Lord Claud Hamilton has just informed me that he and Mr. Whitley do not intend to be present at the meeting to-morrow, assigning as their reason that they disapprove so strongly of the policy of the Government on Irish questions that, if they were present, they would be obligedto express publicly their disapproval. Under these circumstances I distinctly decline to attend a meeting of the Tory party in Liverpool at which the two senior members refuse to be present. I think it in the highest degree ungenerous and unpatriotic that two gentlemen professing Tory principles should show at a difficult and critical time such a deplorable want of confidence in a Government which, in all other parts of the United Kingdom, has received from its friends a hearty and cordial sympathy.
Lord Claud Hamilton has just informed me that he and Mr. Whitley do not intend to be present at the meeting to-morrow, assigning as their reason that they disapprove so strongly of the policy of the Government on Irish questions that, if they were present, they would be obligedto express publicly their disapproval. Under these circumstances I distinctly decline to attend a meeting of the Tory party in Liverpool at which the two senior members refuse to be present. I think it in the highest degree ungenerous and unpatriotic that two gentlemen professing Tory principles should show at a difficult and critical time such a deplorable want of confidence in a Government which, in all other parts of the United Kingdom, has received from its friends a hearty and cordial sympathy.
From this determination the most frantic appeals from Liverpool failed to move him, and the meeting was abandoned at the last moment, to the great disappointment and inconvenience of all concerned. The Lancashire Tories were not, however, to be discouraged from their purpose and resolutions were immediately passed by the Liverpool Conservative Association inviting Lord Randolph to another similar meeting a few weeks later and urging the local members to attend.
The relations of Ministers with the Irish party which were thought so improper by good Conservatives, and were certainly compromising, did not end with the Maamtrasna inquiry. The appointment of Lord Carnarvon as Viceroy had been a part of the general policy of concession to Irish feeling which the new Government was forced to adopt. His opinions were known to be sympathetic to Irish aspirations and he was for that reason agreeable to the Nationalist party. That he had carried Federation in Canada, had tried to carry it in South Africa, and was well known to be familiar with the machinery of subordinate legislatures and Colonial Parliaments,were facts not in those days devoid of significance. His first speech, in the House of Lords, as Lord-Lieutenant had been a declaration of the abandonment of Coercion and an appeal, in terms of generous sincerity, for a kindlier feeling between the two countries. Beginning thus, Lord Carnarvon was soon treading that path of hope and peril which seems to possess an almost irresistible fascination for English statesmen who are invited to watch at close quarters the detailed workings of Irish administration.
Lord Randolph Churchill was always inclined to blame Lord Ashbourne for his absence from Ireland at this critical time. ‘The Irish Chancellor’s constant presence in Dublin,’ he wrote in 1889 in the memorandum already quoted, ‘might have been of inestimable service to the Viceroy and the Government.... Lord Carnarvon, a nobleman of broad sympathies, liberal mind, and warm imagination, was left alone, without any previous knowledge of the country, to survey Ireland, to realise its condition, to appreciate the difficulties of its government, under the influence and guidance of Sir Robert Hamilton, at that time permanent Under-Secretary, who was possessed of great ability and long experience of the Civil Service, and who had some time previously arrived at the conclusion that the concession of Home Rule in some shape or other was inevitable. There was no countervailing influence of knowledge and authority with the Viceroy such as Lord Ashbourne might have afforded and Lord Carnarvon glided gently into the heresy which so grievouslyembarrassed and damaged his colleagues and correspondingly strengthened the party of Repeal.’
At the end of July Lord Carnarvon’s opinions were so far advanced that he sought an interview with Mr. Parnell. The famous ‘empty house’ meeting was arranged. In a drawing-room in Grosvenor Square, dismantled and deserted at the end of the London season, the representative of the Queen in Ireland and the executive head of the Irish Government met the man whom the mass of the English people, high and low, had been taught during five years, by the leaders of both political parties, to regard as guilty at least of high treason and probably of complicity in murder. From the accounts which have since been made public, the conversation that ensued seems to have been interesting and agreeable. Lord Carnarvon carefully explained that he spoke for no one but himself, that he sought for information only, and that as the Queen’s servant he could listen to nothing inconsistent with the Union of the two countries. After this formality had been assented to by Mr. Parnell, the two rulers of Ireland—coroneted impotence and uncrowned power—rambled discursively over such topics as self-government and national aspirations, Colonial Parliaments and a central legislative body which might, it appeared, possess—a remarkable licence—the right of protecting Irish industries. Altogether a very instructive afternoon!
When Lord Carnarvon first explained this incident in the House of Lords (June 10, 1886) he statedemphatically that he had had no communication with the Cabinet on the subject either before or after the interview took place and that he had received ‘no authorisation’ from the Cabinet. Not until two years more had passed (May 3, 1888) did he reveal the fact that he had acted throughout with Lord Salisbury’s consent. ‘I should have been wanting in my duty if I had failed to inform my noble friend at the head of the Government of my intention of holding that meeting with Mr. Parnell, and still more should I have failed in my duty, if I had not acquainted him with what had passed between us at the interview, at the earliest possible moment. Accordingly, both by writing and by words, I gave the noble Marquess as careful and as accurate a statement as possible of what had occurred within twenty-four hours after the meeting and my noble friend was good enough to say that I had conducted that conversation with perfect discretion.’[32]
Lord Salisbury, however, kept this matter entirely to himself. No one of his colleagues, not even the Leader of the House of Commons, was made aware of the incident until the fact was declared in Parliament. Lord Randolph Churchill was subsequently both astonished and offended at this concealment of such an important political event from Cabinet Ministers by the head of the Government.
The fact that Lord Carnarvon met Mr. Parnell and, with the knowledge and assent of the Prime Minister, discussed at large with him projects of HomeRule, has been held by many people to prove that the Tory Cabinet was considering such a policy in the autumn. But, as Lord Salisbury never apprised his colleagues of this interview, the inference is obviously incorrect. No Home Rule proposals were ever submitted to the Cabinet of 1885. Had proposals of this kind been submitted, taking the form of the establishment of a Parliament in Ireland, the Cabinet would inevitably have rejected them. If Lord Salisbury had been a convinced Home Ruler he could not have imposed his view upon his colleagues. Principle, prejudice, obstinacy, conviction, would each and all together have paralysed him. Apart from the Irish Viceroy, the two Ministers who might have been expected—according to prevailing impressions and suspicions—to give the most favourable consideration to such proposals were Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. It is certain that both Lord Randolph and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach would have resigned rather than support such proposals, still less be responsible for their conduct through the House of Commons; and in resigning they would have been followed by the great majority of their colleagues. If these two leading Ministers had agreed with Lord Salisbury upon a plan, the Cabinet would have broken in pieces; and even if the entire Cabinet had agreed, it is by no means likely that they would have succeeded in carrying the Conservative party with them.
