writer of
the letter to Lord Granville and the erstwhile leader of the Fourth
Party to maintain the dignity and principles of Unionist and Imperial
administration? To all these questionings an answer was found even in
the very short time that remained.
Much was also said of his going to the Treasury. It is amusing to read,
by the light of after days, the lectures, kindly yet severe, in which
the Times sought to warn him against fiscal temptations. ‘A Budget on
ordinary lines, framed with the aid and advice of experienced permanent
officials,’ would alone avoid ‘injurious innovations’ and ‘the raising
of disquieting problems.’ He was adjured to remember how utterly fatal
to the Unionist alliance any departure from ‘sound principles of
finance, understood and acted upon by successive Administrations,
Conservative as well as Liberal,’ would inevitably prove. For the sake
of the Liberal-Unionists, for the sake, at least, of Mr. Chamberlain, he
must forbear. Other newspapers reminded him of his declarations in
favour of economy. ‘The first and most vital interest of the nation,’ he
had said, ‘is finance. Upon finance everything connected with government
hinges. Good finance ensures good government and national prosperity;
bad finance is the cause of inefficient government and national
depression.’ And, again: ‘I should like to see the House of Commons
devote one or even two entire sessions to nothing but finance. I should
like to turn the House of Commons loose into our public departments on a
voyage of discovery. I should like to see every one of our public
departments rigorously inquired into by small Committees of about seven
experienced and practical members of Parliament each.... I firmly
believe that such an inquiry would demonstrate that those useful
arrangements of economy of time, economy of labour and economy of money
are absolutely unknown in our public departments.’ How would all these
fine opinions fare now that he was himself the Minister responsible? And
the Liberal papers did not delay to prophesy ‘his certain repudiation in
office of every principle of economy and of that policy of inquiry which
he had so eloquently professed in Opposition.’ And that, again, was a
matter which time would soon resolve.
One shrewd warning came from a friend. ‘Can Goschen by any means
whatever,’ wrote Lord Justice FitzGibbon on July 27, ‘be induced to take
the Exchequer? I suppose you think me uncomplimentary in such a
suggestion. I am not. Age and financial experience have immense weight
in that post out-of-doors, and I confess I fear that you would bring
down upon yourself a weight of hostility from the front, and would have
a dead weight of jealousy from behind and beside you, that might make
the place unbearable to yourself or so laborious that you could not
stand it. Of course, if “the lead” must not be separated from the
Exchequer, it can’t be helped; but if I were you I would rather not be
obliged to carry as Leader the financial reputation of the State in
addition to the rest of the load. The English are your sheet-anchor, and
finance is their pole-star; and a middle-aged commercial Chancellor
would make them easy in their minds, when you could not.’ Of this more
anon.
The re-election of Mr. Matthews on his appointment to the Home Office
caused various embarrassments in East Birmingham and elsewhere. His
opponent, Mr. Alderman Cook, who had been defeated as a Gladstonian
Liberal at the General Election, now promised to oppose anything like
the Land Bill of the late Government, to insist upon the retention of
the Irish members at Westminster and to grant to Ireland only a
Parliament subordinate to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Mr.
Chamberlain was thus placed in a position of extreme difficulty, for it
was clear that without his support the Home Secretary would probably be
defeated; and yet how could Mr. Chamberlain oppose the Radical candidate
who had almost exactly adopted his platform? Lord Randolph Churchill,
however, put the greatest possible pressure upon him. ‘The election of
Matthews,’ he wrote (August 7), ‘is almost _vital_ to me; and I feel
sure, if other things are equal, you will stretch a point in my favour.’
And again on the 9th: ‘This much arises clear and plain out of all that
is doubtful and dark in Birmingham politics. If Matthews wins, the
credit goes to you; it is your victory. If he loses, it is Schnadhorst’s
victory, and a pretty hulla-balloo he will make.’ Thus exhorted Mr.
Chamberlain took a very definite and decided step forward. The Radical
Unionists refused at his instance to support Mr. Cook, and the Home
Secretary was ultimately returned unopposed. ‘I am delighted,’ wrote
Lord Randolph (August 12). ‘I expect the Midland Conservative Club will
put up a statue to you, which I shall have to unveil.’
Mr. Matthews’ appointment caused heart-burnings in another quarter.
The Secretary of the Scottish Protestant Alliance wrote in haste to Lord
Randolph Churchill:--
I have the honour to inform you that at a meeting in Glasgow
yesterday of the directors of the Scottish Protestant Alliance the
recent appointment of a Roman Catholic to the Cabinet office of
Home Secretary was considered, when the following resolution was
unanimously adopted: ‘That as the Papacy claims universal supremacy
over all Sovereigns and their subjects, as Roman Catholics can no
longer render an undivided allegiance to Protestant Princes, and as
the avowed aim of the Papacy is to reduce Britain to the subjection
of the Vatican, this meeting protests against the elevation of
Roman Catholics to positions of power and trust in the British
Empire.’
The Chancellor of the Exchequer sent an answer without undue delay:--
Treasury Chambers, Whitehall: September 9.
Sir,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing a
copy of a resolution passed by the directors of the Scottish
Protestant Alliance, and, in reply, to remark that I observe with
astonishment and regret that, in this age of enlightenment and
general toleration, persons professing to be educated and
intelligent can arrive at conclusions so senseless and irrational
as those which are set forth in the aforesaid resolution.
