HENRY LABOUCHERE'S RADICALISM
Before dealing further with the part played by Labouchere in Irish
legislation, it will be necessary to consider his view of English
politics as a whole. He had not at first been an enthusiastic
partisan of Home Rule. He had even gone the length at Northampton of
saying that he himself was no Home Ruler. Yet, in point of fact, no
English member was a more zealous advocate of Irish claims than he.
Why was this? His motives, as I have been able to gather them from
many conversations with him on the subject, were twofold: His Radical
soul was disgusted by what, in the face of the Irish attitude, was
the only alternative to Home Rule, namely coercion, and he realised
that the only effective way to "dish the Whigs," whom he hated even
more than the Conservatives, was to use the Irish vote.
The second motive was by far the stronger. He had a definite
conception of Radical government to which he would undoubtedly have
sacrificed hecatombs of Irish patriots if necessary. As a matter of
fact, the Irish patriots happened to be a useful means towards his
end, the establishment of such a government. Hence his alliance with
them. When Mr. Gladstone and his Whig-Radical Government were faced
in 1880 with the Irish question in so acute a form, Labouchere saw a
real possibility ahead of establishing a Radical as distinguished
from a merely Liberal {226} Government. The protagonist of his
scheme was Mr. Chamberlain, already a member of the Cabinet, and, in
the natural course of events, the almost certain successor of the
already venerable statesman whose name had become the war-cry of
English Liberalism.
With Mr. Chamberlain as Prime Minister almost anything might happen:
the Lords and the Church might go, England might become, in all save
the name, a republic. Mr. Chamberlain was the one statesman with
whom he found himself in complete agreement as to the articles of the
Radical faith, and in his future he saw the future of the party and
of England. He wrote to him on July 3, 1883: "I was caught young and
sent to America; there I imbibed the political views of the country,
so that my Radicalism is not a joke, but perfectly earnest. My
opinion on most of the institutions of this country is that of
Americans--that they are utterly absurd and ridiculous. Nothing
would give me greater pleasure than to see you leader of the House of
Commons, with a Parliament pledged to the most drastic reforms. This
is the aim of my humble endeavours, but, in the nature of things, a
member below the gangway has not the same responsibilities as a
Minister, and, if he is a Radical, necessarily is more advanced than
a composite Cabinet. He has, too, to make motions or to hold his
tongue. For instance, my amendment yesterday evening on titles was
regarded in the House of Commons as a joke. But go to any meeting of
even Liberals, and you would find that it was essentially a popular
one. The real trouble in the House of Commons is that the Radicals
below the gangway are such a miserable lot, and seem ashamed of their
opinions. The Whigs, on the contrary, out of office act solidly
together. This leads the public to suppose that your views are in a
small minority in the House of Commons. If the Whigs are ready to
pull a coach half way to what they consider a precipice, they must be
greater fools than I take them to be. They do not act openly, but
they conspire secretly. So long, {227} however, as they consent to
work in harness, they ought to be encouraged. You have told them the
goal, and I am certain that this declaration has done more to
strengthen radicalism than anything that has happened for long. So I
am perfectly contented, and quite ready to leave well alone."
Alas for the schemes of mortals! The very element on which
Labouchere relied for the strengthening of the Radical cause in the
Cabinet was to prove to Mr. Chamberlain himself the parting of the
ways. The statesman who was to reach the highest power on the
shoulders of Irish voters, when it came to the point, would have none
of such support. The corner-stone fell out of the grandiose edifice
that Labouchere had planned, the palace of Armida crumbled in the
dust. Bitter, indeed, was his disappointment. It was characteristic
of him in these circumstances to lose his head and throw up the game.
The reader will remember how, as a boy, he described his own
character at the gaming-table: "In playing even I failed because,
although I theoretically discovered systems by which I was likely to
win, yet in practice I could command myself so little that, upon a
slight loss, I left all to chance." He lacked the patience or the
industry of mind to reconstruct his schemes, and when Mr. Chamberlain
was lost to the Radical party, Labouchere's constructive imagination
seems never to have recovered the blow. He continued the war with
abuse of privilege, absurdity consecrated by tradition, and the other
heads of the hydra with which his party fought, but the tone of his
attacks was not the same as before the Home Rule split. Too often
they degenerated into mere party criticism, the note of personal
invective, one might almost say of spite, becoming more prominent in
them. He had lost faith in success, because the combination by which
he had hoped to win had failed, and he could not, or would not, think
out another. It was this consciousness of failure--of personal
failure as he saw it, so closely had he identified himself with {228}
his hopes--that inspired the peculiar bitterness with which, in and
out of season, he attacked the statesman whom he held responsible for
the altered situation. He did not, as his correspondence will show,
give up hope for some time of Mr. Chamberlain's return to the party,
but, when he had at last given up all such hope, nothing was too bad
for "Joe." In the pages of _Truth_, in the Reform Club, in the lobby
of the House of Commons, he constantly held forth to all who would
read or listen on the "crimes" of the man who had divided the Liberal
party against itself. He manifested no such bitterness against
Bright or Hartington; but when Mr. Chamberlain fell from grace, he
fell as no private individual, but as the symbol of the Radical
party. With him, according to Labouchere, the party fell, and with
the party his immediate hopes for the regeneration of England. Those
hopes had, with ample justification for their existence, run high
when Messrs. Chamberlain and Dilke joined Mr. Gladstone's
administration in 1880. Labouchere based his scheme on the
permanence of Mr. Chamberlain's Radicalism, and upon the fact that,
in the natural course of events, a successor would very shortly have
to be found for Mr. Gladstone. Both these, at the time, reasonable
previsions were falsified by destiny. Mr. Gladstone remained for
another fourteen years leader of the party, and Mr. Chamberlain
became a Liberal Unionist. The years between 1880 and 1887 were, in
so far as his political life was concerned, the most important of
Labouchere's life. Until he saw that his game was finally spoiled by
a totally unexpected fall of the cards, he did not for one instant
relax his efforts to reach the end towards which he had planned to
work. His patience was remarkable, his foresight uncanny, except in
the all-important direction from which the blow that finally
shattered his hopes descended.
