THE CLOSING YEARS
Upon only one occasion in his life could a charge of Jingoism have
been brought against Mr. Labouchere. The last long speech he made in
the House of Commons was against the second reading of the Women's
Enfranchisement Bill, in which he said that he objected to women
being given the vote because they could not be soldiers; in short,
because their physical limitations prevented them from being able to
take a place in the battlefield. A member pointed out that the
speaker himself was not a military man. With passion he replied
that, whereas there was not a man alive who could not fight, and, if
necessary, swim through seas of gore to protect his native land, the
other sex were incapable of putting up with the hardships and
privation involved in warfare.[1]
It was in the third session of Mr. Balfour's Parliament that Mr.
Labouchere made his last speech in the House of Commons. He was
nearly seventy-four years old, and had been hankering for some time
after the delights of a reposeful old age in the retirement of the
beautiful villa he had bought in the neighbourhood of Florence four
years before. Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman had written to him in the
previous December, when a rumour of his intended retirement had
reached him: "I hope you are not really thinking of breaking off with
Parliament, though I frankly say it is what {518} I should do if I
could, who have the advantage of a year or two over you, but I think
we old stagers with sound views are wanted to steady the new-century
gentlemen by a little of our early Victorian wisdom." But Mr.
Labouchere was wise enough to know how dull it would be to exist in a
modern Parliament as almost the only survivor of the grand old
Victorian Radical party, whose sympathies and ideals, the policy of
the Labour members alone resembled, in the remotest degree. His mind
was made up, but he kept his own counsel, except to his leader,
because, as he wrote to Mr. Robert Bennett at the time of his
retirement, a man who is known not to be going to stand again becomes
a nonentity in Parliament.
In a letter to Mr. Edward Thornton, the month before his withdrawal
from public life, he gave his view of the Parliamentary situation at
that time:
Just now politics are dead. When Parliament meets, the Liberals will
try to put the Government in a majority during the session, and
Balfour will try to carry on to the end of it. There seems no reason
why he should be beaten, provided that he can keep his men in the
House. But this is also our difficulty. The individual M.P. never
wants an election.... Campbell Bannerman is now absolutely certain
to be the next Premier unless his health breaks down. All that you
see about this or that man in the Cabinet is only intelligent
anticipation. He is not _de jure_ on the succession to the
Premiership, there are no consultations, and he has a wholesome
distrust of his Front Bench friends who almost all have intrigued
against him. I know him intimately, and he talks to me pretty
freely, for I have expressed to him that I want nothing. At
seventy-four a man is a fool to be a Minister.
The news of Mr. Labouchere's retirement came as a surprise to most of
the world. The first intimation to the public was his letter to the
Liberal electors of Northampton announcing his decision. It was
written from Florence, and dated December 14, 1905. It ran as
follows:
{519}
GENTLEMEN,--I have been elected by a majority of you to represent you
in six Parliaments. I have received no intimation from any of the
Radicals, to whose votes I have owed my having been your member for
twenty-five years, that they disapprove of my Parliamentary action
whilst serving them, or that they do not wish me to be one of their
candidates at the next general election. Were I, therefore, to come
forward again as a candidate there is little doubt that I should be
one of your representatives in a seventh Parliament. But I am now
seventy-four years old. At that age a man is neither so strong nor
active as he once was, and any one who wishes to represent
efficiently a large and important constituency like yours in
Parliament should be strong in wind and limb. I feel therefore that
I ought not to take advantage of your consideration towards me in a
matter so vital to you in order to lag superfluous on the political
stage.
I have delayed until now making this announcement because it was
impossible to know when a general election would take place, and I
thought that it would be more convenient to you for me to wait until
the date of the election was settled and near at hand. I do not
think that my withdrawal will affect the position of parties in
Northampton. In Dr. Shipman you have a member whose Parliamentary
action has been in accord with the pledges that have already secured
his return, and on whose personal worth all are agreed. You will
have no difficulty in finding a man to replace me, as eager to
promote the cause of democracy as I am, and who will be better able
to fight for the cause than one in the sere and yellow leaf.
Mr. Labouchere remarked once, that he had on one occasion only been
asked by a constituent for a pledge with regard to his Parliamentary
action. He had unhesitatingly given it, and been unflinchingly true
to his word. The elector's injunction had been, "Now, mind, I say,
and keep your hi on Joe." But whether the story is a slight
exaggeration of the confidence his constituents had in him to
faithfully represent their views at Westminster or not, it gives
elliptically a description of his attitude during the twenty-five
years he served the electors of Northampton. He became {520} their
member as an anti-Imperialist, in Lord Beaconsfield's interpretation
of the term, and he took his leave of them as an anti-Imperialist, in
the more modern, and what may be called "Chamberlain" sense of the
word.
I shall quote Mr. T. P. O'Connor's farewell on the occasion of his
retirement, which he published under the title of "The Passing of
Labby," for, apart from its literary merit, it is the fine
appreciation of a friend of many years' standing, who knew the value
of Mr. Labouchere from the social as well as the Parliamentary and
journalistic points of view:
There is no old member of the House of Commons who will not feel a
pang of personal regret at hearing that Labby is leaving that
Assembly. No one has a right to criticise a man for giving up an
active life at seventy-four years of age--he has done his work. But
Labby had become an almost essential part of the House of Commons;
and there never will be anybody who can quite take his place there.
That extraordinary combination of strong party zeal, with a lurking
desire to make mischief; the sardonic and satirical spirit, mingled
with a certain fierce, though carefully concealed zeal for the public
good; the mordant wit that was equally the delight of the House and
of the smoking room; the world-wide and varied experience of all life
in almost every country and in almost every form--these are the
possessions of but one man, and his like we shall never see again.
There are two Labbys. There is the Labby who almost corrodes with
his bitter wit, and who seems to laugh at everything in life. There
is the other Labby who has strong, stern purpose, who hates all
shams, all cruelty, all imposture, all folly, and who has made war on
all these things for more than a quarter of a century. There is even
a third Labby--the man who hates to give pain even to a domestic, and
who is laughingly said to have run out of a room rather than face the
irritated looks of a maidservant whom he had summoned by too vigorous
a pull at the bell. One of the reasons of the popularity Labby
enjoyed in the House was his tolerant amiability. I have seen him in
the smoking room in the most friendly converse with many a man whom
in previous years he had most fiercely attacked; he bore no ill will,
and treated all {521} those encounters as demanded by business, and
as dismissable when the fight was over. Finally Labby was a far
straighter, far more serious, far more effective politician than his
own persiflage would allow people to think. With all his light wit,
there was something stern and rigid in the man, as you could see from
the powerful mouth, with the full compressed lips. He was perfectly
honest in his hatred of extravagance, pretence, vainglory. He
preferred riding in a tramcar to riding in a coach and four. He
dressed so shabbily sometimes that his counsel used to have to
remonstrate with him when he had to answer a charge of libel. He was
an ascetic in eating. Once he dined quite comfortably, when he was
electioneering, on ham sandwiches with sponge-cake for bread. He
rarely, if ever, tasted wine; he smoked incessantly the poorest and
cheapest cigarettes. As he was in private, so he was in public life.
He derided all great Imperial designs as snobbery and extravagance;
he hated ambition--in short, he was in both his personal habits and
his public opinions, a true devotee of the simple life. He did
immense service to his party in his time. During the heat of the
Home Rule controversy he spoke in scores of towns; took journeys by
night and by day, never spared himself exertion, never complained of
discomfort; in his laughing air, with his assumed air of languor, he
was a strenuous, manly, courageous fighter. And he never changed, he
never concealed, he never explained away his opinion upon anything.
