May 29, 1886.I feel almost certain that if you remain as firm in the future as you have been in the past the Bill will be destroyed now; otherwise it will only be ‘scotched,’ and will wriggle about more venomous and mischievous than before. I think you must be satisfied with your decision to delay your meeting and your speech. I am sure that the greater bulk of your followers will stick to you, and stick to you with all the more admiration and fidelity, if you keep your foot down. Every day is showing more distinctly what madness it is to trust the G.O.M.... It seems to me that if you allow your party to give way, now that they know that the Bill in the autumn will not be a reconstructed Bill, but the same Bill, both you and your party will occupy a position of much humility, and you will have missed at the last moment the prize which was actually in your grasp. If you have any who are very weak about their seats let meknow the names, and I will do my best to secure them from Tory opposition. But I do implore you to stick to your guns.... You won’t mind my troubling you with these lines.
May 29, 1886.
I feel almost certain that if you remain as firm in the future as you have been in the past the Bill will be destroyed now; otherwise it will only be ‘scotched,’ and will wriggle about more venomous and mischievous than before. I think you must be satisfied with your decision to delay your meeting and your speech. I am sure that the greater bulk of your followers will stick to you, and stick to you with all the more admiration and fidelity, if you keep your foot down. Every day is showing more distinctly what madness it is to trust the G.O.M.... It seems to me that if you allow your party to give way, now that they know that the Bill in the autumn will not be a reconstructed Bill, but the same Bill, both you and your party will occupy a position of much humility, and you will have missed at the last moment the prize which was actually in your grasp. If you have any who are very weak about their seats let meknow the names, and I will do my best to secure them from Tory opposition. But I do implore you to stick to your guns.... You won’t mind my troubling you with these lines.
All went well at the meeting. A letter from Mr. Bright is said to have turned the scale. Fifty-five gentlemen attended, and their resolve to vote against the Second Reading doomed the Bill. Radical Associations might assert their loyalty and support; democratic enthusiasm might rise to fever-heat in the country; but, so far as Parliament was concerned, the issue was settled. After this eventful interlude there was little left but to go to a division, and at the end of the next sitting Sir Michael Hicks-Beach announced that the Front Opposition Bench would take no more part in the debate. Yet the discussion was prolonged throughout another week, in the hopes that wavering rebels might return; and to that end every influence which the Government could employ, from the personal power and charm of the Minister to the discontent of local organisations, was sedulously employed.
At last the day of decision came. An anxious crowd hung about the precincts of Westminster. The House was packed in every part. A final sensation remained. Mr. Parnell had waited till the end of the debate and he had something in reserve which might well have shaken opinion. ‘When the Tories were in office,’ he said, in the course of one of his ablest speeches, ‘we had reason to know that the Conservative party, if they should be successful atthe polls, would have offered Ireland a statutory legislature with a right to protect her own industries, and that this would have been coupled with the settlement of the Irish Land Question on the basis of purchase, on a larger scale than that now proposed by the Prime Minister.’
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, when his turn came to conclude the debate on behalf of the Conservatives, met this statement with the bluntest of denials. ‘I must for myself and my colleagues,’ he said, ‘state in the plainest and most distinct terms that I utterly and categorically deny that the late Conservative Government ever had any such intention.’ Parnell’s answer was staggering. ‘Does the right honourable gentleman mean to deny that that intention was communicated to me by one of his own colleagues—a Minister of the Crown?’ ‘Yes, sir, I do,’ said the Leader of the Opposition at once; and then he added prudently, ‘to the best of my knowledge and belief; and if any such statement was communicated by anyone to the honourable member, I am certain he had not the authority to make it.’ ‘Name! name!’ cried the members imperiously in their excitement. ‘Will the honourable member,’ said Sir Michael, ‘do us the pleasure to give the name to the House?’ ‘I shall be very glad,’ replied Parnell, amid renewed cries of ‘Name!’ from all sides, ‘to communicate the name of that colleague when I receive that colleague’s permission to do so.’ Every eye was turned upon Lord Randolph Churchill, sitting on the Front OppositionBench. But he remained gravely silent, twisting his moustache moodily. Not until Lord Carnarvon’s explanations two days later in the House of Lords was he relieved from a suspicion so injurious to his character.
This was the end; and after it Mr. Gladstone brought this great debate to a close in a manner worthy of its memorable importance and surpassing all the fire and eloquence which had illumined its progress.