What ground is there for believing that Lord Salisbury was ever inclined towards Home Rule, orcontemplated, even in the vaguest terms, making proposals to the Cabinet? No one knew better than he the character of his party and the disposition of his Government. His method had always been to obtain and use power onlythroughthe party andbythe party and no English statesman in the nineteenth century was less likely to split his party or to lead some forlorn, uncalculated crusade of enthusiasm or adventure. Certainly, if any idea had crossed his mind of making a settlement on Nationalist lines with Mr. Parnell, Lord Randolph Churchill would have been the Minister he would earliest have approached. Lord Salisbury was on intimate terms with Lord Randolph. They communicated with the greatest freedom and fulness almost every day and almost always by letter. In all the extensive correspondence that remains no trace can be discovered which suggests even remotely the existence or the recognition of such an idea. The Prime Minister’s letters to Lord Randolph, so far as they relate to Ireland, proceed on the fundamental assumption that they are leagued together to resist Home Rule. They speak of the ‘onslaught that is impending.’ They examine the resources with which it can be met. But that either or both could join the attacking forces is a suggestion in itself so widely improbable, of such inherent absurdity and unimagined remoteness, that it is not even mentioned for the purpose of being dismissed. The same may be said generally of the correspondence of the 1885 Cabinet of which Lord Randolph’s archives contain an extensive store.
Why, then, did Lord Salisbury allow and authorise the Irish Viceroy to confer with Mr. Parnell? It is not for me to attribute motives to persons with whom this story is only indirectly connected; but the question cannot be avoided and certain interpretations of his action irresistibly obtrude themselves. It seems, in the first place, a reasonable assumption that Lord Salisbury allowed the Viceroy to meet Mr. Parnell because the Viceroy was anxious for such a meeting and because Lord Salisbury did not think that such a meeting would do any harm. If the officer responsible for the Government of Ireland thought that his task would be made easier by private consultation with any particular Irishman, why should the head of an Administration avowedly pursuing a conciliatory policy to Irish Nationalism and earnestly endeavouring to preserve order without a special Act, refuse to allow such consultation? Lord Carnarvon was warned to make it perfectly clear that he was acting for himself and by himself, that the communications were from his lips alone, that the conversation was with reference to information only, that no agreement or understanding—however shadowy—was in question, and that the Viceroy must neither hear nor say a word that was inconsistent with the union of the two countries. Lord Carnarvon always asserted that he had made these conditions perfectly clear. Mr. Parnell did not in all respects concur. He declared that he did not recollect that these conditions were made. The conflict of evidence was direct. Even if it were admitted thatLord Carnarvon failed to convey fully to Mr. Parnell these important preliminaries to their discussion, the fact that he honestly tried to do so to the best of his ability and believed that he had in fact done so, relieves him from any imputation of intentional bad faith as regards Mr. Parnell and clearsà fortiorithe Prime Minister—a person more remote from the transaction. But if Mr. Parnell chose to place upon Lord Carnarvon’s words a construction which they would not bear or to attach to them an authority which they did not possess; if he chose deliberately, or through natural inclination, to magnify the importance of the whole incident, to treat it as a formal negotiation of a treaty, was Lord Salisbury to blame for that? And if Mr. Parnell thought fit for his own purposes to convey a detailed and highly-coloured account of his interview to Mr. Gladstone and other Liberal leaders, was Lord Salisbury responsible for that? And if Mr. Gladstone jumped at conclusions upon insufficient and questionable evidence, was Lord Salisbury responsible for that? Could he foresee these possible consequences of the permission he had given to Lord Carnarvon? Ought he to have foreseen them; and if he had foreseen them, ought he to have refused to allow the meeting to take place? These are questions which it is difficult to answer here. A sufficient explanation is that Lord Salisbury allowed the interview to take place in order to pacify the Viceroy and soothe Mr. Parnell and that he did not communicate the fact to his colleagues because he thought the matter would make more trouble in theCabinet than it was worth. Mr. Parnell’s biographer has explained with ingenuous candour the delicate and elaborate manœuvres in which his hero was at this time engaged. ‘The course of the Irish leader,’ he tells us, ‘was perfectly clear. He had to threaten Mr. Chamberlain with Lord Randolph Churchill, and Mr. Gladstone with both, letting the whole world know meanwhile that his weight would ultimately be thrown in the scale that went down upon the side of Ireland.’ Tactics like these, though perfectly legitimate for a public object earnestly cherished, are not of a character to entitle those who adopt them to any special consideration.
The session had no sooner ended than the campaign in the country began. The Liberal party went down to the General Election of 1885 in a spirit of comfortable over-confidence. Their leaders occupied themselves more in correcting each other than in assailing the Conservative Government. Indeed, it would seem that in the fulness of their power, with all the prestige of the ‘Old Man’ and the ‘old cause’ and the expected reinforcement of ‘two million intelligent citizens,’ they believed sincerely that the future lay exclusively in their hands and that the only questions of real importance were those which divided the ranks of the predominant party. Of these questions, however, there seemed to be no lack. Mr. Chamberlain’s views upon Local Government, free education, graduated taxation and, above all, upon the transfer, tenure, and compulsory acquisition of land, set forth in a series of remarkableaddresses, soon drew him into a lively controversy with Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen. Speech for speech they followed him about the country, until in the end he declared that he would accept office in no Government which ‘deliberately excluded’ the reforms he had advocated—in other words, in no Government of which they were members. Next came the question of Disestablishment, raised by stern Liberals, who found phrases about ‘the old cause’ and ‘the old ship’ soothing rather than satisfying in point of precision and substance. It was supported positively, as it appeared, by 374 Liberal candidates, and eagerly snatched at as a bone of contention by Wales and by English and Scotch Dissenters on the one hand and by Tory Churchmen and—let it be added—Tory politicians, on the other. In the last week of August Mr. Parnell demanded a national Parliament for Ireland. The whole press, Metropolitan and provincial, Liberal and Conservative, denounced his claim as destructive and impossible. ‘There was no sign,’ said theManchester Guardian, ‘of any appreciable section of Englishmen who would not unhesitatingly condemn or punish any party or any public man who attempted to walk in the path traced by Mr. Parnell.’ Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain—differing so widely on all else—representing as they did the extreme limits of Whig and Radical opinion, rivalled each other in terms of prompt, explicit, and unqualified condemnation. Ministers were silent. Lord Randolph Churchill, speaking atSheffield a few days later, ranged over many subjects, dwelt long upon the state of Ireland and the decision not to renew the Crimes Act, but made no reference of any kind to Home Rule.