And so I bid him with regret farewell from a scene where he was a
model of honest good faith and courage.[2]
So Labby goes! [mourned the _Morning Post_]. What Parliament and
public life will be without him, I hate to think. The letter of
cheery regrets to his Northampton constituents subtracts the _sauce
piquante_ from the Parliamentary dish. The House has long counted
Labby as the last of its originals, has prized him as a refreshing
relish, has looked to him for the unexpected flavour. All strangers
would ask inevitably to have him pointed out, and the House would
fill at once when the word went round the corridors and lobbies and
smoking rooms that Labby was "up" and holding forth from his
customary corner {522} seat below the gangway--the best of all
positions from which to address the House. So too the smoking room
became suddenly crowded when Labby was to be seen standing there with
back to fireplace, the eternal cigarette between his lips, ready for
talk. It gives a peculiar pang to realise that he will be seen there
no more. But the pang is lessened when one finds Labby--Labby of all
men--seriously pleading old age as a ground for his retirement. It
sounds like one of his little jokes, or, perhaps, it is a genuine
case of hallucination. Labby had possibly a touch of old age at
twenty, but he had also the sense to outgrow it. Since then he has
never relapsed, and now in the seventy-fifth year of his youth, and
with a pen several years younger, it is a vain and commonplace and
un-Labbyish thing to pretend that youth and he are no longer
"housemates still." An unbelieving world will not accept that
plea.... I daresay that, half a century ago, Labby was, not unlike
the wise youth Adrian in Meredith's _Richard Feverel_, quite
unnaturally cool and quizzical, long-headed and non-moral, but an
Adrian humanised by something of the Bohemian spirit and a turn for
careless pleasuring. And in those days, no doubt--his Eton and
Cambridge days--he struck his contemporaries as really old. But no
one, for fifty years, has ever accused him of not having overcome his
early weakness; and it was the very last charge I ever expected to
hear Labby prefer against himself.[3]
There was something about Mr. Labouchere's personality, apart from
his deeds and thoughts, which appealed almost irresistibly to the
affectionate sympathies of all mankind. To find an ill-natured
comment in any of the articles that were published about him in the
press when he left the House of Commons is so difficult that, were
such a one to be recorded in this volume, it would give its author an
almost unenviable position of distinction. But in order to be
perfectly impartial, I shall merely quote the pleasant part of the
only one I could find, so that its writer need not feel that he has
been placed in an out-of-the-way corner with a fool's cap on his head:
{523}
On the whole Mr. Labouchere has done a great deal of good in his
life, more good and less evil than many so-called statesmen. He has
exposed swindlers and moneylenders and rotten companies. He has
obtained for the public the right to ride, drive, and walk up and
down Constitution Hill. No victim of cruelty or injustice ever
appealed to him for a hearing in vain. Above all he wrote an English
style of remarkable purity, logic, and humour.
Letters of regretful farewell poured in upon Labby in his Florentine
home, and he possessed a kindly characteristic common to nearly all
frankly unpretentious human beings. He loved his post. In his cosy
armchair by the fire he read his letters and enjoyed them, and what
was more--he proceeded to answer them. No pre-occupation, however
diverting, ever prevented him from, at the first available moment
sitting down to his writing-table, and, in the almost illegible hand
which he vainly tried to improve, penning answers to his welcome
correspondents.
"I have been very sorry, but not surprised," wrote Sir Henry Campbell
Bannerman to him on Christmas Day, "to read in the newspapers of your
retirement. It is not over kind of you to put it on the ground of
age, for that hits some of the rest of us hard. For my part, I
confess my sentiment when I read it was: _O si sic omnes_--and envy
was the prevailing feeling. But, seriously, we shall miss you
greatly as one always ready to hoist the flag of the old Liberalism,
as distinguishable from the less stout and stalwart doctrine which
passes for Liberalism with the moderns.
"But now as you are going would you care to have the House of Commons
honour of Privy Councillor? If so it would be to me a genuine
pleasure to be the channel of conveying it. You ought to have had it
long ago. I may add that in the highest quarter gratification would
be felt. I have taken soundings. I think we have done and are doing
pretty well. The Government are pretty well the pick of the basket,
though there are some good men left out, and I {524} think we can
make it a change of policy and not a mere change of men. All
seasonable wishes to you and yours.--Yours always,
"H. C. B."
"Knowing you to be a wise man," wrote Lord Selby, who had been
Speaker of the House in three of the six Parliaments of which Mr.
Labouchere had been a member, "I was not surprised to see that you
had made up your mind to eschew Westminster, and enjoy Florence and
its climate, but if I were still in the Chair I should miss you in
the next Parliament, and I am sure the smoking-room will be a forlorn
place without you; and I do not see how the loss is to be repaired,
for it takes a good many years to grow a plant of the same kind. I
wish you and Mrs. Labouchere long leisure and much pleasure in your
Italian home, seasoned with occasional visits to England. The
election may be said to have begun with Balfour's speech at Leeds,
and Campbell Bannerman's at the Albert Hall...."
The leader of the Irish party wrote from Dublin:
"DEAR LABOUCHERE,--When writing the other day, I did not know that
you had any idea of retiring from Parliament. I learned your
intention with deep regret. You have been so long one of the truest
friends of Ireland that you will be missed by us all, and at a time
when we can badly spare a real friend. With heartiest good wishes,
and many thanks for your advice and assistance on so many occasions,
I remain very truly yours,
"J. E. REDMOND."
"I have just read your farewell to Northampton," wrote Sir Wilfrid
Lawson, on December 17, "and it has troubled me. I am going to stand
again for Cockermouth (I am older than you!) with a _fair_ chance of
success, but, if I win and get back to the House, I shall feel that
it is not exactly the same place without you. I therefore just write
this to say how sorry I am to lose you. Certainly you have always
held up bravely and ably the banner of the Radicalism in which {525}
I believe, and it remains to be seen whether we shall get it as well
held up in the Parliament which is to be. Any way those who believe
in Government 'of, for, and by the people,' ought to be grateful to
you for your persistent preaching and teaching of that doctrine.
"The new Government promises well, but I remember a story on which
you trenchantly commented in _Truth_ some years ago. When Lord
Dudley was married it was proposed in the Kidderminster Corporation
that they should give him a wedding present, on which an old weaver
rose and suggested that it should be postponed '_till we see how he
goes on_.'
"Well, I hope that you will go on well and happily till the end of
your days, and, meantime, not forget to give outside help to your old
comrades, who for a bit longer are grinding in the Parliamentary
mill."
Lord James of Hereford wrote:
"The announcement of your departure from the House of Commons seems
almost to affect me personally. I recall a day in the end of August,
1868, when you and I and John Stamforth were sitting in front of the
Kursaal at Homburg. You and I were discussing our relative chances
in Middlesex and at Taunton, and then you asked Stamforth how he was
getting on at Athlone. "I am member for Athlone," replied that
unfortunate man, who afterwards, as you know, polled one vote.
"Well, the water has been flowing on since then. You and I have seen
a good deal of political life, and taken a fair share in it. I hope
we have not done much harm, but Heaven only knows. I am very sorry
that you are not continuing in the fight....
"I know how little I can do, for I am three years older than you
are--but the House of Lords offers some opportunities for easy going
to an old one."
"DEAR LABOUCHERE," wrote Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice,--"We have enjoyed
sweet converse together in the House of Commons and in the woods of
Marienbad on 'men and {526} things.' We are both leaving the House
of Commons at the same time, so I send you a word of greeting--or
farewell, or by whatever other name it may be appropriate to describe
these words.... A short Parliament generally follows a long
Parliament, and I expect to see this canon once more illustrated."
"The _New York Herald_ of this morning announces your appointment as
a P. C.," wrote Sir Edmund Monson from Paris. "I am very glad that
you have received this distinction, which, in my own case, I have
always regarded as the most acceptable of all that have been bestowed
on me.... I can quite understand your relinquishing Parliament, and
I hope you may long enjoy the _otium cum dignitate_ which no place
better than Florence can supply.... Believe me, always your sincere
old friend,
"EDMUND MONSON."
Lord Brampton wrote on the last day but one of the year: "I have just
received your note. Your reasons for retirement from Parliament are
unreasonable. But, as far as I am concerned, although I have not a
word of objection to offer, still I remain _sorry_. With all my
heart I rejoice in to-day's _Times_, and offer to you, my right
honourable friend, my heartiest congratulations to you and all yours,
and every good wish for the coming New Year. I wish I could avail
myself of your invitation to Florence, but I fear I have no chance,
as I am very weak still and can hardly hold a pen."
Only one other letter must be quoted from the friends of Labby's
youth. Sir Henry Lucy wrote on Christmas Day:
"MY DEAR LABOUCHERE,--You will find in the forthcoming issue of
_Punch_ some reflections on 'The Sage of Queen Anne's Gate,' from the
Diary of Toby, M.P. I believe they echo the feeling of the whole
House of Commons, irrespective of party, at the prospect of your
withdrawal from the scene.
{527}
"But why cut Westminster altogether? There is still the House of
Lords. If I might behold you walking out shoulder to shoulder with
the Archbishop of Canterbury to vote 'content' or 'not content' as
the case might be, I should feel I had not lived in vain.... With a
warmth and friendship dating back nearly thirty years--Eheu! we were
colleagues on the _World_ staff in 1875."
Toby, M.P., recalled in a pathetic little article in _Punch_ the way
Mr. Gedge had tried to do Labby out of his corner seat below the
gangway, where Sir Charles Dilke had sat beside him on one side of
the House or the other ever since Mr. Gladstone's Parliament of 1892.
In order to secure a seat in the House, members had to be present at
the reading of prayers, during which any one could slip a card with
his name upon it into the back of the place he wanted. Now Labby was
never at prayers, and yet, Mr. Gedge noticed, he had always had the
same seat secured to himself in the orthodox manner. Accordingly,
one day he allowed his thoughts to wander whilst the House of Commons
devotions were proceeding, and his eyes followed his thoughts.