It is interesting, in the light of subsequent events, to read the
article which he wrote for the February number of the _Fortnightly
Review_ in 1884, in which he set forth with {229} characteristic
freedom of expression his views upon Radicals as differing from
Whigs. "A Radical," he declares early in the article, "has been
defined as an earnest Liberal," and he goes on to describe, in
uncompromising terms, the faith of the earnest Liberal--or true
Radical. "The Government Bill," he wrote, "assimilating the County
to the Borough Franchise is to be encouraged, although it does not go
far enough, to the extent, _i.e._, of Adult manhood suffrage. It
will be for Radicals to take care strenuously to oppose every scheme
which is a sham and not a reality. Let us all who are good Liberals
labour to obtain a good suffrage Bill and a good redistribution Bill.
This will strengthen our Parliamentary position, and we may fairly
anticipate that Manhood Suffrage, electoral districts, triennial
Parliaments, and payment of members will follow." The following
extract shows very clearly Mr. Labouchere's opinions on what may be
called the technique of legislation:
"The life of a Parliament is too long. Three years is the maximum
period for which it should be elected. At the end of this time it is
out of touch with the electorates. Promises and pledges made at the
hustings are evaded, because each member thinks they will be
forgotten before he has again to seek the suffrages of his electors;
whilst Ministers are too apt to put off, until the period for a fresh
election approaches, any drastic legislation to which they are
pledged as leaders of their party. It is probable that, were the
duration of Parliament limited to three years, as much political
legislation would take place in this period as is now the case in the
five or six years which is the average life of a Parliament. The
fear of a speedy reckoning with electors would be ever before the
eyes of Ministers and members. The 'Can't you leave it alone?' of
Lord Melbourne would be replaced by 'We must do much and do it
speedily, for the day of reckoning is near at hand.' Long
Parliaments are as fatal to sound business as long credits are to
sound trade. It is questionable, indeed, whether {230} three years
is not too long for the duration of a Parliament. We should move in
all probability more quickly, were the nation to insist upon an
annual stocktaking."
The arguments, from the democratic point of view, in favour of the
payment of members are thus set forth:
"The payment of members would do more to democratise our legislature,
and consequently our legislation, than any other measure that can be
conceived. At present, members, as a rule, are rich men. Many of
them mean well, but they fatally take a rich man's view of all
matters, and are far too much inclined to think that everything is
for the best in a world where, although there may be many blanks,
they at least have drawn a prize in life's lottery. So long as the
choice of the poor men is between this and that rich man, so long
will our legislation run in the groove of class prejudice. The poor
man will not be the social equal of the rich man, and our laws will
be made rather with a view to the happiness and interests of the few
than of the many. All who are Conservative in heart know this, and
for this reason the payment of members, which is the natural outcome
of a recognition that a labourer is worthy of his hire, finds in them
such bitter opponents. If a Minister is paid for being a Minister,
it is only logical that a member should be paid for being a member.
People must live. To refuse payment to members is to limit the
choice of electorates to those very men who are not likely to see
things with the same eyes as the majority of the men who constitute
the electorates. Parliaments should be composed of rich men and of
poor men. No one would advocate the exclusion of rich men. Why,
then, should a condition of things continue which practically results
in the exclusion of the poor man?"
Never has the Radical view of the House of Lords and the Crown been
more forcibly expressed than in the following:
"The Whigs seem to know that ---- is in favour of the abolition of a
House of hereditary legislators. Let us hope that they are correct.
We are frequently told that the {231} people love, honour, and
respect the House of Lords. Let any one who entertains this notion
allude to this assembly at a popular political gathering in any part
of the country, and he will find his illusion rudely dispelled.