‘I do not deny,’ he said, ‘that many are against us whom we should have expected to be for us. I do not deny that some whom we see against us have caused us by their conscientious action the bitterest disappointment. But you have power, you have wealth, you have rank, you have station, you have organisation, you have the place of power. What have we? We think that we have the people’s heart; we believe and we know we have the promise of the harvest of the future. As to the people’s heart, you may dispute it, and dispute it with perfect sincerity. Let that matter make its own proof. As to the harvest of the future, I doubt if you have so much confidence, and I believe that there is in the breast of many a man who means to vote against us to-night a profound misgiving, approaching even to a deep conviction, that the end will be as we foresee, and not as you—that the ebbing tide is with you, and the flowing tide is with us. Ireland stands at your bar, expectant, hopeful, almost suppliant. Her words are the words of truth and soberness. She asks ablessed oblivion of the past, and in that oblivion our interest is deeper than even hers. My right hon. friend Mr. Goschen asks us to-night to abide by the traditions of which we are the heirs. What traditions? By the Irish tradition? Go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find, if you can, a single voice, a single book—find, I would almost say, as much as a single newspaper article, unless the product of the day, in which the conduct of England towards Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter condemnation. Are these the traditions by which we are exhorted to stand? No, they are a sad exception to the glory of our country. They are a broad and black blot upon the pages of its history, and what we want to do is to stand by the traditions in which we are the heirs in all matters except our relations to Ireland, and to make our relations to Ireland conform to the other traditions of our country. So I hail the demand of Ireland for what I call a blessed oblivion of the past. She asks also a boon for the future; and that boon for the future, unless we are much mistaken, will be a boon to us in respect of honour no less than a boon to her in respect of happiness, prosperity and peace. Such, sir, is her prayer. Think, I beseech you—think well, think wisely, think not for a moment but for the years that are to come, before you reject this Bill.’
The House proceeded immediately to the division. A Whig and a Radical were named jointly tellers for the ‘Noes.’ The whole Conservative party with two exceptions—one because of divergence and the otherthrough serious illness—passed into the Lobby. Yet such had been the strain of the conflict, so many the uncertainties, so powerful this last supreme appeal, that—pledges, agreements, careful calculations notwithstanding—the issue seemed to hang in the balance; and Lord Randolph Churchill, staring at the crowd as they shuffled by, thought them so shrunken that he loudly exclaimed: ‘There are not three hundred men with us.’ So great, indeed, was the excitement and apprehension that after they had quitted the Lobby scores of Unionist members, instead of going to their seats in the Chamber, remained massed about the doorway, eagerly counting with the tellers; and when the three hundred and thirty-sixth man was told, and it was certain that the Bill was rejected, such a shout went up as Parliament has seldom heard. The Government was defeated by 341 votes to 311.
Like Sir Robert Peel forty years before, Mr. Gladstone must now face the spectacle, melancholy even to an opponent, of the break-up of a great party. Few were left to him of all that able band who in such good heart had joined his Government of 1880. Bright had parted from him; Forster was dead; Hartington and Goschen and James were gone; Chamberlain was a bitter and formidable foe. The Liberal party was shattered. The Whigs had marched away in a body. The Radicals were torn in twain. The Parliament so lately returned in his support had destroyed itself, almost before it had lived, rather than follow him further. His friends estranged, hisenemies united, the faithful in jeopardy, the deserters confident; the wealth, the rank, the intellect of England embattled and arrayed against him; the Bill on which he had set his heart cast out by the House of Commons; what wonder, then, that this proud old man, feeling that the years were drawing to a close, yet remembering his triumphs and conscious of his power, should reach out for the sledge-hammer of democracy, and fiercely welcome the appeal to the people!
Parliament was dissolved on the twenty-seventh of June.
‘Solos imperantium Vespasianus mutatus in melius.’—Tacitus.‘It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit whom honour amends.’—Bacon.
‘Solos imperantium Vespasianus mutatus in melius.’—Tacitus.
‘It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit whom honour amends.’—Bacon.
THEGeneral Election of 1886 surpassed, in the importance of the issue, in the confusion of parties and the sincerity of the combatants, any election since the first Reform Bill. Partisanship had grown rancorous during the eventful course of the controversy; rancour was fanned into passion by the excitement of decision; and to all was added the extra and unusual bitterness of a party split. The Liberal dissentients were brought at once to the uttermost wrench. Everywhere their own organisations turned against them. Everywhere they struck back with all their force. Everywhere they and the bold minority who stood by them, looked for the aid of their former opponents. The Conservative leaders, on their part, grudged nothing and neglected nothing that could contribute to the strength of the seceders. To every member who voted against the Bill they had promised whole-hearted support; and such was their authorityand the discipline of their followers that in nearly every case the local associations obeyed them. Tory candidates withdrew patriotically in favour of their late antagonists. Others were frowned and hustled from the field. Old comradeships and old prejudices faded together. Life-long friends drummed each other out of political clubs. Life-long opponents fought side by side. Home Rule was the one and vital test. The whole force of the machinery of the Liberal party—national and local—was used uncompromisingly. No Liberal-Unionist who could be attacked with any prospect of success, was spared. The purge was complete.