Between his fingers held devoutly before his face, he peeped, and
noticed Sir Charles Dilke, buried in prayer as usual. Then he saw
his devotion relax for a moment. Sir Charles was slipping a card
into the back of the seat which he intended to secure for himself,
and Mr. Gedge was horrified to see that he proceeded to slip a card
with Labby's name upon it into the back of the next one--the coveted
corner seat below the gangway. Mr. Gedge subsequently drew the
attention of the House to this piece of underhand dealing, but
honourable gentlemen did not choose to take any notice of what would
clearly not have been observed, if Mr. Gedge had been paying proper
attention to his prayers.
A propos to the seating accommodation in the House of Commons, it
should be remembered that as far back as 1893, when the disgraceful
scrimmage for seats took place at the introduction of Mr. Gladstone's
Home Rule Bill, {528} Mr. Labouchere had begun to agitate for a new
House of Commons with seats for every member. He explained to a
journalist at the time his plan for an ameliorated House:
"At present," he said, "a man goes before a constituency and, after a
lot of trouble and expense, wins a seat--so it is called. He then
comes up here to Westminster, and finds he has gone through only half
the preliminaries necessary for securing a seat. He has taken only
the first steps, which are simply child's play to what he has yet to
do. Getting elected is simply nothing comparatively. First I wanted
an octagonal chamber," he proceeded, "but I find general opinion will
retain the present form. So my idea is to have eight rows of seats
on each side of the House, curving round at the end opposite to the
Speaker. If each row will seat forty-two members, you will find that
will provide a seat for the whole six hundred and seventy-two. Then
every one could retain his seat throughout the session. The
difficulty about the square shape of the House is that it gives you
an equal number of seats for each party and the Government is
generally in a majority. That is why I would run the seats round at
one end--so that the supporters of the Government could have the
whole of one side, and as far as the second gangway on the other.
Having a broader House would necessarily mean enlarging the Press and
Strangers' Galleries also. All the members are in favour of it, with
the exception of the front benches. They have got their seats
assured, so they say that the House is cosy, and to enlarge it would
force them to pitch their voices higher." The journalist who was
interviewing him commented on the extreme moderation of his designs
for an ameliorated House of Commons. "Oh," remarked Mr. Labouchere,
"these are just the alterations we shall probably make. What I
personally should have liked would be to clear the Lords out of their
House, which is bigger than the House of Commons, and install
ourselves therein."[4] Eight years {529} later he went to Vienna,
and poured forth in _Truth_ the story of his envy when he saw the
Austrian House of Deputies:
I went to see the Parliament House, and, after inspecting it, I felt
that I could with pleasure join a mob to disinter the remains of the
eminent architect who built the Palace at Westminster and hang his
bones on a gibbet. The Vienna architect has erected a building which
is Parliament Architecture. Everything is adapted to the wants and
requirements of those who want to use it. The members of each of the
two Chambers sit in a semi-circular room, and each member has an
armchair and a desk before him. The general objection made to this
plan of a deliberative room is that it obliges members to speak from
a tribune. But at Vienna they speak from their places, and, owing to
the excellent acoustic properties of the Chamber, they can be
perfectly heard. I went over the place in the company of a priest
who was visiting it at the same time. He perceived that I was an
Englishman, and asked me how the place compared with the English
Parliament House. "The members in England," I said, "sit in an
oblong room, in which there are only places for half their number."
"But what do the others do?" he asked. "They do not listen to the
debates," I replied; "they seldom know what is under discussion. A
bell rings and they come in, and are told to vote as their leader
orders them." As a good Radical I felt it necessary to give a
further explanation, so I continued: "The majority of the members are
the supporters of the Government; it is one of the worst Governments
with which a country was ever cursed; it is called the 'stupid
party,' and it is composed of Junkers and men who have made much
money. They want the laws to be made for their benefit, and not for
the benefit of the poor." "But why," he said, "do they have a
majority, for I suppose that the poor have votes as well as the rich,
and there must be more poor than rich in England?" "They gained
their election by corruption and falsehood," I answered. "Their
wives and their daughters went about giving the electors feasts, and
they went about saying everywhere that the Radicals wanted to destroy
the Empire. In this way they {530} bought some with gifts, and
others they deceived with falsehoods. Soon the electors discovered
how they had been fooled, and for five years they have wanted to take
away the Government from the 'stupids,' but, by our laws, a
Parliament is elected for seven years, and the country is still
obliged to submit to the disgrace of having such a Government for one
or perhaps two more years. Then there will be another election, and
the 'stupids' will be in a minority, and the Radicals who represent
the sense and intelligence of the country will become the
Government." "And the Radicals," he said, "will, I suppose, make a
Chamber large enough to hold all the members." "I am not sure of
that," I answered. This seemed to surprise him, but he thanked me
for having made clear to him the party differences in England.[5]
But my story is wandering backwards instead of forwards. And so
stories usually do in the City of Flowers, where the present is so
full of ease and pleasure that a man's mind is free to linger where
it will, either lazily in the middle ages, or to stray with graceful
discrimination in the bye paths of memory to find the savour again of
some of the deeds of a gallant past. He may choose, perhaps, to
grasp contentedly and almost without effort, the gifts of the gods
that lie about in profusion, but he must always remember that care
and earnestness, strenuousness and ambition have no place in
Florence. It was of course a home after Mr. Labouchere's own heart.
He went to London in the January of 1906 to be sworn in as a Privy
Councillor, and, in February, he came back with delight to his villa
to enjoy the merry continental _train de vie_ he had always loved.
Whilst in London, he wrote to Mr. Edward Thornton, who was then in
India:
I did not, as you see, stand. At seventy-four one gets bored even
with politics. I am only over here for a fortnight, as I have to get
sworn into the Privy Council. The Unionists have been {531} beaten
badly, because they seem to have gone out of their way to court
defeat. One never knows what may happen, but they will remain in a
minority for the next twenty years, if they run on Protectionist
lines. Joe swaggers and has captured the machine, and Balfour would
do well to fight him instead of knocking under to him. The Chinese
labour helped us greatly. They ought to have known that the old
anti-slavery feeling is still strong, but they seem to imagine that
every one has Rand shares.... The really important thing connected
with the election is the rise of a Labour Party. I do not think,
however, that there are above six M.P.'s returned who are _bona fide_
and Socialists, they are all jealous of each other.
He wrote to Mr. Thornton again on March 10:
I had had enough of Parliament, for one gets bored with
everything.... I have not the slightest notion what a Privy
Councillor is, except that I had to take half a dozen oaths at a
Council, which were mumbled out by some dignitary, and then Fletcher
Moulton, who was also being sworn in, and I performed a sort of cake
walk backwards. I don't precisely know whither we shall go in the
summer--for it is such a relief to let the day take care of the day.
It is lucky C. B. has so large a majority, otherwise things would
have been difficult with the Labour lot--far more difficult than with
the Irish.
Mr. Labouchere's most regular correspondent up till the time of his
death in January, 1911, was Sir Charles Dilke. The friendship
between them had continued uninterruptedly since 1880. Two letters
that Mr. Labouchere wrote to Sir Charles Dilke in 1910 have an
especial interest, bearing as they do upon the problem that had
always interested Mr. Labouchere so keenly throughout the whole of
his political career, and which, in the first twentieth century
Liberal Parliament, had assumed a new aspect. The first of these
letters was written on February 11:
MY DEAR DILKE,--What is the Government going to do in regard to the
Lords? I can understand a one-Chamber man, in {532} default of
getting directly what he wants, trying to get it indirectly, by
having a sham Upper Chamber. But if the Government has to appeal to
the country on a suspensory veto, I doubt this creating much
enthusiasm. If it be carried, this suspensory vote would, of course,
be used by the Peers for all that it is worth when a Liberal
Government is in to throw _batons dans leurs roues_. I should have
thought, with the experience of the last Parliament, that it would be
realised that Peer obstruction, cleverly managed, could reduce any
Liberal Government to ridicule and contempt. So long as a Reform is
hung up by the Lords, the electors have no heart in further Liberal
legislation, which, in its turn, would also be hung up. A Party with
a H. of C. majority at its back cannot afford to be unable to carry
through its measures. Why not go at once for the abolition of the H.
of Peers, and its being replaced by some sort of an elected Upper
Chamber? Nothing is easier than to contrive one. The basis would be
the constitution of the U.S. Senate _mutatis mutandis_. It should
have only one half of the membership of the H. of C., and if the two
Houses cannot agree, then they should sit and vote together on the
issue. Notwithstanding the curious way in which Senators are elected
in the Senate of the U.S., I never heard of any serious proposal to
alter this. Its main strength is due to its executive powers, and
this we need not provide for in our Senate. With any reasonable plan
of election, and the members reduced to about 300, it is odds against
there ever being a majority of one Party of above 40 or 50. No
Government at present can get on long without a certain majority of
slaves of more than this in the Commons, so the Commons would always
get their way. I have been at times a President of and a member of
several Abolition of Lords Associations, and have advocated abolition
in thousands of speeches in the country. The feeling was generally
against hereditary Legislators, for this comes home to all as an
absurd abuse. If I were in the House I would move an amendment on
the Address against hereditary Legislators, and the vast majority of
the Government supporters would vote for it, as they would most of
them be afraid of their electors. What surprises me is that the
Unionists do not counter the plans of the Government by many such an
amendment. They are sacrificing what is their interest to a lot of
obscure Peers, who are of no {533} importance. As for the House of
Lords, with only a suspensory veto, it is worthless to them, except
for tactical obstruction in order to discredit a Liberal Government.