There are earnest Radicals who hold that there ought to be two
legislative Chambers, and not one; although why they think so, it is
difficult to say, for in every country where the two-Chamber system
prevails, either one of them has become a mere useless court of
registration, or the two are engaged in perpetual disputes, to the
great detriment of public business. No Radical, however, is in
favour of our existing Upper Chamber. If he were, he would not be a
Radical. What an hereditary legislator ought to be is well described
by Burke in his letter to the Duke of Bedford. What our hereditary
legislators are we know by bitter experience. They almost all belong
to one particular class--that of the great landlords. When any
attempt is made to deal with the gross absurdities of our land
system, they rally almost to a man to its defence, not from natural
depravity, but from the natural bias of every one to consider that
what benefits him must be for the best. The majority of them are
Conservatives; even those who call themselves Liberals are the
mildest of Whigs. When a Conservative Administration is in power
they are harmless for good or evil. When a Liberal Administration is
in power they are actively evil. Such an administration represents
the deliberate will of the nation. Before bringing in a Bill,
however, it has to be toned down, lest it should meet with opposition
in the Lords. Nevertheless it does meet with opposition there. The
Lords do not throw it out, but emasculate it with amendments; then
when it comes back to the Commons a bargain is struck that, if the
Commons will agree to some of these amendments, the Lords will not
insist upon the others. Thus, no matter what may be the majority
possessed by a Liberal ministry in the House of Commons, it can never
legislate as it wishes, but in a sense between what it wishes and
what the Conservative {232} majority in the Lords wish. In great and
important questions it almost always obeys its Leader like a flock of
sheep, and thus one man is able to provoke a dissolution, not only
when he thinks that this is in the interests of the country, but when
he imagines it to be in the interests of his party. It is asserted
that the House of Lords is useful because its rejection of a Bill is
an appeal to the country against a House of Commons which is acting
in opposition to the popular will. It is not easy to understand on
what grounds the Lords are supposed to know what the popular will is;
and, indeed, they never do, for there is not one single case on
record where, when the Lords have appealed to the country against a
decision of the House of Commons, the verdict has gone in favour of
the former. Although rich, the peers are not independent. They are,
in fact, remarkable for their abnormal greed. Because they are by
the chance of birth legislators, they insist upon decorations,
distinctions, and salaries being showered upon them and their
relations. In the Financial Reform Almanack for this year there is
an interesting calculation of the amounts that living dukes,
marquises, and earls, and their relations, and those that have died
since 1850, have received out of the public exchequer. The dukes
figure for £9,760,000, the marquises for £8,305,950, and the earls
for £48,181,292; total £66,247,242. The voracity of a vestryman is
nothing to compare with that of the British nobleman. Eighty-three
peers are privy councillors; 55 have received decorations; 192 are
connected with the army and navy; 62 are railway directors; their
total rental is £11,872,333, and they possess 14,251,132 acres; yet
in pay and pensions they absorb annually £639,865, and whenever there
is a change of administration they clamour for well-paid sinecures
about the Court, and other such sops, like a pack of hungry hounds.
_Les soutiens de l'État_ indeed! _Comme une corde soutient un
pendu!_ The greater number of them are obscure thanes, who never
take an active part in legislation or attend in their {233} seats;
and they are summoned to London by their party leader whenever it is
necessary to vote down some Liberal enactment, which has been passed
after long and careful consideration by the elected representatives
of the nation, and for this service to the State they generally
insist upon receiving an equivalent--a ribbon, a Lord Lieutenancy, or
an office for a relative or a dependent....
"Radicals are essentially practical, and are not accustomed to waste
or misdirect their energies. They do not approve of the fuss and
feathers of a Court, and they regard its ceremonies with scant
respect, for they are inclined to think that they conduce to a
servile spirit, which is degrading to humanity. They admit, however,
that the scheme of a monarch who reigns but does not rule has its
advantages in an empire such as ours, where a connecting link between
the mother country and the colonies is desirable. Their objection to
the present state of things is mainly based upon financial grounds.
Admitting that there is to be a hereditary figure-head, they cannot
understand why it should cost so much, why funds which are voted to
the monarch should be expended in salaries to noblemen for the
performance of ceremonial service, or why the children of the monarch
should receive such enormous annuities." He quoted an occasion when
the disloyalty of Radicals was supposed to have been amply proved.
One of them had voted for an amendment of Sir Charles Dilke when Lord
Beaconsfield's Government had proposed an allowance of £25,000 per
annum to the Duke of Connaught. "It would have been more to the
purpose to show," he said, "why this young gentleman should receive
so very ample a pension for condescending to be the son of his
parents. Nothing has conduced more to shake that decent respect for
the living symbol of the State, which goes by the name of royalty,
than the ever-recurring rattle of the money-box. Radicals do not
perceive why the children of the monarch should be made public
pensioners any more than the children of the {234} Lord Chancellor.