Upon all these grave matters Mr. Gladstone was called to pronounce; and, like other party leaders under similar circumstances, he exerted himself rather to find a common basis of agreement between followers who fundamentally disagreed than to point a path of his own. He would apparently go as far with Mr. Chamberlain in domestic reform as he could carry Lord Hartington. Disestablishment, he observed cautiously, was a gigantic question, ‘and I am very far from saying that if I were twenty years younger, and circumstances were ripe for taking a matter of this kind in hand—either on the one side or the other—I should urge you not to give it the first place in your thoughts and actions.’ Upon Ireland and the future he was majestically mysterious and uttered stately phrases about the supremacy of the Crown, the unity of the Empire, and the authority of Parliament, mingled with aspirations towards ‘an equitable settlement’ and ‘another effort to complete a reconciling work.’ Mr. Gladstone’s utterances were officially declared to have united the Liberal party and, fortified by this assurance, all its sections resumed their warfare with ever-increasing turbulence, amid a babel of conflicting voices.
From this clamour and darkness the lines of battle slowly but surely ranged themselves much as Lord Randolph Churchill had expected and desired. Themenace to the Established Church and to denominational teaching consolidated the Conservative party. It provided a new and perfectly unimpeachable bond of union between them and the Irish Nationalists. The cry of the ‘Church in danger’ rendered Lord Salisbury very tractable on all other questions. To preserve that sacred vessel, to him precious beyond all else in English life, there was scarcely any concession he was not prepared to make—no merchandise he would not jettison. At Newport (October 7) he showed in unmistakable language that he was ready to make common cause with Tory Democrats, though they were Radicals at heart, and with Irish Nationalists, who were rebels by profession, thereby the better to resist the onslaught of secularism and atheism. Viewed in this light, boycotting seemed to him a very small matter, probably intangible to the law, depending ‘on the passing humour of the population,’ ‘more like the excommunication or interdict of the Middle Ages than anything we know now’; and in fine his Conservative principles made shift to accommodate themselves to a political programme which was morosely admitted by friends and foes alike to be little less than the Gladstonian manifesto.
The Irish vote came over solid and unstinted into the Tory lines upon a Parnellite denunciation of Mr. Gladstone and all his works, which in tone and language might have been an extract from one of Lord Randolph’s speeches. ‘In 1880,’ ran this document,[33]‘the Liberal party promised peace, andit afterwards made unjust wars; economy, and its Budget reached the highest point yet attained; justice to aspiring nationalities, and it mercilessly crushed the national movement in Egypt under Arabi Pasha. To Ireland more than to any other country it bound itself by most solemn pledges. It denounced Coercion, and it practised a system of Coercion more brutal than that of any previous Administration, Liberal or Tory.’
Among the millions who at the General Election of 1885 exercised, many of them for the first time, the proud privilege of the franchise, no human being could have explained with any approach to accuracy what a vote for either of the great parties in the State actually involved, whether in principle or action. Leaders on both sides, swept to and fro by turbulent cross-currents, took refuge in ambiguous obscurity, even where the most fiercely contested questions were concerned. Official Liberalism had no decided opinion about Disestablishment, nor Toryism about Fair Trade. Every politician had his own ideas about a social programme; and Ireland was a riddle at which neither party cared to guess in the absence of the electoral returns. What a mockery of statesmen’s leadership and foresight the future was to unveil! The Parnellite manifesto and the Irish vote weakened, perhaps fatally, the Liberals who a few months later were to stake their fortunes upon Home Rule. Sir William Harcourt, who derided the Conservative party for ‘stewing in Parnellite juice,’ was himself to stew in that juicefor the rest of his life. Lord Salisbury, whose philosophic defence of boycotting had excited general consternation, stood on the threshold of a Coercion Bill and ‘twenty years of resolute government.’ Mr. Gladstone, appealing for a majority independent of Irish members, became evermore dependent upon them. Mr. Chamberlain was soon to fight for political existence side by side with that same Lord Hartington whom he now described as Rip Van Winkle, to sit for years in the same Cabinet as the Mr. Goschen he now ran up and down the land to denounce, and to be driven from the Liberal party, locked in fast alliance with the very Whigs he was now striving in the name of Radicalism to expel. Whether Lord Randolph Churchill surpassed these standards of consistency the reader will be able to judge as the account proceeds.
These were perhaps the busiest days of his life, and the amount of work of the most exhausting character which he contrived to discharge astonished all who knew him. Besides the anxious and incessant attention which the India Office required, and the ordinary labours of a Cabinet Minister, he had to watch the Irish situation and to prosecute his Birmingham candidature from week to week. In addition to all this he darted to and fro about the country—to Dorsetshire, Sheffield, Worcester, Lynn, Manchester—commending the Conservative cause to the electors in speeches in which serious argument was garnished with a vigour of metaphor and a raciness of language that delighted the Tory Democracy and attracteduniversal attention. Lord Salisbury, who knew what the management of the India Office at this time involved, seems to have been genuinely concerned lest his lieutenant should break himself down by attempting a platform campaign as well as his departmental work. ‘The strain of doing the two things together,’ he wrote (September 13) in a letter almost paternal in the kindness of its tone, ‘is enormous: and if you once go a step too far—if you once break the spring—you may take years to get over it.’ But Lord Randolph persevered; and though he was forced by ill-health to take a few weeks’ rest at the end of September, he managed to carry out nearly all the engagements he had undertaken.
Such brief leisure as he could secure he spent mainly salmon-fishing in the Carron at Auchnashellach—a house and river in Scotland then the property of his brother-in-law, Lord Wimborne. Thither also went Sir Frederick Roberts before leaving to take up the Indian command. Lord Randolph was delighted to renew a friendship so happily begun the year before at Rewah.[34]
To his Wife.Auchnashellach: September 27.I have written twenty-one letters to-day, some of them long ones, so you won’t be vexed if I only send a short scrawl. I think your letter to Lady Dufferin admirable and all your plans with regard to her Fund most excellent. I am sure Moore will do anything you want. I should advise you to get hold of Mr. Buckle and fascinate him, and make him write you up. I have been very glad to get SirFrederick Roberts here, and have had long conversations with him on many Indian subjects. Did you not find him very nice? It has been everything for me getting him up here. I never could have had any real satisfactorypow-wowin London. He is coming to dine with me on October 6, to meet some of the other Ministers—only a man party. I hope the new cook will be on his mettle....
To his Wife.
Auchnashellach: September 27.
I have written twenty-one letters to-day, some of them long ones, so you won’t be vexed if I only send a short scrawl. I think your letter to Lady Dufferin admirable and all your plans with regard to her Fund most excellent. I am sure Moore will do anything you want. I should advise you to get hold of Mr. Buckle and fascinate him, and make him write you up. I have been very glad to get SirFrederick Roberts here, and have had long conversations with him on many Indian subjects. Did you not find him very nice? It has been everything for me getting him up here. I never could have had any real satisfactorypow-wowin London. He is coming to dine with me on October 6, to meet some of the other Ministers—only a man party. I hope the new cook will be on his mettle....