It is rather curious that if the H. of C. reflects the opinions of
the country there is a majority for Tariff Reform, as all the
National M.P.'s are Protectionists. As it is, they will find it
difficult to vote for the Budget, with O'Brien painting Ireland red
against it. He is a power in Ireland, and Redmond is perfectly aware
of it. Anyhow the manœuvring in the H. of C. and the Debates will
be amusing. There will be difficulties with the Labour men, headed
by Keir Hardie. If I were the Unionists I would buy him.--Yours
truly,
H. LABOUCHERE.
The second was written on November 17, and ran as follows:
MY DEAR DILKE,--... It is a curious thing that in the discussions
about Home Rule all round, no one has pointed out that in the German
Empire Bavaria occupies a peculiar position. It has far more
independent rights than any other State. It was only on these terms
that it came into the Empire, for there is no great love lost between
the Prussians and the Bavarians. Yet it sends its quota of
representatives to the Reichsrath. Therefore there seems to me no
particular reason why, if there be Home Rule all round, the position
of Ireland should not be that of Bavaria.
I confess that I do not think much of the Government proposal in
regard to the veto. It seems to me a stupid arrangement. The Upper
Chamber is a fifth wheel on the coach which only can make itself a
nuisance by persistent obstruction, which in two years is swept aside
automatically. My experience in going to lots of anti-Lords Meetings
led me to the conclusion that the country hates an Upper Chamber on
hereditary lines, but does not quite believe in a Single Chamber
which is absolute master. Why does no one propose to "scrap" the H.
of L. and to have an elected Upper House, one-third of whose members
are renewed by election every two years, or some such period? This
would be on the lines of the U.S. Senate, only with a popular
franchise, {534} instead of the strangely illogical one of the U.S.
Such an Upper Chamber would probably be conservative in the real, and
not the party sense of the word, and yet command respect. It would
rarely act except when the decision of the H. of C. was influenced by
a small minority, threatening to turn the Government out if it did
not knock under to it. Were the Unionists to come forward with such
a scheme, they might very probably get a majority.--Yours truly,
H. LABOUCHERE.
After Sir Charles Dilke's death, Mr. Labouchere wrote the following
interesting letter to Lord Channing, dated Feb. 18:
DEAR CHANNING,--No, I am not writing any memoirs. I shall find it
more agreeable to read yours than to do so.... I knew him (Dilke)
very well since his start in politics. When in the House, he was the
only man well up, particularly in domestic legislature, and, really,
it is thanks to him that many useful measures were passed. In
explaining them, however, he was too apt to lose himself in minor
details. In foreign politics he never clearly knew what he wanted,
and he was given to believe in mares' nests which he thought he had
picked up abroad.... He fancied that he would be able to become the
leader of the Labour M.P.'s. They were ready to profit by his
speeches, but it soon became clear that they would only have a Labour
M.P. for their leader. We started a sort of Labour Party with a
Whip. But they came to me and said that it must be understood that
he was not to be either President or Chairman. In the main this was
due to jealousy of him.... I did all that I could with Campbell
Bannerman for him to be in the Cabinet. Campbell Bannerman
hesitated. Then Morley made a speech asserting that the Liberals
would not be satisfied unless he was included. At once the Bishop of
Rochester and a head dissenter (I think it was Clifford) published
letters protesting. Campbell Bannerman then pointed to these
letters, and said that we should have a split in the party if he were
in the Cabinet. Personally, I quite agree with you as to his
ostracism from office, but you know what the English are, and
particularly the dissenters....
{535}
Why did you resign your seat? It was a perfectly safe one. I
resigned because I had got to an age, when I got tired out at a long
sitting. It is curious I was with Campbell Bannerman and his wife
and mine. She wanted him to give it up, as his doctor had told him
that he ought to. I urged him to go on. He said that this was odd
advice, when I had said that I should do so, and he was younger than
I was. I replied that it was worth taking risks to be Prime
Minister, but not for anything else. And he is dead and I alive....
If ever you want to rest calmly you must come down here and see me.
I have a big villa close to Florence, and live a vegetable
existence.--Yours truly,
H. LABOUCHERE.
A great grief befell Mr. Labouchere in 1910. He and Mrs. Labouchere
had been spending the summer as usual at Villa d'Este and Cadenabbia,
and had returned to Florence in the early days of October. Never had
Mrs. Labouchere appeared to be in better health and spirits. On the
evening of the 30th October, she had delighted every one with her
inimitable reading aloud of _David Copperfield_, and life at Villa
Cristina, on that day, had seemed, if possible, more joyous and
serene than usual. The next morning the blow fell, but so gently as
to be almost imperceptible. Mrs. Labouchere, feeling a little giddy
on rising, had returned to her bed to allow the temporary sickness to
pass off. By the afternoon she was beginning to slip away into
unconsciousness, and before the bells in the neighbouring convent had
begun to welcome the dawn of the Tutti Santi, she had gone forth
alone on her last long journey.
The winter of 1910 and 1911 passed quietly away for Mr. Labouchere.
His days were cheered by the constant presence of his daughter, who
had married Marchesa Carlo di Rudini, the son of the former Prime
Minister of Italy, and Mr. Thomas Hart Davies stayed with him till
Christmas Day, returning to Florence again in the early spring. A
succession of visitors from England and Rome kept the house {536} gay
and lively as he loved to have it, always provided that he had to
take upon himself none of the activities or responsibility of
entertaining. "I am merely a passenger on the ship," he would say,
when he wanted to wriggle out of any active participation in the
organisation of whatever might be going on. But it always happened
to be towards the corner of the ship where that particular passenger
was resting that the pleasure and interest of every one converged.
It was not so much the charm of his talk, that was, perhaps, more
entertaining in his old age than it had ever been, as the
extraordinarily youthful and never failing interest that he continued
to take in the affairs of every one else that made him the best
conversationalist in the world. No little event of the smallest
human interest was too trivial to amuse him, and to awake the never
failing source of his mother wit. He passed the summer at Villa
Cristina and went to Villa d'Este in September. Though his spirits
were as gay and unflagging as ever throughout the winter, it was easy
to see that his physical strength was beginning to weaken. The walk
which he took daily round his garden fatigued him so much that, by
Christmas, he had given up even that mild form of exercise.
He experienced another bereavement during the winter in the death of
his oldest and most intimately associated friend, Sir George Lewis.
He felt his loss very deeply, and I remember that when he told me the
news his voice was full of emotion. He related that Sir George Lewis
had always looked upon him as his _mascotte_. "As long as you're
alive and flourishing, Labby," he used to say, "I shall be all right
too, so mind you take care of yourself." "Just shows what nonsense
all those things are," continued Mr. Labouchere, "for here am I as
well and strong as ever, and there is poor Lewis dead and gone." The
return of Mr. Hart Davies to the Villa early in December cheered him
up immensely, and his devoted friend did not leave his side {537}
again, until the last sad morning when he bade farewell to him on the
hill of San Miniato.
It was fitting perhaps that almost the last letter that Mr.
Labouchere should have written, should have been to one of his old
theatrical friends. Mr. Charles James Sugden, the actor, wrote to
him and asked him to write a preface to his (Sugden's) forthcoming
volume of Reminiscences. Here is Mr. Labouchere's reply:
VILLA CRISTINA, Jan. 4, 1912.
MY DEAR SUGDEN--You ask me to write a preface to your forthcoming
book. I don't think that I ever read one in my life, for they always
seem to be platitudes, impertinently thrust forward by some person
who has an exaggerated idea of his own importance, in order to hinder
me from getting at what I really do want to read. Good wine needs no
bush, and I shall be greatly disappointed if I do not derive great
pleasure from reading yours, for you have been brought into close
contact with so many persons of note in their day, and some of whom
are still in this world, and can throw many sidelights on them, and
know many anecdotes about them. Pray bring it out as soon as
possible. I am now over eighty, and at about that age senile
imbecility commences, so I do not want it to make progress before I
have had the opportunity to read the book and can appreciate
it.[6]--Yours truly,
H. LABOUCHERE.
But it was not until the beginning of the second week in January that
we all felt certain that he would never be well again. He was
sauntering along so gently and carelessly, as only Labby knew how to
saunter, towards the brink of the dark river. When the little heaps
of cigarettes, that were arranged about his library so as to be
always ready to his hand, ceased to dwindle as usual, it became clear
to each and all that he must be very ill indeed. As simply as a
child, tired with play, he took to his bed on the 11th of January,
{538} and did not get up again. He died peacefully at midnight on
January 15, 1912.