The Home Rulers entered upon the struggle in good hopes. They were assured of the obedience of the organisations. They saw the intense enthusiasm—‘never before equalled’—of the Liberal and Radical masses. They counted vastly upon the Irish vote in the English boroughs; and, above all, they trusted in Mr. Gladstone’s mighty personality. But the forces against them were tremendous. The statesman who would effect a revolution in Great Britain must not only persuade a party, he must convince the nation; and opposed to Mr. Gladstone were almost all the men whose names were widely known or had been long respected—John Bright, by himself a tower; Salisbury and Hartington; Beach and James and Goschen; Chamberlain and Churchill! All the protagonists of former conflicts were formed in one line of battle.
Lord Salisbury in the closing years of his life once said that Mr. Gladstone in struggling for HomeRule, ‘awakened the slumbering genius of Imperialism.’ Beneath the threshold of domestic politics during the long years of Liberal prosperity the modern conception of Britain as a world-power, the heart of an Empire, the inheritor and guardian of a thousand years of sacrifice and valour, had lived and grown. It had been cherished by the somewhat tardy recognition of Lord Beaconsfield. It had been violently stimulated by the disastrous events of the Parliament of 1880. Although Lord Randolph Churchill was never what is nowadays called an Imperialist and always looked at home rather than abroad, his followers in the Tory Democracy were already alive with the new idea. A single touch sufficed to rouse it into a vital and dominant activity which for nearly twenty years has shaped the course of British history, and in spite of extravagances, puerilities and even turpitudes, has left a permanent imprint upon the national mind. It was this rising temper of opinion that Mr. Gladstone’s Irish policy, embodied in his own majestic personality, seemed now to challenge directly.
The personal element was the keynote of Lord Randolph Churchill’s address. That surprising document was made public on June 20, and as a specimen of savage political invective is not likely soon to be excelled.[53]It will no doubt be severely judged, now that nothing remains except the ashes of the great blaze of 1886. At the time many eminently respectable people who stood some distancefrom the actual fighting, as eminently respectable people are apt to do, were horribly shocked. Even Mr. Chamberlain was startled. ‘Your manifesto,’ he wrote, ‘was "rather strong"; but I suppose the Tories like it.’ But if the Tory candidates blushed when they read it in the morning paper, they did not forget to quote it at the evening meeting. Its jingles and its arguments—for it abounds equally in argument and in abuse—ran like wildfire along the skirmish lines. The working man laughed over them in his home and disputed with his mate upon them in the workshop. People remembered epithets who could remember nothing else, and uttered taunts when other ammunition failed. One phrase at least, ‘An old man in a hurry,’ has become historic. If the address was vulgar, it was also popular. If it was reprobated, it was also used. The anger of that time has cooled, and its expression is worth preserving, though it may now provoke nothing worse than a smile.
Lord Randolph spoke only twice during the election, for the exertions of the Session forced him to seek a rest. He visited Manchester on June 28 and, although he had been there often in the last three years, so great were the crowds that the traffic of the city was completely suspended while he made a triumphal progress through the streets. Two days later he addressed his own constituents in Paddington. His most important work, however, in the 1886 election lay in Birmingham, where only six months before he had led the Conservative attackagainst Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain. The Tory party in that city, by tremendous efforts, then first asserted itself as a political force; and, although beaten in every division, their minorities were well organised and enthusiastic and amounted in the aggregate to more than 20,000 voters. They did not easily forget that for years and years they had been kept by the Caucus and by the genius of Mr. Schnadhorst in a condition of political subjection. They had almost triumphed in 1885. The turn of events now threw their arch-enemies absolutely into their hands, and there were not wanting among their leaders those to whom the divided state of the Radical party offered the strongest temptations. It was fortunate for the Unionist cause that there was at hand an influence to which the whole Conservative party in Birmingham would readily respond.