He found time to pay a flying visit to Howth—thus combining pleasure with certain matters of importance which drew him to Dublin.
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Justice FitzGibbon.Auchnashellach, Dingwall, N.B.: September 21, 1885.A line to tell you that on Tuesday, 29th inst., I commence my journey to Howth. A considerable business. I shall go by Carlisle to Holyhead, and imagine I ought to arrive at Kingstown on Thursday morning. From there I shall proceed to the Attorney-General’s abode at Monkstown, and later in the day move on in the direction of ‘the Eye.’[35]Will you keep me for two nights? I have asked the Lord-Lieutenant to let me go to him on the Saturday. Can you possibly manage to put up my secretary, Cecil Wolff? He is here with me and, while we are exploring the bay and deluding the wily lobster, will decipher telegrams and look after papers—a work I am perfectly unequal to. I hope the ‘Tutissimus’[36]will be on the spot and David Plunket—also I shall have to go and see O. V. G. L.,[37]who wrote to me from Buxton the other day; and there are many other old friends I am greatly looking forward to seeing again—you first.
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Justice FitzGibbon.
Auchnashellach, Dingwall, N.B.: September 21, 1885.
A line to tell you that on Tuesday, 29th inst., I commence my journey to Howth. A considerable business. I shall go by Carlisle to Holyhead, and imagine I ought to arrive at Kingstown on Thursday morning. From there I shall proceed to the Attorney-General’s abode at Monkstown, and later in the day move on in the direction of ‘the Eye.’[35]Will you keep me for two nights? I have asked the Lord-Lieutenant to let me go to him on the Saturday. Can you possibly manage to put up my secretary, Cecil Wolff? He is here with me and, while we are exploring the bay and deluding the wily lobster, will decipher telegrams and look after papers—a work I am perfectly unequal to. I hope the ‘Tutissimus’[36]will be on the spot and David Plunket—also I shall have to go and see O. V. G. L.,[37]who wrote to me from Buxton the other day; and there are many other old friends I am greatly looking forward to seeing again—you first.
Auchnashellach, Dingwall, N.B.: September 27, 1885.Many thanks for your letter and telegram. My complete physical restoration absolutely depends upon an evening with Father James Healy.I shall try to get to you early Saturday morning, and I fear I must leave Monday night, as our great Prime Minister has summoned a Cabinet for Tuesday. I shall go to the Attorney-General’s on Thursday morning in order to get myself into a proper state of mind and body before meeting the Lord-Lieutenant. Could you not run out to Monkstown in the early morning, in order that we may deliberate as to the proper employment of Saturday and Sunday and Monday, and also that I may hear at first hand from authentic sources what the FitzGibbon Commission (Endowed Schools) has been up to. I see you have made a lot of jobbing appointments. Wolff is very pleased with your kind letter.Can’t you get O. V. G. L. over to Howth on Sunday? This would be better than any amount of Church.Please tell Baillie Gage privately that an intelligent telegraph clerk at Howth while I am there would be a great advantage. The cypher telegrams require care, or else are worse than useless. They come pretty thick now.
Auchnashellach, Dingwall, N.B.: September 27, 1885.
Many thanks for your letter and telegram. My complete physical restoration absolutely depends upon an evening with Father James Healy.
I shall try to get to you early Saturday morning, and I fear I must leave Monday night, as our great Prime Minister has summoned a Cabinet for Tuesday. I shall go to the Attorney-General’s on Thursday morning in order to get myself into a proper state of mind and body before meeting the Lord-Lieutenant. Could you not run out to Monkstown in the early morning, in order that we may deliberate as to the proper employment of Saturday and Sunday and Monday, and also that I may hear at first hand from authentic sources what the FitzGibbon Commission (Endowed Schools) has been up to. I see you have made a lot of jobbing appointments. Wolff is very pleased with your kind letter.
Can’t you get O. V. G. L. over to Howth on Sunday? This would be better than any amount of Church.
Please tell Baillie Gage privately that an intelligent telegraph clerk at Howth while I am there would be a great advantage. The cypher telegrams require care, or else are worse than useless. They come pretty thick now.
The Irish capital under Lord Carnarvon was disturbed by many whisperings of Parnellite intrigue, Maamtrasna alliances, Catholic Universities and Repeal. What if they had known of the conversation in Grosvenor Square? Lord Randolph’s sudden arrival in Dublin created a new flutter. It had been very freely said that he had committed himself to the Parnellites on Home Rule, and his visit was attributed in some newspapers to the purpose of further negotiation. He soon reassured his Irish friends. At the Vice-Regal he had a long conversation with Lord Carnarvon. The Viceroy made no mention of his communications with Parnell; but his language excited Lord Randolph’s suspicions. He called upon Mr. Holmes, the Attorney-General,early one morning, as he had proposed. They talked much on Irish politics. At length Lord Randolph got up to go. As he reached the door he paused, and, pointing with his finger, said, almost harshly and in a tone of command: ‘Now, mind. None of us must have anything to do with Home Rule in any shape or form.’ For the rest of his visit he amused himself at Howth, playing whist, chaffing his old friends, and catching lobsters in the bay. The cypher telegrams came in thickly. The short holiday was soon at an end.
Election oratory is not illuminating. The tags, the personalities, the arguments which spring into being in the excitement of the moment, may pass muster in the scrimmage. It were a harsh measure to call them forth one by one in cold blood to justify themselves before austere tribunals of taste and truth. The passions of these stormy months drew Lord Randolph Churchill into a dispute with Lord Hartington very soon to be regretted by both. It was natural that Whigs and Tory Democrats should eye each other with mutual dislike. The Whigs saw with jealousy the hold which the Tory party were gaining upon popular sympathies; with disgust their readiness to outbid old-fashioned Liberalism in all that appealed to the new democracy; and with alarm the excesses to which their own Radicals were encouraged or goaded thereby. The Tory Democrat, on the other hand, was incensed to see the ægis of aristocracy and wealth and all the solid assurance of respectability spread, however reluctantly, in protectionover levelling and revolutionary doctrines. Both exerted influences upon their respective parties—the one of restraint, the other of propulsion—contrary to the general tendency of those parties. It needed but a step from these considerations for each to regard the other as insincere. The Whig accused the Tory Democrat of unscrupulous opportunism; the Tory said that the Whig was a humbug.