They know that Her Majesty lives in retirement, and that she has a
wholesome contempt for the costly ceremonies of a Court; they are
aware that as a necessary consequence she has sufficient
accumulations to keep her children in comfort. They ask, therefore,
why their maintenance should be thrown on the country, and why, if
so, this should be on so very costly a scale. They consider, it is
true, that Her Majesty has too large a Civil List; yet although they
are not deceived by the 'pious fraud' which assumes that the monarch
is the owner of the Crown domains and surrenders them on accession to
the throne in consideration of a money equivalent for what they
produce, they have no burning desire to interfere with existing
arrangements during the lifetime of the present incumbent, for they
have a sincere respect for the Queen, not only as the constitutional
head of the State, but also on account of her excellent personal
qualities. They are of opinion, however, that when provision is
asked for the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, this will be a
fitting opportunity to inaugurate an entire change in the financial
relations of the Crown with the country."
The Established Church, education, and the Land Laws are thus
drastically treated.
"The income of the Establishment is close upon £5,000,000 per annum.
It is the Church of a minority. The greater portion of its revenues
were acquired by confiscation. Its division of them amongst its
clergy is in defiance of all rule and justice. Cures of souls are
matters of public barter. Only the other day the secretary of a
race-course company bought the next presentation to a living in order
to ensure that the views of the next pastor should be sound on the
question of racing. In every country except this the principle has
been recognised that so-called ecclesiastical property is national
property. In some countries this principle has been pushed to its
ultimate consequences, in others it has received a more restricted
application. Were we all {235} members of the Established Church
there might be some plea for our devoting a portion of our property
to the maintenance of the Church's employés. But the majority of us
are not churchmen. Why then should we perpetuate so invidious an
application of national funds? The vested rights of living
incumbents should be respected, and perhaps it would be only fair
that the Church should retain those funds that she has received from
the liberality of private donors within the last few years. On an
excessive estimate this would amount to £1,000,000 per annum. We
require the remaining £4,000,000 per annum for educational purposes,
and we mean to have them....
"Whilst all Radicals are agreed that our land system requires a
thorough reform, all are perhaps not in accord as to the details of
that reform. Some are followers of Mr. George and demand the
nationalisation of land; others--and these are the wiser--whilst
admitting that it is to be regretted that the paramount
proprietorship of the community has been almost entirely ignored,
hardly see their way to resume it absolutely, nor do they admit that
a person who has acquired a legal title to a freehold can be divested
of it without fair compensation. All, however, are agreed that real
estate has, in contradistinction to personal estate, certain inherent
qualities: it is limited in quantity, and it is a natural instrument;
consequently, the State has a right to regulate the conditions of its
tenure, and its transmission from one individual to another. We
would legislate to break up and destroy all huge domains; to make the
occupier to all practical intents the master of the soil which he
cultivates, and to secure to him not only fixity of tenure and
independence of a landlord's rules and caprices, but the enjoyment of
these rights at a fair and reasonable price. A long succession of
landlord legislatures have, in the words of Mr. Cobden, 'robbed and
bamboozled the people for ages.' All our laws affecting land have
been made in order to perpetuate its tenure in the hands of the few
from generation {236} to generation; to render its purchase difficult
and expensive; to free its owners from taxes and obligations, in
consideration of which their predecessors acquired lordship over it
from the State; and to give it an artificial value by securing to its
possessors social and political pre-eminence. That there should be
few Radicals amongst landlords is less surprising than that any one
who is not a landlord should remain outside the Radical pale. To
suppose that when Radicals have the power to place our land laws in
harmony with the good of the greatest numbers, or to imagine that
they will allow the _imperia in imperio_ of huge domains to continue,
is to suppose that they will take to their heart of hearts their
'robbers and bamboozlers.' Landlords are a mistake socially,
politically, and economically. The only true proprietary rights in
land are a reasonable interest on sums spent in rendering it more
productive, and this only so long as the outlay continues to produce
this result; to talk of any other natural proprietary rights is as
absurd as it would be to talk of a man having a natural property in
the air that we breathe. It is too late now, however, to revert to
first principles. We must accept facts and endeavour to make the
best of them. This we propose to do, and, as a preliminary step, we
demand the renewed imposition of the land-tax at four shillings in
the pound upon the full true yearly value at a rack rent; that there
should be no more subventions in aid of local taxation from imperial
funds largely derived from taxation on food and drink; and that
landlords who will not use their land themselves should be made to
give it up to those who are ready and anxious to use it."
Towards the end of the article Mr. Labouchere delivers himself
somewhat tentatively on the Irish question as follows:
"It was said in the first session of the present Parliament--and no
one was more fond of using this argument than Mr. Gladstone--that the
limited number of Mr. Parnell's {237} Parliamentary followers proved
that the majority of the constituencies was not with him. Later on,
when the error of this estimate of his strength was perceived, it was
alleged that his influence was alone secured by terrorism. Slowly it
had dawned upon the English mind that the vast majority of Irishmen,
rightly or wrongly, cordially and truly sympathise with him. No one
now questions that he will sweep Ireland at the next General
Election. On the doctrine of probabilities, this will make him the
arbiter between parties at St. Stephen's. How is this to be met?
