I have received a sheaf of correspondence arising out of the article in
the February number, cataloguing the Old Guard who were in the House of
Commons twenty years ago and stand there to-day. One or two demand
acknowledgment as adding to the information there garnered. Mr. Thomas
Whitworth, of Liverpool, a member of the House of Commons from 1869 to
1874, has made independent investigation, with the result of adding
several to the names I gave. These are Sir Charles Dalrymple, Mr. Duff
(who has just retired from Parliament on his appointment to the
Governorship of New South Wales), Sir Julian Goldsmid, Sir John Hibbert,
Sir J. W. Pease, Mr. J. G. Talbot, Mr. Abel Smith, and Mr. James Round.
Mr. Whitworth adds Mr. Charles Seeley. That is an error, since Mr.
Seeley does not sit in the present Parliament--having been defeated at
the General Election when he stood for the Rushcliffe Division of
Nottinghamshire.
[Illustration: MR. DUFF.]
"Sir Thomas Lea (not Mr. Lea) was, in 1873," Mr. Whitworth writes,
"member for Kidderminster, and is the only English member of that date
who has changed into an Irish one."
The present member for Londonderry was certainly "Mr." Lea in 1873, his
baronetcy dating from 1892, being one of the recognitions made by Lord
Salisbury of the services of the Dissentient Liberal allies. The
reference to Sir William Dyke as Liberal Whip was, as the context shows,
an obvious slip of the pen, Sir William having been for many years
prominent in the Conservative ranks as an able Whip.
One of the late Mr. Miall's kinsmen points out that "it was Edward
Miall, M.P. for Bradford, not Charles," who, side by side with the late
Mr. Fawcett, fought Mr. Gladstone on the Irish University Bill, and did
much to bring about the subsequent _débâcle_ of the Liberals.
Finally, Mr. Johnston, of Ballykilbeg, writes from the House of Commons:
"In your interesting paper, 'From Behind the Speaker's Chair,' in THE
STRAND MAGAZINE for this month, you say, 'Mr. Johnston, still of
Ballykilbeg, but no longer a Liberal, as he ranked twenty years ago.' In
politics I am to-day what I was twenty years ago. Always anxious to vote
for measures for the good of the country, and sometimes being in the
Lobby with Liberals, I never belonged to that party. Mr. Disraeli, in a
letter which I have, expressed his regret that I should have been
opposed, in 1868, by some Belfast Conservatives, and did all in his
power to prevent this. I was always, as he knew, and Lord Rowton knows,
a loyal follower of Disraeli."
[Illustration: MR. JOHNSTON.]
In conversation, Mr. Johnston adds the interesting fact that when in
1868 he was first returned for Belfast, he was in the habit of receiving
whips from both sides of the House, a remarkable testimony to the
impression of his absolute impartiality thus early conveyed to
observers. The House of Commons, by the way, is ignorant that in this
sturdy Protestant it entertains a novelist unawares. Mr. Johnston has
written at least two works of fiction, one entitled "Nightshade," which
presumably deals with the epoch of the fellest domination of Rome; and
the other "Under Which King?" a, perhaps unconscious, reflection of the
unsettled state of mind with which the hon. gentleman entered politics,
and which led to embarrassing attention from the rival Whips.