The actual dispute arose in this wise. Lord Hartington’s examination of Mr. Chamberlain’s programme led him to utter many sentiments about the rights of property which were not less gratifying to the Conservative party than his blunt repudiation of Mr. Parnell and Home Rule. ‘If,’ said Lord Randolph Churchill at Sheffield, after reading one of Lord Hartington’s speeches, ‘this is really all you can bring yourself to utter on political questions, you cannot indicate any difference between yourself and your friends and the Government now in power. If, on the contrary, you are compelled by the honesty of your nature to indicate the strongest possible difference with a certain section of the Liberal party with whom for years you have hopelessly and vainly tried to agree, then I say you have no longer the right as a patriot and a citizen to oppose the Conservative Government simply on the ground of antiquated names; nor the right to act with Mr. Chamberlain and his friends, who would not only destroy the Constitution, but would destroy with it that great party of the Revolution—the Whigs—under whose guidance that noble Constitution wasframed.... I say to Lord Hartington before you all—not by any backstairs intrigue, not by any secret negotiations, but in the face of this meeting and before all England—to Lord Hartington, to his friends, and to his following, words which were said to men nearly two thousand years ago, who were destined to become great political guides, "Come over and help us."’
This invitation was rejected by Lord Hartington with some asperity. It was comically suggested that he had written to inquire ‘Who’s "us"?’ and had received the answer ‘"Us" is me.’ Radicals earnestly besought him to follow the advice which had been offered. He would be much happier in the Conservative camp. It would be better for all parties if he took the plunge. To a proud man profoundly attached to historic Liberalism, painfully conscious of the increasing difficulties of his position, these taunts were galling in the extreme. In more than one speech he denounced the New Conservatives, of whom he said that they arrogated to themselves the title of Tory Democracy, had no distinctly marked political opinions, and looked on politics only as a game by which they might attain office. One shaft at least was shrewdly aimed. He taunted Lord Randolph Churchill with going about the country with ‘a great policy of grand pretensions but absolutely no legislation.’
The Secretary of State for India spoke in Manchester on November 6. It was the eve of the poll. The election fever was at its height. The streetsleading to the St. James’s Hall were impassable, through the crowd waiting to catch a glimpse of their favourite.[38]The vast hall itself was crammed with excited people. Lord Randolph was in his element. He cast away every kind of restraint and devoted himself for an hour and a half with zeal and relish to an unmeasured attack upon the Whigs, their record, their leaders, their influence, and their aims. He showed how Lord Hartington had opposed almost every reform that the Liberal party had ultimately carried—the ballot, household suffrage, the abolition of flogging in the army—and yet under pressure had in the end consented to them all; how he was still professedly opposed to manhood suffrage and Disestablishment, but how in the near future he would be forced to support them; how he already advocated that extension of Local Government to Ireland which only the year before he had denounced. This was political principle! And now? ‘Did any of you ever go,’ inquired the speaker, ‘to the Zoological Gardens? If you go there on some particular day in the week you may have the good fortune to observe the feeding of the boa-constrictor, which is supplied with a great fat duck or a rabbit. If you are lucky and patient and if the boa-constrictor is hungry, you may be able to trace the progress of the duck or the rabbit down his throat and all along the convolutions of his body. Just in the same way, by metaphor and analogy, the British public can trace the digestion and the deglutitionby the Marquess of Hartington of the various morsels of the Chamberlain programme which from time to time are handed to him; and the only difference between the boa-constrictor and the Marquess of Hartington is this—that the boa-constrictor enjoys his food and thrives on it and Lord Hartington loathes his food and it makes him sick....’ ‘Ah! the Whigs hate the New Conservatism and the Tory Democracy because they are democratic and because they are popular. They hate the Tory Democracy because it has cut the ground from under their feet; because Tory Democracy has taken the place of the Whigs and swept away that baffling and confusing medley party which at every crisis obscures the issues before the people. No; I quite admit that there is nothing democratic about the Whig. He is essentially a cold and selfish aristocrat who believes that the British Empire was erected by Providence and exists for no other purpose than to keep in power a few Whig families, and who thinks that our toiling and struggling millions of labourers and artisans are struggling and toiling for no other purpose than to maintain in splendour, opulence, and power the Cavendishes and the Russells.’
The audience were delighted at this hard hitting. Certainly Lord Randolph had set his mark upon the Whig leader in unmistakable fashion. It is said by some who were present and who followed his movements closely, that on no occasion in Lancashire, not excepting the celebrated ‘Chips’ speech at Blackpool in 1884, was his command from minuteto minute of a meeting containing a large proportion of opponents so strikingly displayed. Lord Hartington was deeply and personally offended. ‘I hear,’ wrote Lord Randolph to his wife a few days later, ‘that Hartington says he will never speak to me again.Je m’en moque.’ But ‘never’ is a hard word in political strife.
The contest in Birmingham was watched with the keenest interest all over the country. The fame of Mr. Bright, the popularity of his young challenger, the antagonisms which Mr. Chamberlain and his doctrines had excited, the daring of the assault upon the stronghold of Radicalism, the incidents of the Aston Riots, still fresh in the public mind, united so many picturesque and personal elements that the rough and tumble of a modern election assumed the glamour of a Homeric combat. Even Mr. Balfour seems to have become enthusiastic. Considering how intimate his relations with Lord Randolph must have been during these years, it is curious how few of his letters are to be found among Lord Randolph’s extensive correspondence. But the Birmingham election drew from him a warm private message of encouragement and congratulation, written in his own hand, in the midst of his own fight in Manchester. Every word uttered by Lord Randolph was diligently reported. Not merely the regular speeches in the Town Hall with which the campaign was opened, but accounts of every petty ward meeting were telegraphed verbatim to the newspapers. Lord Randolph’s address[39]had been issued as early asOctober 10. From October 24 till the poll a month later he prosecuted his candidature with seemingly inexhaustible vigour and fertility; and as the days slipped by the tide of popular approval seemed to flow ever more strongly in his favour. At the Radical headquarters there had been at first some disposition to treat the attack with indulgent and superior contempt. But soon feelings of incredulous anxiety broke in upon complacency, and Mr. Schnadhorst and his myrmidons bent again over their finished—‘perhaps too highly finished,’ as Lord Randolph suggested—organisation, ciphering their pledged electors out again by wards and streets and alleys with all that American thoroughness for which the Caucus was remarkable. The progress of the fight, strangely enough, provoked no personal ill-feeling between Lord Randolph and Mr. Chamberlain. Their renewed friendship continued unimpaired. They exchanged various small civilities and avoided, so far as possible, attacking each other in irritating terms. When, for instance, Mr. Chamberlain described Lord Randolph’s address as ‘colourless’ and the reporters wrote ‘scurrilous,’ Mr. Chamberlain at once telegraphed to explain the mistake and added a friendly inquiry about Lord Randolph’s health. For the rest, the contest in all the seven divisions was bitter and fierce. Lord Randolph was helped from morn till night by his wife and his mother, at the head of their Primrose Dames. These ladies canvassed the whole of the Central Division street by street and house by house; and the Duchess ofMarlborough—who was, as these pages perhaps suggest, a woman of remarkable character and capacity—visited the factories and addressed the workmen effectively on her son’s behalf. If it were in human power to command success, the Central Division of Birmingham would have been won. Against any other candidate Lord Randolph must have prevailed. But the personal loyalty of the people to their famous representative resisted all efforts. ‘I like your husband,’ said an old fellow to Lady Randolph on one of her canvassing tours, ‘and I like what he says; but I can’t throw off John Bright like an old coat.’