The only suggestion put forward as yet has been that both parties
should agree that the Irish vote is not to count on a party division.
But does any sane human being imagine that such a scheme is
practicable? The 'ins' would always assent to it, but the 'outs'
would defer their assent until they became the 'ins.' It is indeed
becoming every day more and more clear that we must either allow the
Irish votes to reckon as other votes, or that we must boldly assert
that Ireland shall no longer be represented in Parliament, because we
disagree with the representatives that it chooses. There is no
middle course; and, if we accept the former, we shall have to allow
Ireland hereafter to decide as she best pleases on matters that only
locally regard her. Most Radicals would be of opinion that one
Parliament for the entire United Kingdom is a better system that one
for Great Britain and another for Ireland. But they would go a long
way to establish a fair _modus vivendi_ between the two islands, and
nothing that Mr. Parnell has ever said can be adduced to show that he
does not entertain the same desire. Most of his views recommend
themselves to Radicals, especially those in regard to land.... If
the Irish wish for Home Rule why should they not have it? It surely
would be easy to conceive a plan in which that island would have a
representative assembly that would legislate upon all matters, except
those reserved to the Imperial Parliament. These reservations might
be precisely the same as those which the American Constitution {238}
reserves to Congress in her relations with State Governments. Mr.
Gladstone seemed inclined to accept this solution in 1882, for, in a
speech during the session of that year, he asked the Irish members to
submit their plan to the House of Commons, whilst the only objection
that occurred to him was, that it might be difficult to find an
arbiter between the Imperial and the Irish legislature in case of any
conflict of jurisdiction--a difficulty which a cursory glance at the
American Constitution would have solved. The Irish are sound upon
almost every question; they are even more democratically inclined
than we are. We want their aid and they want our aid. Irish,
English, and Scotch Radicals should coalesce. Mutual concessions may
be necessary, but this is always the case in political alliances.
That the Irish should not love the English connection is hardly
surprising. We are only now beginning to do them justice, and we
have accompanied this modicum of justice with a Coercion Act, aimed
not only at crime, but at legitimate political agitation. If we
remove their grievances, if we make Irishmen the true rulers of
Ireland, and if we cease to meddle in matters that concern them and
not us, there is no reason to suppose that they would wish to
separate from us any more than our colonies. Separation would,
indeed, be as disadvantageous to them as to us."
A year or two later he gave clear expression to the same Radical
faith in the House of Commons in a speech which he made on his own
amendment to the motion that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair:
"That in the opinion of this House it is contrary to the true
principles of representative Government, and injurious to their
efficiency, that any person should be a member of one House of the
Legislature by right of birth, and it is therefore desirable to put
an end to any such existing rights." "It has been pointed out to
him," he said, "that these words might include Her Majesty, which, of
course, was not intended ... they had been engaged in democratising,
as far as they could, the Commons {239} branch of the Legislature;
but all their efforts would be abortive, all their efforts at
Parliamentary reform would be illusory, if they allowed side by side
with that House a Legislative Assembly to exist, which, in its
nature, was aristocratic, and which had a right to tamper with and
veto the decisions of the nation, which were registered by the House
of Commons.... Members of the House of Lords were neither elected
nor selected for their merits. They sat by the merits of their
ancestors, and, if we looked into the merits of some of those
ancestors, we should agree that the less said about them the better.
The House of Lords consisted of a class most dangerous to the
community--the class of rich men, the greater part of whose fortune
was in land. It was asserted of them that the House of Lords was
recruited from the wisest and best in the country--that the Lords
were so wise and good that, in some mysterious way, they were able to
transmit their virtues to future generations in _secula seculorum_.