The earliest remark of Mr. Labouchere's that I have recorded in this
book was a jest, and so was the last I heard him utter. On the
afternoon of the day before he died, as I was sitting at his bedside,
the spirit lamp that kept the fumes of eucalyptus in constant
movement about his room, through some awkwardness of mine, was
overturned. Mr. Labouchere, who was dozing, opened his eyes at the
sound of the little commotion caused by the accident, and perceived
the flare-up. "Flames?" he murmured interrogatively, "not yet, I
think." He laughed quizzically, and went off to sleep again.
* * * * * * *
The words in which Mr. Hart Davies conveyed the news of his end to
Carteret Street are so beautiful in their simple directness that no
others can fitly replace them in this biography:
"His mind always remained perfectly clear. He took a lively interest
in the German elections, the political crisis in France, and the
events of the Italian-Turkish War. He was ever one for whom nothing
that concerned the human race (_nihil humani_) was alien to his vivid
intelligence. But his bodily powers were constantly declining, and
on Monday, January 15, just before midnight, the end came, peacefully
and painlessly, a fitting termination to the career of one who had
ever been a fighter and ever in the forefront of the battle.
"He was buried on Wednesday morning, under the cold drizzling rain of
the Florentine winter, at San Miniato, in the same grave with his
wife, who died some fifteen months before him. There, his tomb, at
the edge of the western battlement of San Miniato, looks over the
Tower of Galileo and the dark cypresses of Arcetri. It may be said
of him, as Heine said of himself, that on his grave should be placed
'not a wreath, but a sword, for he was a brave soldier in the war for
the liberation of humanity.'"
{539}
Before his death, he had expressed a strong wish as to the place of
his burial. He wanted to rest beside his wife at San Miniato. But,
when the arrangements for the funeral were about to be made, it was
remembered that only Catholics were permitted to lie in the beautiful
cemetery of the Florentines. The difficulty seemed insuperable, and
the preliminary steps had already been taken to bury him in the
Protestant graveyard. His daughter, however, determined to leave no
stone unturned so that she might carry out her father's dying wishes.
An appeal was made to some municipal authority, and, by an
extraordinary coincidence, that seemed to make Labby's funeral fit in
with all the rest of his strange paradoxical career, it was
ascertained that, just at that moment, the possession of the cemetery
was passing out of the hands of the religious body to whom it had
hitherto belonged, and was becoming the property of the lay
ecclesiastical authority of the city, and there had been no time for
new regulations or restrictions to be formulated. There were,
therefore, from a legal point of view, none in existence, and so it
turned out that Mr. Labouchere was permitted to lie in the spot that
he had himself chosen.
For many days after his death, the letters of condolence and sympathy
from all quarters of the globe continued to pour into the deserted
home. Of these one must assuredly be published, for it bears witness
to the loyalty and affection that was unfailingly manifested to him
by the borough he had represented for twenty-five years in
Parliament. It was addressed to Marchesa di Rudini, by Mr. Edwin
Barnes, the Secretary of the Northampton Liberal and Radical
Association, and ran as follows:
At a special meeting of the Executive Committee of the above
Association, held last night, the following resolution was
unanimously passed, which I was directed to send to you: "The
Liberals and Radicals of Northampton have heard with the deepest
regret of the death of the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere, {540} who,
for more than a quarter of a century, faithfully represented the
Borough in the House of Commons. The members of the Executive of the
Northampton Liberal and Radical Association hereby place on record
the profound gratitude of all its members for the loyal service which
Mr. Labouchere rendered to the cause of Democracy during so many
years. Whoever faltered, he stood firm, and it will always be a
proud remembrance that Northampton also stood firm, and that there
was no break in the mutual confidence of member and constituents. To
his daughter, the Marchesa di Rudini, and other members of Mr.
Labouchere's family, we offer our sincerest sympathy in the
irreparable loss that they have sustained, and trust they may find
some consolation in the warm tributes that have been paid by men of
all parties to his life, character, and work." Having known Mr.
Labouchere for many years, and being his agent in the important
election of 1900 (during the Boer War), allow me to add my own
personal sympathy and condolence with you.
[1] May 12, 1905.
[2] _M.A.P._, Dec. 30, 1905.
[3] _Morning Post_, Dec. 23, 1905.
[4] _Penny Illustrated Paper_, Feb. 25, 1893.
[5] _Truth_, Sept. 21, 1900.
[6] _The Referee_, Jan. 21, 1912.
{541}
INDEX
Abbeville, Labouchere at, 141
Abbot, Labouchere's action against, 108, 109
Abdulal Pasha, exile of, 221
Abercorn, Duke of, 85
Aberdeen, Earl of, 262; Col. Turner as _aide_ to, 361
Adelphi Theatre, Green at the, 29
Affirmation Act, passing of the, 160
Afghan War, the, 143
Afrikanders, National League of, 437
Aix, Provence, Fouché exiled to, 12
Albert, Prince, 67
Albret, Jeanne d', founder of the Protestant University at Orthez, 1
Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, watches Labouchere at écarté, 57
Alexandria, bombardment of, 71, 194, 195, 196, 218
Aliens Bill, 170
Alison on Mexico, 33
Alison, Sir Archibald, his command in Egypt, 209
Alliance Loan, the, 13
Allsopp, Labouchere on, 239
America, Bradlaugh in, 161-64; Fenianism in, 81, 170, 288, 309-10,
385; its constitution an example for England and Ireland, 237-8, 293,
294, 298, 531-33; its diplomats in Paris during the siege, 43; its
interest in Labouchere's Paris letters, 96; its labour system
compared with English, 461, 471, 479; its surgery and its girls in
the Franco-Prussian War, 44, 45; its system of education, 42;
Labouchere's prediction for, 14, 41, 44, 226; Lord Taunton travels
in, 14-15; unpopularity of Parnell in, 378
Amiens, Labouchere at, 140
Amsterdam, house of Hope at, 2, 10
Anarchist party, the, 418
Anglo-American War, 9
Anne, Queen, Labouchere on, 245
Antwerp, 7, 10
Appeals in the House of Lords, Labouchere on, 83
Appropriation Act, the, 354
Arabi Pasha, exile of, 203-9, 219-24; rebellion of, 70-1, 195-98,
202, 215
Arago, Mayor of Paris, 127
Arklow, Parnell at, 258
Armenian persecutions, the, 435
Arms Bill, the, 172
Army, Labouchere on the, 478
Arrears Bill, the passing of, 176, 179, 181, 183, 187, 252, 361
Ascot, Labouchere at, 106
Ashbourne, his Irish policy, 279
Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., counsel for Parnell _v._ Walter, 374 _n._,
407
Assouan, 209
Athlone, Stamforth contests, 525
Atkinson, American statist, 468
Atkinson, counsel for the _Times_, 374 _n._
Audiffret-Pasquier, Duc d', _Histoire de Mon Temps_, 13 _n._
Austen, Charles, correspondent in Paris during the siege, 141 _n._
Australia, J. R. Cox in, 223
Austria, customs union with, 418
Austrian chargé d'affaires, in Stockholm, Labouchere's duel with, 50
Austro-Prussian War, the, 97
Avebury, Lord, at Eton, 18
Aztecs, the, in Mexico, 34
Bacon, Lord, quoted, 20, 515
Baden-Baden, Labouchere at, 54, 65
Baggallay, Lord Justice, his judgment against Bradlaugh, 157; on
Labouchere in Hyde Park, 364
Baker, his army in Egypt, 199
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., administration of, 438, 517, 518, 524, 531;
Bannerman on, 455; Gladstone's letters to, _re_ Home Rule, 289, 298;
his coercive measures as Irish Secretary, 357-60; Labouchere on his
philosophy, 369
Ballantine, Serjeant, acts as counsel for Labouchere, 76 _n._, 77; at
Evans', 29; dines with Labouchere and Orton, 116
Balloons, as letter carriers, during the siege of Paris, 128-35
Ballot Act, amendments of the, 272
Balston, Edward, Labouchere's house master at Eton, 18
Bannerman, Sir Henry Campbell, his letters to Labouchere, _re_
retirement, 517, 523; his premiership, 518, 524, 531; on
Chamberlain's South African policy, 427, 448, 449, 454, 455
Baring, Alexander, partner in the house of Hope, 2
Baring, Rev. Alexander, his story of P.-C. Labouchère, 2
Baring Brothers, restore French credit, 12, 13; their crisis in 1890,
489
Baring, Dorothy, her marriage to P.-C. Labouchère, 2
Baring, Emily, marriage of, 14 _n._
Baring, Sir Evelyn. See Lord Cromer
Baring, Hon. Francis Henry, 3 _n._
Baring, Sir Francis, consents to his daughter's marriage, 3; his
friendship with Wellesley, 5, 7, 8
Baring, Lucy, daughter of Charles, 13 _n._