Not until the very eve of the General Election did the Liberal party realise that their victory in England and Scotland would not be complete and was even doubtful. For the first time since the Conservatives had taken office in June all talk of triumphant and crushing Gladstonian majorities died away. Tales of distress came in on every hand from the boroughs. Crowds of ardent Conservative working men—utterly unexpected phenomena—assembled to cheer and support the Government candidates. The Conservative party was found, moreover, to have gained vastly in prestige by its short tenure of power. Lord Salisbury’s conduct of foreign affairs extorted admiration even from his opponents. The Afghan difficulty had been removed and the Russian crisis was at an end. The Egyptian settlement was proceeding smoothly. Good relations had been restored between Great Britain and the two Empires of Germany and Turkey, from which under the lateGovernment she had been estranged. The charges of ‘rashness’ and ‘Jingoism’ which it had been so fashionable to make against Lord Salisbury found their answer in actual events. The new Ministers had shown themselves competent and capable men. It was no longer denied that the Conservative party could produce an efficient alternative to any Government Mr. Gladstone might form.
The voting began on November 23. Forty-four borough constituencies which had been represented in the late Parliament by 35 Liberals and 20 Conservatives now (after redistribution) returned 26 Conservatives and 18 Liberals. Liverpool elected 8 Conservatives and 1 Parnellite (Mr. T. P. O’Connor); Manchester 5 Conservatives to 1 Liberal; Leeds and Sheffield 3 Conservatives each to 2 Liberals. Other large towns like Stockport, Blackburn, Oldham, Staleybridge, Bolton, Brighton, hitherto for the most part strictly Liberal, were now represented mainly or wholly by Conservatives. London, which in 1880 had sent up 14 Liberals and 8 Conservatives, now returned 62 Members, of whom 36 were Conservatives and 26 Liberals. Wherever the influence of Lord Randolph Churchill upon the Tory Democracy had been the strongest, that is to say, in the great centres of population and of active political thought, victory—all the more dazzling because so desperately won—rested with the constitutional cause. Two ex-Cabinet Ministers and quite a litter of underlings from the late Government fell before the storm. Whereas, in 1880, 287 English borough members had musteredonly 85 Conservatives; in 1885, 226 English borough members numbered 116 Conservatives to 106 Liberals, 3 Independents, and 1 Parnellite. And it was, moreover, noticed that even in boroughs where the Tories were outnumbered the increase in their vote was heavy and almost universal.
Yet it is remarkable that, amid so many successes, the Conservative party should have derived enormous encouragement from a defeat. The result of the Birmingham election was declared late on the night of the 24th. Seven Liberals or Radicals were returned for its seven divisions. But the Conservative minorities were everywhere largely increased, and raised in the aggregate from 15,000 voters to 23,000. Whereas in 1880 the proportion of Liberals to Tories in Birmingham was as 2 to 1, it was in 1885 as 3 to 2. Mr. Alderman Kenrick, the Chairman of the National Liberal Federation, saved his seat by scarcely 600 votes from Mr. Matthews. In the Central Division Lord Randolph Churchill was defeated by Mr. Bright by 4,989 votes to 4,216, a majority of less than 800. It was claimed by Conservative, and generally admitted by Liberal, writers that no more significant proof of the change of opinion in English cities could be furnished than this result. But while the political world was fully aware of the meaning of the Birmingham elections, the Tories who had fought the battle with so much earnestness and enthusiasm were bitterly disappointed. Hope, growing stronger, had even ripened into confidence as the contest had proceeded,and the crowd of local leaders in the Midland Conservative Club awaited the declaration of the poll in intense excitement. As one by one the adverse results came in, the hum of eager conversation died away and gloom overspread every face. The figures of the Central Division were still delayed. ‘Churchill’s in!’ shouted a voice from the street; and a frantic cheer went up. ‘At the bottom!’ cried the mocker; and fled. Then the truth arrived. There was a sickly silence. In a moment Lord Randolph was upon his feet. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘the man who cannot stand a knock-down blow isn’t worth a damn.’ The Midland Conservative Club were accustomed to regard this remark with a respect which they did not always extend to more edifying political pronouncements.
Lord Randolph returned to London next day and was almost immediately elected by a majority of more than 2 to 1 for South Paddington, where he then lived. The Fourth Party had fought everywhere in the front line. Mr. Balfour, forsaking the shelter of Hertford, had captured an immense working-class constituency in Manchester. Mr. Gorst was returned again for Chatham. Only Sir Henry Wolff—still far away in Egypt—fell at Portsmouth, and passes as a Parliamentary politician out of this story altogether. Tory confidence flared high during the first few days of the election and ‘Back to 1874’ was everywhere the word. Lord Justice FitzGibbon was in London when the returns from the boroughs were coming in, and after spending the small hours among an excitedcrowd at the tape machine in the Grand Hotel, he hurried round to Connaught Place to see his now famous friend. ‘Ah!’ said Lord Randolph, pacing up and down in excited satisfaction, ‘the Whigs can no longer call us the party of the classes. If they do, I’ll chuck big cities at their heads.’
But after the boroughs, the counties. While Liberals all over the country were beginning to lose heart, while whispers of utter defeat and panic were flying about among the wire-pullers, Mr. Gladstone stoutly proclaimed his undiminished confidence that the new voters would reverse the decision of the old; and so it proved. Scotland voted solidly Liberal—only nine Conservatives being returned. In the English counties the agricultural labourers tramped doggedly to vote down the farmers’ and landlords’ candidates. Mr. Farrer Ecroyd’s Fair Trade movement, which had proved so popular in Lancashire towns, exerted an opposite effect in villages, where Corn Law memories were still wakeful. Mr. Chamberlain’s speeches had fallen upon a fertile soil. The country party, with all its immense territorial influence and candidates of county families, was shattered, never to be restored, except as a shadow of its old strength. Henceforth the Conservative leaders, if they were to rule the land, must build in town and country upon the foundation of democracy.
enlarge-imageReproduced by permission of the proprietors of "Punch." THE WAITS. Punch. December 26, 1885.Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of "Punch."THE WAITS.Punch. December 26, 1885.