The practice in the selection of those gentlemen was not quite in
accordance with this theory. They consisted generally of two
classes--of those who were apparently successful politicians, and of
those who were undoubtedly successful money-grubbers. He would take
a few examples, and, as he did not wish to be invidious, he would
take them from both sides of the House. They all knew and
appreciated Sir R. Assheton Cross, Mr. Sclater Booth, Sir Thomas
Brassey, and Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen. What did they think of these
gentlemen? As members of this House everybody respected and liked
them; but they were looked upon as decent sort of mediocrities of the
ordinary quality, which was converted, in course of time, into
administrative Ministers. Take another class. Why were brewers
selected as peers? Simply because they, of late, had accumulated
very large fortunes by the sale of intoxicating liquors, and for no
other reason. The names of Guinness, Bass, and Allsopp had been long
household words in every public house in the country, but who ever
heard of them as {240} politicians? Yet these gentlemen were
considered to be the very best men in the country to be converted
into hereditary peers. Another class who made money were the
financiers. Lord Rothschild inherited a large fortune, and had
increased that fortune, and no doubt spent his money in the most
honourable way; but Lord Rothschild did nothing in the House of
Commons in any way to distinguish himself. With brewers, when one
was made a peer another must be made a peer for advertisement. So
with financial houses; when a Rothschild was made a peer, it was
necessary to fish up some one of the name of Baring, and one was
converted into Lord Revelstoke--a gentleman who, though probably
eminent in city circles, was hardly known to any one in that House,
and who had never taken part in politics. So much for the
composition of the House of Lords.... Deducting representative peers
from Scotland and Ireland, and deducting members of the Royal family,
and deducting bishops and archbishops, he found 470 peers sitting as
hereditary peers in the House of Lords. He found that those peers
had annually distributed among them £389,163, amounting on an average
to £820 each (salaries from appointments under Civil List)--these
rich men who would, with one accord, protest against the payment of
members of the House of Commons. These were the rich men who were
found at public meetings denouncing members from Ireland as a
wretched crew, because, being mainly poor men, they received enough
to enable them to live from their constituents. The peers were
almost as careful of their relations as of themselves. In a valuable
publication he saw it put down that, from 1874 to 1886, no fewer than
7000 relatives of peers had had places of emolument under the
Government.... In the other House there were 120 Privy Councillors,
of whom he ventured to say the majority had never heard. Orders had
to be found for these gentlemen. Almost every one of them had a
decoration. There were three decorations which were absolutely made
for peers and for no other {241} body--the Garter, the Order of St.
Patrick, and the Thistle. Walpole had declined a decoration
'because,' he said, 'why bribe myself?' Lord Melbourne said of the
Garter that its pleasing feature was that there was 'no nonsense of
merit about it.' An impression existed that private Bill legislation
was more independent in the House of Lords than in that House. He
did not think it was.... No men looked better after the class
interests of those to whom they belonged than the peers. They were
great landowners; 16,000,000 acres belonged to them. Yet our Land
Laws were a disgrace to the country and tainted with feudalism....
This House of Lords was not collectively any worse than any six
hundred men would be. They were _ex necessitate_ a Tory House and a
House of partisans. The assertion that they subordinated public
interests to their private class and party interests was merely
tantamount to saying that they were human beings. A House of
Artisans would act on similar principles.... His amendment went to
the root of the evil. He at first thought of including bishops, but
he struck them out on the principle of _de minimis non curat lex_.
If the hereditary principle were done away with, what the honourable
member for Birmingham called 'the incestuous union between the
spiritual and the political world' would cease of itself. His
amendment would not prejudice the question of whether there ought to
be two Chambers or one only. Personally he was in favour of one, but
those who voted with him need not necessarily support him on that
particular point. Other countries which had two had simply followed
our example, and it was a mere result of chance that we happened to
have two. If they agreed, the second was useless; if they disagreed,
the second was pernicious. If the functions of an Upper Chamber were
to be properly fulfilled by those who soared above party and class
interest, we must not look for its members in this world, but we must
bring down angels from Heaven; but, as that would be difficult, there
was one other alternative. The Conservatives at their meetings {242}
always shouted, 'Thank God we have a House of Lords!' Radicals had
no intention to remain any longer supinely like toads under the
harrow of the House of Lords. They intended to agitate until they
could say: 'Thank God we have not an hereditary House of Lords!'"
Mr. Labouchere's amendment on that occasion was defeated by a
majority of 61 in a House of 385 members. On November 21, 1884,
Labouchere had moved the following resolution: "That in view of the
fact that the Conservative party is able and has for many years been
able, through its permanent majority in the House of Lords, to alter,
defeat, or delay legislation, although that legislation has been
recommended by the responsible advisers of the Crown, and approved by
the nation through its elected representatives, it is desirable to
make such alterations in the relations of the two Houses of
Parliament as will effect a remedy to this state of things." Sir
Wilfrid Lawson, in seconding the resolution, said that he remembered
a few years ago Mr. Labouchere giving notice of a very similar
resolution. He asked him if he thought a House could be made for it.
Mr. Labouchere had answered, "No, I do not think there will be, for
all the Radicals want to be made peers." The member for Northampton
prophesied truly, for not forty members could be got to come down.
With untiring patience, however, Mr. Labouchere moved a resolution of
the same nature almost every year that he was in Parliament. His
perseverance on the subject was only matched by the dogged
persistence with which he attacked the ridiculous appurtenances
inseparable from the upkeep of a constitutional monarchy. When he
was asked by Captain Fred Burnaby once at Homburg why he was always
attacking the Royal family, who after all were well meaning people,
he replied: "One must find some very solid institution to be able to
attack it in comfort. If the love of royalty were not so firmly
established in the middle-class English breast, I should not dream of
attacking it, for the {243} institution might topple over, and then
what should I do? I should have all the trouble of finding something
else to tilt against."