Baring, Sir Thomas, his daughters' marriages, 14
Baring, M.P., Thomas Charles, 3 _n._
Baring. See Lord Revelstoke
Barnes, Edwin, Secretary of Northampton Liberal and Radical
Association, 539
Barrère, Camille, on the staff of the _World_, 107
Barrier, Jean Guyon, 2
Barrow, Cavendish influence at, 350
Barton fights Labouchere at Eton, 18
Bass, Labouchere on, 239
Bathurst, Lord, as Foreign Secretary, 6
Bavaria, an example for Ireland, 533
Bayonne, 1
Bazaine, Marshal, at Metz, 123, 124
Beaconsfield, Earl of, advises Northcote in the Bradlaugh case, 154;
arranges an Egyptian loan with Rothschilds, 190, 191; attends the
Berlin Congress, 191, 192; defeated at Taunton, 13, 14; his
administration, 85, 86, 235, 520; his Imperialism, 143
Bedford, Duke of, Burke's letter to, 231
Beefsteak Club, the, Labouchere's expulsion from, 117
Beit, Alfred, his complicity in the Jameson Raid, 426, 428, 431
Belfast, manufacturers of, 276, 319
Belgium, Egypt compared with, 203, 206
Bell, Moberley, manager of the _Times_, 436
Bellew, Kyrle, début of, 111, 496
Bellew, Montesquieu, Labouchere travels to Palestine with, 111-13, 496
Belloc, Hilaire, as a conversationalist, 73
Bennett, Robert, editor of _Truth_, 518; on Labouchere as a
journalist, 491-516
Berlin Congress, the, Disraeli and Salisbury attend, 191, 192
---- Decree of, 9
Beza, Theodore, professor at Orthez, 1
Bigham, 427. See Lord Mersey
Bingham, Captain Hon. D., in Paris during the siege, 138 _n._, 141
_n._
Birmingham, Chamberlain, M.P. for, 167, 241, 322, 323; death-rate
of, 463
_Birmingham Post_, 455
Biron, Mr., counsel for Labouchere, 76 _n._
Bishop Auckland, Labouchere at, 118
Bishops, Labouchere on, 241
Bismarck, 96 _n._; as Ambassador at St. Petersburg, 62; at the Berlin
Congress, 192; his _Memoirs_, 70; threatens intervention in Egypt, 194
Blackwood, Sir Arthur, at Eton, 18
Blake, his support of Labouchere, 427
Blanc, Louis, Labouchere protected by, 132
Blaquières, M. de, French controller in Egypt, 195
Bloemfontein, capture of, 454
---- Conference, the, 455
Blücher, General, 57
Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen, _Gordon and Khartoum_, quoted, 214; his
reminiscences of Labouchere, 69-73; his support of Arabi Pasha, 204,
222; Labouchere's letters to, _re_ Arabi in exile, 220, 224;
Labouchere's letters to, _re_ the Soudan War, 216-19; on the death of
Gordon, 212; on Disraeli and Salisbury, 174; on the English policy in
Egypt, 193, 204, 214-15; on Labouchere as a politician, 198, 214;
_Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt_, quoted, 190
_n._, 192 _n._
Boadicea, 244
Boer War, the history of the, 436-57; Labouchere's protests against,
436, 438-39, 540
Boers, the, their resentment against England, 437. _See also under_
Transvaal
Bologna, 61
Bonn, 32
Bonner, Mrs. Bradlaugh, _Life of Mr. Bradlaugh_, 142 _n._
Booth, Charles, statist, 460
Booth, Sclater, Labouchere on, 239
Boston, Labouchere mistaken for an Irish patriot, in, 47, 48
Boulogne, Labouchere at, 500
Bourbon, the House of, 8
Bowen, Lord Justice, 501
Bower, Sir Graham, censure of, 428
Bowles, Thomas Gibson, correspondent in Paris during the siege, 141
_n._
Boycott, Captain, English agent of Lord Mayo, 165
Boycotting, practice of, 165, 176, 185
Boyd, Charles, his interview with Labouchere, 435, 436
Bradford, election of 1886 at, 326
---- Forster, M.P. for, 176
Bradlaugh, Charles, Gladstone's tribute to, 160-61; his imprisonment,
154; his struggle for the right to affirm, 145-64; Labouchere's
defence of, 148, 151, 156-64; returned for Northampton, 142-45, 158
Brampton, Henry, Lord, his letter to Labouchere, _re_ retirement, 526
Bramwell, Lord Justice, his decision against Bradlaugh, 157
Brand, M.P. for Stroud, 334
Brand, Sir Henry, 238; his rulings in the Bradlaugh struggle, 146,
151-2, 160
Brassey, Lord, Labouchere on, 239
Brennan, his imprisonment, 172, 174
Brentford, election scenes at, in 1868, 86, 90-2
Breslin, John, American Fenian, 385, 396
Breteuil, Labouchere at, 140
Brett, 280, 289
Bridges, Sir Henry, his ditty, 117. _See_ Appendix
Brielle, 6
Bright, John, his defence of Bradlaugh, 146, 149-51; Labouchere's
admiration of, 171, 228; opposes coercive measures in Ireland, 166,
181, 187; opposes the Egyptian policy, 220
Brighton, Labouchere at, 269, 273; Voules at, 507
Bristol, Lord, Labouchere's fag at Eton, 19 _n._
British South Africa Company, its complicity in the Jameson Raid,
426-37, 438, 452, 454; its evacuation of Uganda, 420
British virtue, Labouchere's indictments of, 105
Broadley, A. M., _How We Defended Arabi and His Friends_, quoted by
Arabi, 222
Broome Hall, Surrey, John Peter Labouchere at, 16, 31, 73
Broue, Catherine de la, 2
Brough, Lionel, at New Queen's Theatre, 99; bluffs Labouchere, 94
Brousson, L., on the staff of _Truth_, 505, 509
Brownrigg, Inspector, Labouchere on his conduct at Michelstown, 368-71
Bruce, Campbell, counsel, 76 _n._
Brunner, Mr., at Michelstown, 365, 367
Brunswick, House of, Bradlaugh's impeachment of, 148
Bryce, James, on the Coercion Bill, 182
Buckenbrock, Labouchere's friendship with, 52
Budget Bill of 1885, the, 251
Buenos Ayres, Labouchere's appointment in, 65
Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Indians in, 40
Buffon quoted, 133
Bulgaria, Turks in, 200
Buller, his policy in Ireland, 361
Buller, Sir Henry, as Ambassador at Constantinople, 54, 63, 64.
_See_ Lord Dalling
Buller, Sir Redvers, in Pretoria, 440
Bunsen, Labouchere on, 308
Buonaparte, Jerome, 9
Buonaparte, Joseph, in Spain, 8, 9
Buonaparte, Louis, as king of Holland, 5-9
Bureaucracy, Labouchere on, 122
Burke, Under-Secretary for Ireland, murder of, 174, 175, 359, 372
Burke, Edmund, his letter to the Duke of Bedford, 231
Burmah as a political pawn, 310-12
Burnaby, Captain Fred, his reminiscence of Labouchere, 242
Busch, _Our Chancellor_, 53 _n._
Butler, General Sir William, his command in South Africa, 437
Buxton, Sidney, 427
Byrne, Frank, 386
Byron, H. J., _Dearer than Life_, 99
Cadenabbia, Labouchere at, 418-21, 423, 515, 535
Caine, M.P., Labouchere on, 350
Cairnes, quoted by Hyndman, 481, 482
Cairo, Arabi at, 70, 204; General Gordon in, 212; Lord Wolseley in,
208; Prefect of Police at, 216
Calais, Labouchere at, 127
Calcraft, hangman, 115
Caldwell's dancing rooms, 105
Callan, M.P., Mr., on Bright and Bradlaugh, 150
Cambridge, St. Peter's College, 23; Trinity College, Labouchere at,
22-7, 251, 491, 522
Cambridge, Duchess of, her friendship with Labouchere, 54
Campbell, secretary to Parnell, 375, 396
Campbell, Sir George, 208
Canada, Dominion of, Labouchere on, 301, 304
Canning, George, his duel with Castlereagh, 6
Canrobert, Marshal, his corps, 123 _n._
Cape Colony, Lord Milner as Governor of, 437; Rhodes as Premier of,
427, 430; war spirit in, 437
Capital _v._ Labour, discussed by Hyndman and Labouchere at
Northampton, 458-90
Cardwell, Mr., 136
Carey, James, informer, forged letters to, 372, 374, 375, 384
Carlisle, Earl of, 14
Carnarvon, Lord, as Viceroy of Ireland, 251-56, 279, 282, 286
Carrington, Lord, assaults Grenville Murray, 110 _n._
Caspian Sea, the, 135
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, firm of, 493
Castlereagh, his duel with Canning, 6
Catholic Emancipation, question of, 6
Cattle-maiming in Ireland, 165, 169
Cavendish family, the, their influence at Barrow, 350
Cavendish, Lord E., Chamberlain on, 271
Cavendish, Lord Frederick, 146; murder of, 174, 175, 188, 358, 359,
372
Cavour, Gladstone on, 419; Labouchere's reminiscences of, 62
Ceylon, Arabi's exile in, 204-9, 220-24
Châlons, French camp at, 122-23 _n._
Chamberlain, Joseph, as President of the Local Government Board, 317
_n._; Churchill on, 209; Healy on, 303, 363; his alleged complicity
in the Jameson Raid, 427, 431, 446, 452; his correspondence with
Labouchere _re_ the Boer War, 446-54; his correspondence with
Labouchere on Home Rule, 261-356; his Egyptian policy, 70, 211, 212;
his Irish policy prior to the Home Rule Bill, 256-303; his probable
Premiership, 226, 227, 249, 280, 319, 320, 349; his responsibility,
as Colonial Secretary, for the Boer War, 437-38, 442-57; his scheme
of Home Rule, 255, 326; his secession from the Liberal party over
Home Rule, 226-28, 318-355; Labouchere's admiration of, 259;
Labouchere's letters to, _re_ Bradlaugh, 159; Labouchere's letters
to, _re_ the Egyptian policy, 205-6, 210, 211; Labouchere's letters
to, _re_ the Irish Coercion Bill, 177-187; Labouchere's letters to,
_re_ Radicalism, 41-2, 226-27; Labouchere's opposition to, 519, 531;
on Gladstone's Irish policy, 167, 189, 226, 263, 266, 271, 306; on
Herbert Gladstone, 265; on the House of Lords, 241; on the Land
Question, 276, 292; on the Parnell Commission, 383; on Salisbury's
Irish policy, 251; opposes the use of coercion in Ireland, 165, 173,
189
Chaplin, M.P., Henry, 146, 150; on the Coercion Bill, 187
Chartered Company. _See_ British South Africa.