Ireland was a portent. Not a single Liberal was returned. The Irish Whigs were as a party and a force totally exterminated. Ulster elected 16 Tory members and 17 Nationalists. Out of 89 contestsMr. Parnell won 85, the greater part by overwhelming majorities. Upon such national authority could he base his demand for Home Rule. The leaders of both the great English parties understood the meaning of the Irish elections. On November 30 Mr. Gladstone was still appealing to his counties for a clear and strong majority over the combined forces of Conservatives and Parnellites. ‘There seems to be still hope,’ wrote Lord Salisbury to Lord Randolph Churchill, as late as December 3, ‘that we may be above low-water mark—i.e.Tories + Parnellites = Liberals.’ The hopes of both were falsified by the event. The final result of the General Election of 1885 sent to the House of Commons 335 Liberals, 249 Conservatives, and 86 Parnellites. ‘Low-water mark’ it was.
‘What will happen now?’ Lord Randolph was asked by a friend. ‘I shall lead the Opposition for five years. Then I shall be Prime Minister for five years. Then I shall die.’ In respect to the span of his life the words came true almost to the day. But his personal fortunes and the destinies of Britain were about to receive a vast and unanticipated twist.
ἁρχἡ ἁνδρα δεἱξει‘Great command proves the man.’
THEreader, having persevered so long amid the intrigues of party and the warfare of Parliament, may now be glad to escape for a while into the calm atmosphere of a public department. The India Office rejoices in a character and constitution of its own. The cost of its maintenance and the salaries of its officials, from the Secretary of State downwards, are defrayed by India and do not appear upon the votes of the House of Commons. The opportunities of debating the policy or conduct of the responsible Minister, except upon formal votes of censure, are therefore perhaps inconveniently few. Any apparent laxity of control by Parliament is, however, corrected by the Council of India—a body consisting of gentlemen of long and distinguished service in the East—with whom the Secretary of State is by law compelled to act and by whose decisions he is in many matters of the highest importance absolutely bound. Under these restrictions the Minister brings the opinion of his colleagues and of Parliament and his own personalinfluence to bear upon the majestic organisation of the Government of India.
Modern conditions increasingly enhance the power of the political chief over all officials, military and civil. If the Secretary of State is possessed of sufficient personal authority to enforce his will upon the Cabinet, no hierarchy, however glittering, no Constitution, however venerable, can withstand him. He has it in his power to change the hierarchy and to remould the Constitution till the implement is convenient to his hand; and his decisions will in almost every case be acclaimed by the party press and ratified by driving a party majority through the division lobbies of the House of Commons. But to employ methods so costly and even ruinous, in their violence, is in itself usually a confession of failure on the part of the Minister. His business is to exert his authority by modes of persuasion, patience, and adjustment which may secure in the end the triumph of his opinions without the sensible abasement of others.
The Council of India is for all such purposes an invaluable instrument to a wise Secretary of State. Having in subordination to him officers as great and independent as the Governor of nearly three hundred million persons and perhaps as intractable as a Commander-in-Chief at the head of nearly three hundred thousand soldiers, he should naturally fortify himself with the unique authority of his Council, now in his dealings with the Cabinet and now with the Viceroy. At the time at which Lord Randolph becameSecretary of State the Council of India consisted of fifteen men, nearly all of whom had spent their lives, whether as soldiers or as civilians, in India; nearly all were old or elderly men, and many of them were men of very high distinction and reputation. In these circumstances it was not an easy task for a Secretary of State thirty-six years of age and absolutely devoid of all official experience, to preside over their meetings and to bring to bear on them the personal influence which, for the proper conduct of business, should be exercised by the responsible head of the office. Lord Randolph himself, after his first experience of a meeting of Council, said to a friend that he had felt ‘like an Eton boy presiding at a meeting of the Masters.’
‘Yet it is probable,’ writes Sir Arthur Godley (who was then, as now, Under-Secretary of State for India) in a memorandum for which I am much indebted to him, ‘that no Secretary of State ever showed greater skill and address in the discharge of this part of his duties. His treatment of it was characteristic and in a degree peculiar to himself. For some time and until he had mastered the methods of procedure and the idiosyncrasies of the individual members, he took no part whatever in the debates, but sat in his Presidential chair absolutely silent. As soon, however, as he began to feel at home, he adopted a method to which he strictly adhered as long as he was at the India Office. Having gone carefully through the list of agenda, he would decide some days beforehand which were the subjects as towhich he desired to use his influence. He would then send for the papers on these subjects and would study them most thoroughly. Then, when the day of meeting arrived, having thus mastered his brief, and possessing the immense advantages of his natural readiness, his powers of speech and his Parliamentary training, he would intervene with decisive effect, and rarely, if ever, failed to carry his point. The other subjects—those which he had deliberately left unstudied—he never touched, relying entirely upon those members of Council who were specially qualified to deal with them. He treated his Council with great consideration and with marked politeness; but he nevertheless spoke always with confidence and decision and occasionally with a touch of vehemence and of "the personal note" which, though natural enough in the House of Commons, came as a slight surprise in the serener regions of the India Council room.’
Railway construction was one of the first subjects which commanded his personal attention. The opinion had been for some time gaining ground in the Railway Department that the necessary development of Indian lines could only be attained if private enterprise were enlisted to supplement the efforts of the State. Bargains between public departments and limited companies are subject to such severe scrutiny in Parliament that hitherto the India Office had not ventured to offer sufficient inducement to attract commercial interests. Lord Randolph Churchill had, however, no fear of the House of Commonsand always believed in his power to persuade them to any reasonable proposal. The construction of the Indian Midland and Bengal-Nagpur Railways had been recommended as famine-protective lines by a select committee which sat in 1884. Under his hand both projects moved forward at once. The stimulus of a four per cent. guarantee on capital, together with one-fourth of the amount by which the net receipts might exceed the guarantee, led to the formation of the Indian Midland Railway Company in July 1885. The railway was 589 miles in length; it connected the Great Indian Peninsula with the East Indian Railway system by continuous broad-gauge lines, opened out a populous and fertile country, and shortened the distance by rail from Bombay to Cawnpore by 134 miles. The Bengal-Nagpur Railway, though, owing to financial considerations, not actually floated till 1887, was eventually founded on the same conditions. The transfer of the Mysore State Railway to the Southern Mahratta Railway Company for extension and working was another important railway scheme arranged while Lord Randolph was in office.
Nothing pleased the officials of the India Office more in their new chief than his total freedom from anything like humbug. On one occasion the Finance Committee were to deal with the question, then so vital to India, between bimetallism on the one hand, and a gold standard on the other. Before going into the committee he said to the Permanent Under-Secretary, who happened to be in his room: ‘I’ve asked Arthur Balfour to come across and sit with us at thisCommittee: he knows all about bimetallism, but I’m as ignorant about these things as a calf.’ Accordingly Mr. Balfour came and a very interesting discussion took place, at the end of which Lord Randolph (though he probably had not greatly exaggerated his own previous ignorance) delivered an admirable summing-up, worthy of an experienced Chancellor of the Exchequer.