Another expression of his views on the Establishment is found in his
speech on Mr. Albert Grey's amendment on the occasion of the Second
Reading of the Church Patronage Bill. "From a Radical standpoint,"
he said, "it was undesirable that there should be an Establishment at
all, and there seemed to be no reason why they should be continually
tinkering up and remedying this and that abuse in connection with the
Church.... He agreed with the Secretary of State that this Bill did
not go far enough, if it granted compensation in the case of those
who now held livings. To sell a cure of souls had always been
regarded as a most monstrous iniquity, and why should they give
compensation to those who were enjoying what was wrong? They might
as well suggest that Simon Magus himself should have had
compensation. There was another preposterous clause in the Bill.
These advowsons could only be sold to the great landlords and the
lords of the manor. If the livings were sold at all, they should be
sold to anybody who might be ready to buy them. But why should the
great landlords--the race he should be glad to see cleared off the
land--why should the great landlords and lords of the manor be
allowed to buy livings while other people were not? ... There was no
doubt that matters would be infinitely improved if the parishioners
had the right to veto the appointment of clergymen. But the
amendment did not go far enough. Why was there only to be a veto?
Why not allow the parishioners to elect any clergyman they liked?
Why was the bishop to be the only person to be allowed to have a
veto? If the majority of the people in a locality were dissenters,
he thought they should not be compelled to elect a Church of England
clergyman. He was opposed to all this tinkering of the Church of
England, which should be disestablished and disendowed.... He was
quite ready to leave the {244} Church such amounts as had been given
to it within the last twenty years; but he had seen calculations made
that, deducting these amounts, a sum of about £5,000,000 per annum
ought to come to the public. That sum was the property not of a
sect, but of the English people who paid it, and he should like to
see a Bill introduced dealing with glebe lands. These glebe lands
were, he believed, the worst cultivated in the country, and it would
be infinitely better to redistribute them in allotments amongst the
deserving labourers of the village than to leave them in the hands of
the clergymen. When his honourable friend brought in a Bill dealing
with glebe lands, and giving back to them the £5,000,000 of which
they were now deprived for the benefit of a sect, then he would give
him his most cordial support." And so on.
In the June of 1884 he made one of his common-sense speeches on the
subject of the enfranchisement of women. It occurred during the
debate on the Representation of the People Bill. "It may be that we
should enfranchise women," he said, "but because we have enfranchised
men is no reason that we should do so. We may discuss the subject
eloquently, we may refer to Joan of Arc and Boadicea, but, in point
of fact, from the time of Eve till now there has been a distinct
difference between men and women. There are a great many things
which I am ready to admit women can do better than men, and there are
other things which I think men can do better than women. Each have
their separate functions, and the question is whether the function of
electoral power is a function which women would adequately discharge.
I do not think it is. As yet I understand that no country has really
given women the vote; and were it not that honourable gentlemen
opposite, who are generally averse to giving the franchise to any
large body of men, think, and think justly, that a very large
majority of women would vote for Conservatives, I should be surprised
at their making this desperate leap in the dark. Some honourable
{245} members on this side of the House have told us that women are
better than men. That is the language of poetry. But when we come
to facts I am not at all disposed to admit that women are better than
men. It is not a question of whether women are angels or not, but
whether they will make good electors ... the honourable member has
told us that he was convinced of this because Queen Anne was a great
queen; and he told us also that Elizabeth was a great queen. But
Anne was not a great queen, and Elizabeth had the intellect of a man
with the weaknesses of a woman. The honourable member also spoke of
Queen Christina of Sweden, but every one knows that she was one of
the most execrable queens that ever lived, for, after being deposed
by her subjects, she went to Paris and murdered her secretary. We
learn that, by the operation of nature, more women are born into the
world than men, that women live longer than men, and that a
considerable number of men leave the kingdom as soldiers and sailors,
while women remain at home. In consequence of this there are, at any
given moment, a greater number of women than men in the country. I
am told that in every county, with the exception of Hampshire, more
women would be put on the register than men if we had woman suffrage.
And what would be the consequence? They would look to the interests
of women; they would band themselves together, and we should have
them, of course, asking to be admitted to this House; and then, if
they were admitted, instead of being on an equality with them, we
should put ourselves under petticoat government; we should have women
opposite, women on these benches, and a woman perhaps in the chair.
They would, of course, like women everywhere, have their own way.
The honourable member had hesitated as to whether he would give the
vote to married women as well as to unmarried women, and, by his mode
of dealing with the question, it would seem that he gave to vice what
he denied to virtue. As long as a woman remains a spinster, it
appears that she is to have the vote, but that, so soon as {246} she
marries, she is to cease to be an elector; she is to lose her rights
if she enters into the holy and honourable state of matrimony, and,
if her husband dies, she is again to get the vote. When Napoleon was
asked by Mme. de Stael who was the best woman in the State, he said:
'Madame, the woman who has the most children.'"
It will be seen from the above extract that his opinion of the female
sex was early Victorian, and so it remained to the end of his life.