I am, Sir,
Yours faithfully,
RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
Of the two courses which lay open--to reassemble in October for an
autumn session or to sit through August and obtain enough money at once
to last till February--the Cabinet selected the second. In the interval
necessitated by the re-election of Ministers the policy to be submitted
to Parliament was settled.
_Lord Salisbury to Lord Randolph Churchill._
_Confidential._
10 Downing Street, Whitehall: August 20, 1886.
My dear Randolph,--It has occurred to me, thinking over the list of
measures of private members you read to me this morning, that if we
have to make up our Cabinet mind over all of them we shall have a
great deal of trouble and possibly some friction. A difficulty
arises specially in the case of the Peers. With these small
measures the Peers can practically do what they like. But what they
like may very often be inconvenient for the Cabinet to profess and
act upon in the House of Commons. It may often happen that some of
the followers, or even of the members, of the Government in the
Commons could not, without offending their constituents, take the
line which the Conservative Peers would naturally take, and which
they will not be withheld from taking without a great deal of
discontent. I want you to think whether the following _modus
vivendi_ might not be possible. Our position as a Ministry is very
peculiar. We have not a majority except on certain vital questions.
Might we not fairly say that we will only be responsible for the
guidance of Parliament on the questions which we ourselves submit
to it? All questions submitted by independent members, unless they
affect our Executive action or the measures we have proposed, we
shall treat as open questions, taking no collective responsibility
for the decision of Parliament upon them. This is in the sense of
Chamberlain’s recommendation that we should have _no_ vital
questions. We cannot go quite as far as that, but it is sound
advice up to a certain point. Open questions were much more common
when I entered Parliament than they are now; but as we are entering
again upon the period of precarious majorities the system will have
to be resumed. Pray think of this. I see great difficulties if we
have to decide, as a Government, on all the fads.
Yours very truly,
SALISBURY.
The new Parliament, having re-elected Mr. Peel Speaker on August 5, met
for the transaction of business on the 19th. The Royal Speech briefly
declared that the ordinary work of the year had been interrupted, ‘in
order that the sense of Her Majesty’s people might be taken on certain
important proposals with regard to the government of Ireland,’ and that
the result of that appeal had been ‘to confirm the conclusion to which
the late Parliament had come.’ In view of the ‘prolonged and exceptional
labours’ to which the members had been subjected, the Sovereign
abstained from recommending any measures except those which were
essential to the conduct of the public service during the remaining
portion of the financial year. As, furthermore, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer drily announced that ‘for the convenience of honourable
members’ the Government would take on themselves the responsibility of
putting down notices of opposition to all the private members’ Bills and
notices of motion which appeared on the order paper, the only task
demanded of the House of Commons was to terminate the provisional
arrangements which had been made for Supply and to vote the remaining
Estimates of the last Parliament.
The Address to the Crown was moved by Colonel King-Harman. Lord Randolph
Churchill arranged that Mr. Maclean, the member for Oldham, who had
formerly opposed him at such a critical moment on the Council of the
National Union, should second it. Mr. Gladstone spoke with admirable
temper, as not forgetting ‘what is due to a Government which has just
taken office.’ But the interest of the assembly was concentrated upon
the young Minister who had cut so swift and strange a path to power.
When Lord Randolph rose, as Leader of the House, to follow Mr.
Gladstone, an intense hush of expectancy and anxiety prevailed. In spite
of all his skill and ease as a speaker, his nervousness was apparent.
Mr. Smith dwells on it in a letter to his wife which has since been
published. But he spoke with dignity and strength and his lucid, ordered
statement left no feeling of inequality in the minds of those who had
just listened to the greatest of Parliamentarians. Although the Irish
were inclined to interrupt derisively, the House was generally
sympathetic; and loud and long were the Tory cheers when the speaker
ended.
The policy towards Ireland which he declared, was definite and simple.
It is the same policy which the reader will already have remarked in a
memorandum to Lord Salisbury after the election of 1885, from which
during the remainder of his life Lord Randolph never diverged either in
one direction or the other. The Irish Question presented itself, he
said, in three aspects--social order, the Land question and Local
Government. The late Administration were of opinion that these three
questions were indissolubly connected and their policy was to deal with
them all by one measure. The new Government proposed to treat them to a
very large extent as separate and distinct. The law was to be
uncompromisingly maintained, whether against Orangemen in Belfast, which
was still distracted by savage riots, or against Nationalists in Kerry,
where a grave increase in ‘Moonlighting’ and boycotting had been
recorded. Sir Redvers Buller would be sent forthwith to take all
necessary measures. In regard to land--which subject a Royal Commission
was also to examine--the Government would not encourage any extension of
the principle of revision of rent by the direct interposition of the
State; but would rather aim at the creation of a general system of
single ownership by the influence and leverage of the credit of the
State. The material resources of Ireland were to be developed after
inquiry by grants from the British Exchequer in three distinct channels:
first, the creation of a deep-sea fishing industry on the west coast of
Ireland by the construction of harbours of refuge and the connection of
those harbours with the main lines of rapid communication; secondly, the
improvement and extension of the railway, light railway and tramway
system; and, thirdly, the construction of those great arterial drainage
works for the Shannon, the Bann, and the Barrow, which prosperous
agriculture seemed to require, but which were far too considerable to be
attempted by the resources of single localities.