‘He was, in fact,’ Sir Arthur Godley continues, ‘an excellent head of a great department. He occupied himself instinctively and naturally with the great questions and kept his work upon a high plane, leaving petty matters to his subordinates, but always maintaining his own ultimate control. He was, as everyone knows, exceedingly able, quick, and clear-sighted. Besides this, he was very industrious, very energetic and decided when once his mind was made up and remarkably skilful in the art of devolution—that is to say, in the art of getting the full amount of help out of his subordinates. He had the gift of knowing at once whether a given question was worth his attention or should be left to others. If he took it up, he made himself completely master of it; if he left it alone, he put entire confidence in those to whom he left it, endorsed their opinions without hesitation, and was always ready to defend them or to further their wishes. This quality, it is needless to say, was invaluable both to himself and to those who worked with him. His perfect candour and straightforwardness were not only admirable in themselves but werea great assistance to business. What he said, he meant; and if he did not know a subject he did not pretend to know it. Few high officials can ever have been his superior, or indeed his equal, in the magical art ofgetting things done.Those who worked under him were sure of a friendly and favourable hearing and they felt that, if they had once convinced him that a certain step ought to be taken, it infallibly would be taken and "put through."’
Lord Randolph enjoyed his official work greatly, and made no secret of it. His tenure of the post was brief but it would be safe to say that there was not a single individual among those who had worked with him who was not sorry to lose him. He, on his side, was extremely sorry to go, and freely said so. Just before Christmas, when it was known that the Government would be turned out as soon as Parliament met, he was talking to one of his Under Secretaries and said: ‘I suppose you are going away for a holiday?’ ‘Yes,’ was the reply; ‘I am going away for a week; what holiday are you going to take?’ ‘I shall take none,’ he said; and then, with the air of one who is making a confession, ‘The fact is, you know, it is all very well for you: but I’m new to office: I enjoy it thoroughly; and I’m going to be kicked out very soon. So I mean to stay here and get as much of it as I can.’
Lord Salisbury in after-years distinguished as perhaps Lord Randolph Churchill’s greatest quality his power of commanding the personal devotion of his subordinates. In coming to the India Office thenew Minister was lucky in finding available as his Private Secretary a remarkable man, who rendered invaluable service to him, to the India Office, and (it is hardly too much to say) to the two Governments of which Lord Randolph was a member. Mr. A. W. Moore had come at an early age to the India Office as a clerk, with no special reputation for industry or ability, and, being placed in the Finance Department, was soon regarded as a somewhat idle and not very efficient member of the establishment. After some years, however, he was by a lucky chance transferred to the Political Department, which is concerned with Indian Foreign Affairs and with the relations between the Government of India and the Native States and conducts the correspondence which is constantly passing between the India Office and the Foreign Office. No more important work could be found; but it requires special qualifications which are not very commonly met with. ‘Mr. Moore,’ writes Sir Arthur Godley, ‘as soon as he was transferred, was a new man: he set to work with extraordinary energy and zeal and in a very short time acquired the reputation, which he never lost, of being among the most valuable servants of the Crown. His industry was immense, possibly excessive; his knowledge of his work, and of everything connected with it, was unrivalled: he had it always at his finger-ends; and his gift of rapid but clear, lucid and effective conversation and writing was hardly to be surpassed. When Lord Randolph came to the Office, it happened fortunately that, owing to somechanges in the Department, Moore’s services were available, though his age and position were by this time such as might have been expected to debar him from the office of Private Secretary. In this capacity he was exactly the man Lord Randolph needed; he supplied whatever was at first wanting to his chief, who treated him not only with the most complete confidence but really more as a colleague than as a subordinate; and it may safely be said that he contributed in no small degree to the success with which Lord Randolph discharged the duties of the two great offices which he successively held.’
Moore followed his chief from the India Office to the Treasury when Lord Salisbury’s Administration of 1886 was formed, and Lord Randolph Churchill’s resignation of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer seems to have struck him a fatal blow. In a sense it may be said to have broken his heart. His health had for some time suffered from the amount of work he imposed upon himself. He was an active, athletic man, a great hero in the annals of the Alpine Club; but he had undoubtedly over-tasked both his mind and his body in the service of a master to whom he was not only personally but politically devoted. Fortunately, as it seemed, an opportunity occurred just then of offering him the headship of his old branch, the Political Department, in the India Office. He accepted it, and went abroad to the Riviera for a few weeks’ rest. But he never recovered from his exhaustion and depression, caught a fever at Cannes and died there two months later(February 2, 1887) at the age of 46. ‘The Home Civil Service,’ writes Sir Arthur Godley, ‘has not, for very many years, sustained a greater loss.’
When Lord Randolph Churchill became Secretary of State for India on June 24, 1885, the imminent danger of war with Russia had been dispelled by the agreement of May 4. Under this it was arranged that Penjdeh should be neutralised till the boundary on that section of the frontier had been settled and that negotiations should be resumed at once in London as to the main points of the line of delimitation, the details of which alone would be examined and settled by Commissioners on the spot. Some progress had also been made towards defining the general line of the frontier by an agreement arrived at on May 22. That agreement, however, left open what was then the crucial question of how to reconcile the full possession by the Afghans of the Zulficar Pass, on which we insisted with the maintenance of the existing communications between points on the Russian side of the frontier which the Russian Government considered essential. This difficulty had declared itself before the change of Government took place and the negotiations on the subject were resumed by Lord Salisbury from the point at which they had been left by Lord Granville.
Little progress was made for some considerable time and the situation again became somewhat critical owing to the local excitement on both sides of the border and recollections of what had taken place at Penjdeh. Finally, however, an agreement wasarrived at and embodied in a Protocol signed on September 10, which stated, in sufficient detail to ensure the completion of the work, the conditions under which the Commissioners on the spot were to carry out the actual demarcation. The agreement was one which, though it necessarily involved mutual concessions, enabled both parties to it to claim that they had made no sacrifice of vital points. From the British point of view the really important objects attained by the settlement were the maintenance of British credit with the Amir, whose interests had been successfully guarded, the escape from what for a long and anxious period had seemed a diplomatic impasse and the establishment of a frontier which has remained unaltered to this day.
The actual demarcation commenced on November 10, when Sir Joseph West Ridgeway met the Russian Commissioner at Zulficar. The work proved long and difficult; and the position of the British Agent, forced to winter with a small escort in that wild country, was full of peril to himself and caused constant anxiety at home. It was not until July 1887 that a Protocol was signed at St. Petersburg completing the delimitation of the whole frontier between the Hari Rud and the Oxus.
Lord Randolph’s letters to the Queen throw a clear light on his views and temper during this critical time. The dignified and ceremonious style which flowed so naturally from his pen may surprise the reader who is familiar with his platform speeches and his private letters.