Chatham, Earl of, his death, 6
Chaumes, Prussian army at, 127
Chelmsford, Morley at, 322
Chesterfield, Philip, Earl of, his _Letters to His Son_, 29; quoted,
88
Chevreau, M., 126
Chiala, Signor, on the relations between England and Italy, 410
Chicago, Healy in, 310
Childers, M.P., his Irish sympathies, 150, 260, 347
China, industrialism of, 468, 479, 487
Chinese Labour question, the, Labouchere on, 531
Chippeway Indians, Labouchere's life among the, 40-41
Christina of Sweden, Queen, Labouchere on, 245
Church of England, Disestablishment of the. See Disestablishment.
Church Patronage Bill, the, Labouchere on, 243
---- Rates Abolition Act, 81
Churchill, Lord Randolph, at Brighton, 269; at Twickenham, 356;
Chamberlain on, 253, 264, 271, 285-86, 288, 313; Hartington's quarrel
with, 278, 282; Healy on, 274, 283, 285, 303, 313, 362, 363; his
comment on Labouchere's Michelstown speech, 368, 397; his friendship
with Labouchere, 250; his illness, 262; his letters to Labouchere
_re_ Home Rule, 285, 289, 298 ff., 307; his letter to Salisbury _re_
Home Rule, 279; in Ireland, 282; in opposition, 409; Labouchere on,
315, 319, 344; negotiates with the Irish party, 254-303, 315; on
Chamberlain, 298, 308; on the Conservative party, 248; refers to
Labouchere as "the religious member," 142
Churchill, Winston Spencer, _Lord Randolph Churchill_, quoted, 280
_n._
Civil List, the, Labouchere's attacks on, 233, 234, 239-40, 246, 409,
413, 465-66, 478
Clan-na-Gael, the, takes possession of Parnell letters, 386
Clarendon, Earl of, 67; Viceroy of Ireland, 251
Clarke _v._ Bradlaugh, action of, 157
Clayton, John, at New Queen's Theatre, 99
Cleave, Mr., 76
Clongowes, school at, 404
Clonmel, Mayor of, at Michelstown, 366
Coalition Ministry, the, 6; of 1885-86 proposed, 268, 270, 295, 304
Cobden, Richard, on landlordism, 235
Cockermouth, Lawson M.P. for, 524
Coercion Bills, passing of the, 171-179, 238, 251, 256, 263, 313,
357-61, 363
Colenso, 440
Collectivism _v._ Individualism discussed by Labouchere and Hyndman,
463, 464, 479
Collings, Jes, 333; his amendment, 315, 316
Communism, Hyndman on, 485
Condé, Prince de, his army, 7
Condorcet, his gambling system, 66
Connaught, Duke of, his allowance, 233
Conservative party, the, Labouchere on, 247-48, 458; their advances
to the Irish, 251, 308
Constantinople, Labouchere as secretary of Embassy at, 54, 62-5; Lord
Stratford Ambassador at, 62, 63
Constitutional monarchy, Labouchere on, 230, 233, 242, 246
Cooke, Q.C., W. H., 76 _n._
Coombe, Gladstone at, 214
Cooper, Labouchere's tutor at Cambridge, 22
Co-operation, principle of, 472
Cork, Mayor of, at Michelstown, 366, 367; Parnell M.P. for, 174, 378
Cortes in Mexico, 34
Corti, Count, on the Berlin Congress, 192 _n._
County Councils, establishment of, 302
Covent Garden, Labouchere's life in, 28-30, 70
Covington, Frederick, 418 _n._
Cowper, Lord, Viceroy of Ireland, his resignation, 174; urges
coercion, 165, 166, 173, 175
Cox, M.P., J. R., his visit to Arabi, 223
Crampton, Mr., British Minister at Washington, 46, 47
Crawford, George Morland, leaves Paris before the siege, 119-120
Crawford, Mrs., on Labouchere as a diplomatist, 66, 67-8; on
Labouchere in Paris before the siege, 119-120
Cremorne, Labouchere at, 105, 129
Crimean War, instigated by Lord Stratford, 63; recruiting in America
for, 45
Crimes Bill. _See_ Prevention of.
Crimping, practice of, in America, 45
Cripps, Sir Alfred, on the Select Committee on British South Africa,
427
Cromer, Lord, as English Controller in Egypt, 195, 212; in India,
210; on General Gordon, 212
Cross, Sir R. Assheton, 150; Labouchere on, 239
Crown and Country, financial relations between, 42, 230, 232, 242,
246, 413
Cuernava, Labouchere at, 36
Cumming, Dr., impersonation of, 82
Cunynghame, Sir Henry, member of the Parnell Commission, 373-74, 395
Cyprus, England's lease of, 191, 192, 197, 222
_Daily Chronicle_, Spender of, 448
_Daily News_, affected by Birmingham imperialism, 96 _n._; Churchill
on, 279, 286; Labouchere as a correspondent of, 43-44, 96, 114,
119-41; Labouchere's financial connection with, 95, 96, 492; on Home
Rule, 257, 274, 279, 299, 326; on the Parnell Commission, 383-84,
393; on the Triple Alliance, 411
_Daily Telegraph_, its action against Labouchere, 500; Lawley,
correspondent in Paris, 141 _n._; on Home Rule, 256
Dalglish, Robert, 76 _n._
Dallas, correspondent in Paris during the siege, 141 _n._
Dalling, Henry Bulwer, Lord, as Ambassador at Constantinople, 54, 63,
64
Damascus, Labouchere at, 72
Darmstadt, Court of, plays at whist, 55
Darvill, Mr., town-clerk of Windsor, 75
Darwin, Charles, Gladstone on, 267
Daunt, O'Neill, 302
Davitt, Michael, Healy on, 254; his scheme for the nationalisation of
land, 179, 182-83; his letter to Labouchere _re_ Home Rule, 257-58;
Pigott forgeries of, 395, 396; speaks against the Coercion Bill, 363
Davy on the Coercion Bill, 182, 185
Day, Sir Charles, member of the Parnell Commission, 373, 393
Deacon, banker, 16
Dead Sea, Labouchere at the, 112
_Dearer than Life_, produced at New Queen's Theatre, 99
De Beers Consolidated Mines, the, 427
_Defence of Philosophic Doubt_, Balfour's, 369
Delaney, his evidence in the Parnell Commission, 384
Democracy, English government by the, Labouchere on, 238-39, 248,
413, 418, 481, 540
Derby, Lord, anecdotal photograph of, 68; Grenville Murray's attacks
on, 109; his ministry, 85; retires on the Egyptian loan, 190, 191,
193; signs the Convention of 1884, 451; travels in America, 14
De Sartines, chief of police, wit of, 4
Devonshire, seventh Duke of, his death, 363
Devonshire, eighth Duke of, on the House of Lords, 363. _See_ Lord
Hartington.