He was always a bitter opponent of woman suffrage; and when, in 1896,
a petition for the Suffrage signed by 257,000 women from all parts of
the United Kingdom was exhibited, "by kind permission of the Home
Secretary," in Westminster Hall on a series of tables for the
inspection of members, he immediately called the attention of the
Speaker that afternoon in the House to the "unseemly display," and
insisted upon its removal.
He was indefatigable in his efforts to introduce economical Radical
finance into every detail of government, always assuring his hearers
that he was fighting for the principle of economy, and not merely
against the mere absurdity of the existence of certain traditional
offices and extravagances. In 1885 we find him requesting the
Attorney-General to do his best to suppress the offices of
Trainbearer, Pursebearer, and Clerk of the Petty Bag. He protested
ably against the large sums spent upon the upkeep of the royal yacht,
and upon the "objectionable practice" of asking the Commons to vote a
sum of money for special packets for conveyance of distinguished
persons to and from England. He protested against the nation being
asked to pay the expenses incurred in the ceremony of making the
present King (then Prince George of Wales) a Knight of the Garter.
He was, in short, unceasingly vigilant wherever the spending of
public money was concerned, and his remarks were usually practical
and to the point. A quotation from a letter he wrote to the _Times_
in the same year on the Graduated Income Tax will be of interest, as
peculiarly illustrative of his clear and simple {247} view of the
rights of the poor man versus those of the rich man. "The income
tax," he wrote, "when first put on by Mr. Pitt, was a graduated tax.
No one then regarded this as a spoliation or confiscation. That a
rich man should pay a higher percentage of taxation than a poor man
is based upon what Mr. Stuart Mill terms 'equality of sacrifice.' It
will, I presume, he admitted by all that the first call upon a man's
income is that portion of it which is necessary for him and his
family to eat, to be clothed, and to secure some sort of home. If a
man earns only £50 per annum, and has an average family of two
children, let me ask what remains after this call has been met?
Nothing. And if he has to pay taxes, he and his family are obliged
to go without a sufficiency of clothing, or without a fitting home.
Now look at the case of a man with £50,000 per annum, and with a
family of the same size. He pays in taxation about 4½% on his
income---let us say 5%. This absorbs £2500. He may secure to
himself and them not only all necessaries, but all comforts, for £500
per annum. Surely the sacrifice on his part to the exigencies of the
State of £7000 per annum would not be so great a one as would be that
of £2, 10s. per annum by the man with an income of £50 per annum. As
a matter of fact, however, the rich man pays at present a maximum of
5%, and the poor man about twice that percentage...."
He made a speech in the Radical Club at North Camberwell on November
14, 1885, in which he once more resumed his creed, and with it I must
end this chapter, so as to proceed with the history of the practice
to which he put his theories. "In the House of Commons," he said,
"Radicals had hitherto been in a very small minority, and were not
appreciated, and it was therefore gratifying to him as a strong
Radical to find what they did in the House of Commons was appreciated
by those who made the House of Commons. For his own part he was
bound to say he could not form any clear idea of what 'Conservative'
meant now. In the past, Conservatives {248} were a party banded
together to support the landed interest, but Lord Randolph Churchill
told them that this was to be all forgotten, and that the
Conservatives were to become Tory Democrats. These two words were
utterly antagonistic in themselves, and he could not understand how
men could be fish and fowl at the same time. The only principle
which was guiding the Tories was to get into office and remain there.
No reasonable man could become a Conservative. As for the Whigs they
were more dangerous than the Tories. There were about thirty of them
in the House of Commons. They rarely spoke, but their influence--a
backstair influence--was such that Ministers yielded to them, and it
was to them that the action in Egypt was due, and they were the cause
of the Crimes Bill in Ireland--both of which had been steadfastly
opposed by the Radicals in Parliament. It was easier to deal with an
open enemy than with a traitor in the camp. Happily the Whigs were
expiring, and he did not think any one would care to adopt their
creed. Coming to the Radical creed he said it was that England
should become a democracy, by which was meant the rule of the people
by the people and for the people. He was surprised statesmen could
not see that the people would use the power given them for their own
advantage. They would insist on a Government not mixed, as now, with
an aristocratic element in it. They would deal with the entire
Legislature, the Crown, the Lords, and the Commons; and, if they were
of his mind, they would go in for a much more sweeping franchise.
The vote was a right and not a privilege, and every man, not a
criminal, ought to possess it, or he was defrauded of his right. He
went in for residential manhood suffrage, for free education, for
which he would apply the Church revenues and the misused charities.
He was opposed to all indirect taxation, and advocated what had been
described as equality of sacrifice in general and local
taxation--that was, he would have a graduated income tax, and, in no
case, tax the necessaries of life. In {249} conclusion he said he
hoped Mr. Chamberlain would succeed Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister,
and as for the Whigs they were welcome to go over to the Tories. He
would not refuse to accept Lord Hartington, if he elected to fight
under the Radical party, but he would refuse to sink his own personal
opinions for any one."[1]
[1] _Times_, October 15, 1885.
{250}