Devonshire House, anti-Home Rule meeting at, 344 _n._
Devoy, American Fenian, 170
Dhakool, capture of, 219, 220
Dickens, Charles, _David Copperfield_, 535; _Household Words_, 32, 68
_Dictionary of National Biography_, 46 _n._
Diet of Frankfort, the, Bismarck Prussian representative at, 52, 54,
55
Digby, Sir Kenelm, 28
Dilke, Sir Charles, 436; as a member of Gladstone's Government, 196,
200, 204, 228, 233; his acquaintance with foreign affairs, 71; his
Egyptian policy, 71, 196, 200, 204; his return to Parliament, 418;
Labouchere's letters to, _re_ the abolition of the House of Lords,
532-34; Labouchere's letters to, _re_ the Egyptian policy, 198-200;
letters to and from Labouchere _re_ Home Rule, 325, 327-28; secures
Labouchere's seat in the House, 527
Dillon, Charles, at Michelstown, 365-67; Healy on, 276, 362;
imprisonment of, 172, 174; his speeches _re_ South Africa, 438
Diplomacy, Bismarck on German, 52; Labouchere on English and
American, 44, 53, 411, 452
Disestablishment of the Church of England advocated by Labouchere,
43, 226, 234, 243, 244, 248, 417
Disraeli, Benjamin. _See_ Beaconsfield.
Dongola, 434
Donkey as a diet, 139
Donleath, Stuart, case of, 187
Dorking, Mrs. Labouchere at Oakdene, near, 130 _n._, 138 _n._
Douay, Abel, death of, 123
Douglas, Akers, 352
Dramatic, artists, Labouchere on, 101-102
---- critic, Labouchere as a, 496, 503
Dresden, Labouchere as attaché at, 59
Drink bill, national, 466
Dublin, headquarters of the Land League, 181, 183; Healy in, 239,
271, 273, 283, 289, 303; Liberal Unionists of, their responsibility
for the Pigott children, 404; Parliament in, 422; Parnell at, 256;
Phœnix Park, 174, 175; proposed Irish Parliament in, 252, 306,
321, 327, 339; Redmond in, 524; trial of the Land League in, 166
_Dublin Daily Express_, 279, 309
Duclos, Maître, notary to Trochu, 136
Ducrot, General, in Paris, 136
Dudley, Lord, marriage of, 525
Duelling, Labouchere's experience of, 50
Dufferin, Lord, his Egyptian policy, 207, 208, 223
Dumas, Alexandre, _père_, Labouchere meets, at Genoa, 113, 114
Dumas, Mlle. Maria, Labouchere at the wedding of, 114
Dunn, Parliamentary agent at Windsor, 75
Du Pre, Caroline, her marriage, 14 _n._
Du Pre, James, banker, 16
Du Pre, Rev. William Maxwell, his marriage, 14 _n._
Durand's, Paris, 120
Durham, Bishop of, 3 _n._
Durrant, Mr., solicitor to Sir Henry Hoare, 76, 78-81
Dyke, Sir W. Hart, 427
Dynamite Concession, the, 449
_Echo_, Voules as manager of, 493
Economy, Labouchere's political, 409, 410
Eden, Frederick Morton, his reminiscence of Labouchere at Eton, 19
Edict of Nantes, revocation of the, 2
Edinburgh, Chamberlain at, 323; represented by Goschen, 264, 297
Education, English national, Carnarvon on, 282; Chamberlain on, 270;
Conservative support of denominational, 258; Labouchere on, 42-43,
84, 234, 235, 248; Mundella as Minister of, 286
Edward VII., accession of, 148; as Prince of Wales, defends Grenville
Murray, 67
Edwards, Passmore, acquires the _Echo_, 493
Egan, Patrick, his forged correspondence with Parnell, 358, 372-405;
treasurer of the Land League in Paris, 172, 181, 182, 186, 358, 372
Egypt, as a political pawn, 310-13; English occupation of, 70-71, 72,
190-224, 248, 259, 434; French interest in, 191, 192, 197, 203, 210;
its occupation of the Soudan, 209; its Soudanese frontier
established, 215, 216; national movement under the Arabi in, 195-98,
205; rule of Khedives in, 190-97, 205, 207-8
Elandslaagte, battle of, 440
Electoral districts, Labouchere on, 229
Elephant as a diet, 138
Elgin, Lord, Governor of Canada, at Washington, 45
Elizabeth, Queen, Labouchere on, 245
Ellenborough, Lady, in Palestine, 72
Ellis, John, 427, 455
Ellis, T. E., at Michelstown, 365, 367
El Obeid, the Mahdi at, 209, 210
Enfield, Lord, his quarrel with Labouchere during the Middlesex
election, 85-93
England, house of Hope transferred to, 4; its relations with America,
81; its relations with Turkey, 196-7, 199
English, abroad, Labouchere on, 95
---- diplomatists in Paris during the siege, 43-44
---- institutions contrasted with the American, 41
---- system of education contrasted with the American, 42-43
Ephesus, Council of, 150
Escott, T. H. S., contribution to the _World_, 107
Established Church of England, _See_ Disestablishment
Eton, education at, 42; Labouchere at, 18-21, 251, 491, 522
Eugenie, Empress, in Paris, 124, 126, 134; her letter derided, 134
Evans', Convent Garden, _habitués_ of 28, 29; Labouchere in residence
at, 28-31, 70
Eversley, Lord, _Gladstone and Ireland_, quoted, 358 _n._; on the
Land League, 172
Evidence Amendment Act, the, 145
Expenses of Voters, Labouchere on, 83
Fagan, Captain, received by Wellesley, 7, 12
Fagging, Labouchere's views on, 20
Fairfield, Mr., 431
Fakenham, Rev. John Labouchere of, 21 _n._
Farnham Castle, 2 _n._
Fatherland, production of, 103
Favre, Jules, member of the Provisional Government, 127, 128
Fawcett, Professor, 136
Fenianism in America, 81, 170, 288, 310-11; in Ireland, 171, 183,
186, 275, 276; Labouchere on, 276, 278, 282, 292, 316
Fenwick, Mr., directs the case against Labouchere for cribbing, 24-25
Ferdinand VII. of Spain, Napoleon's treatment of, 8, 10
Ferguson, Sir James, 410, 412
Fermoy, Labouchere at, 365
Ferry, Jules, member of the Provisional Government, 127
Feudalism, Labouchere on, 241. _See also_ Land System
Finance, economical, Labouchere's efforts on behalf of, 246, 494-95,
505
Financial Reform Almanack, the, quoted, 232
Fitzgibbon, Churchill visits, 282, 289
Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond, his letter to Labouchere _re_ retirement,
525-26
Fletcher Moulton, Privy Councillor, 531
Florence, flight of the Grand Duke from, 61; Labouchere in, 60-62,
72, 95, 513, 517-23, 530-39; Unione Club, 61; _Florence Herald_,
quoted, 62 _n._
Flower, Mr., retires from the candidature of Windsor, 75-80
Foljambe, Chamberlain on, 271
Fond du Lac, Labouchere at, 41
Forbes, Archibald, on the staff of the _World_, 107; war
correspondent to the _Daily News_, 96, 127
Foreign Office, Archives, examples of telegrams in, 53, 54
---- ---- messengers, their expense, 54
Forster, M.P., R. N., seconds Sir H. D. Wolff, 148
Forster, W. E., Chief Secretary for Ireland, allusions to, in
Parnell's supposed letters, 372; blackmailed by Pigott, 393; Healy
on, 303; his arrest of Parnell, 172, 254; his resignation, 174, 188,
267, 276; Labouchere on, 282, 297; urges coercive measures in
Ireland, 165-73, 176, 182
_Fortnightly Review_, Chamberlain on Home Rule, in the, 255;
"Radicals and Whigs" quoted, 41, 42, 228-29
Fottrell, 302
Foucault threatens the Protestants of Orthez, 1
Fouché negotiates his own downfall, 5-12
Fowler, Sir Henry, his speech inspired by Labouchere, 350
France, financial situation of, in 1817, 12, 13; Guizot on, 480;
inauguration of the Third Republic, 126, 127, 191; its interests in
Egypt, 190, 192, 197, 203, 210
Franchise, Act of, 1884, the, 256
---- extension of the, Labouchere on, 229, 244-46, 248. _See also_
Suffrage
---- Law for the Transvaal, 442, 448-49
Franckfort, Bismarck in, 52, 53; Labouchere as attaché in, 52, 54,
60, 69, 119
Franco-Prussian War, 116, 191; Labouchere's correspondence during,
43-44, 96, 119-41
Freehold Land Society, its work in Northampton, 143
_Freeman's Journal_, the correspondence between Egan and Pigott in,
375
Free Trade for Ireland, Davitt on, 256-57
French, journalism during the siege of Paris, Labouchere on, 133-36
---- wars, allusions to, 287, 296
Froisard, General, defeat of his Army Corps, 124
Galveston, Healy in, 310
Gambetta, member of the Republican Government, 127