Disagreeable speeches made by local politicians filled Mr. Chamberlain with anxiety, and the difficulty and isolation of his own position inclined him at first to take a gloomy view. Lord Randolph hurried down to Birmingham on June 19, and by his influence and that of Mr. Rowlands, the leader of the Conservative party in Birmingham, all difficulties were smoothed away. ‘I have seen the Birmingham Tories to-day,’ he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain (June 19). ‘Henry Matthews has consented, after much pressing, to stand against Cook. We shall run no other candidate and shall give all our support to the Liberal-Unionists, asking for no return and making no boast or taunt.’ This letter he signed ‘Yoursever’—an unusual subscription with him. Again the same day: ‘I will engage that all your Unionist candidates shall have the full support of our party. I have telegraphed to Rowlands to see me on Monday. Schnadhorst’s only chance is that you should seem to be afraid of him. Why does not Mr. Bright intervene? I am looking forward most anxiously to the account of your meeting and speech to-night. I think there is a great deal of froth about the Gladstone proceedings, and all my information up to now makes me confident that the voting will be heavy against him. Don’t get down-hearted.’
‘Thanks to your intervention,’ replied Mr. Chamberlain (June 20), ‘matters look better here. The meeting last night was a tremendous success. Only fifty or one hundred dissentients out of 4,000, all electors marked off on register. This meeting will, I hope, have a great effect in other divisions, and I think we shall get Collings chosen in Bordesley. If so, we ought to carry seven Unionists for Birmingham....’
‘I was greatly relieved,’ replied Lord Randolph (June 21), ‘to see by your letter this morning that you were in better spirits. Your meeting was indeed a tremendous success, and your speech, as usual, most excellent. I hope my address has not given you a fit. I have only said what you and Hartington are longing to say, but dare not.... My own opinion is that we shall roll the old man over.’
So in the end it proved. The elections began on July 1, and from the very first the results weredisastrous to the Liberal party. The enthusiasm of the Liberal and Radical masses and the obedience of the organisations were unavailing. They sufficed only to drive from the Liberal ranks into irreconcilable opposition every man who would not accept the Irish policy. They were unable to secure a majority for Home Rule. They wrought havoc, but failed to achieve victory. The bulk of both parties voted in the ordinary way, according to their colours and their watchwords; but in every constituency men who had hitherto fought for the Liberal cause fought fiercely against it. The margin in many seats was so narrow that the resolute resistance of individuals and their adherents turned the scale. The dissentient Liberals with their personal following, supported by the whole Conservative vote, proved the most secure of any class of candidates. Of ninety-four who had voted on June 8, sixty-three were returned to the House of Commons. It had been asserted, and to some extent believed, that the Irish vote would turn the balance in forty constituencies. It was, however, discovered that the entire Irish vote in Great Britain could scarcely exceed 40,000 persons, of whom three-fourths were resident in London, Liverpool and Glasgow, while the remainder were too scattered to be effective. The great city of Birmingham returned a solid body of Unionists in the place of an equal number of Liberals elected in 1885. London became overwhelmingly Tory. The English and Welsh boroughs, which in the previous autumn had returned 118 Conservativesand 118 Liberals, now returned 169 Unionists and only 67 Liberals. The counties were not less remarkable. The 1885 election had returned 152 Liberals and 101 Conservatives; six months later the results showed 81 Liberals and 172 Unionists. Even in Scotland, Mr. Gladstone’s stronghold, his immediate followers fell from 61 to 43. The British Gladstonians (191), with the Nationalists (85), were in a minority of 40 as compared with the Conservatives (316), without counting on either side the 78 dissentient Liberals who followed Lord Hartington or Mr. Chamberlain. The opponents of the Irish policy numbered 394, as against 276 in its favour, and the Unionist majority was therefore 118. Face to face with this decision, which in such a short space of time had altered—and altered, as it proved, for more than a generation—the whole complexion of the English constituencies, Mr. Gladstone did not linger. A Cabinet Council assembled on July 20 and formally decided to resign. The resignations of Ministers were accepted the next day, and Lord Salisbury was for the second time summoned by the Queen.
Lord Randolph, who was himself returned for Paddington by a majority of more than three to one,[54]did not wait for the results of the elections. While politicians crowded around the tape machines in the London clubs or harangued excited meetings in the country, he fled silently and swiftly abroad,and by a Norwegian river awaited the result without impatience or anxiety. To his wife he wrote:—
Torresdal: July 10, 1886.It is certainly a tremendous journey up here. We arrived last Wednesday, at about eleven o’clock at night, after a very long drive, in carrioles, of seventy miles. We calculate we are about 1,500 miles from Connaught Place. I caught three fish on Thursday—12 lbs., 12 lbs., and 15 lbs.—and lost three; yesterday I killed three—20 lbs., 18 lbs., 20 lbs.—and lost one. The weather has been rainy and raw, but on the other hand we have no flies; I believe, if it is hot, the flies here are terrible. I have heard no election news since Tuesday, when things seemed to be going well. This is doing me a lot of good. I felt very seedy leaving London, and it took me some days to get right.... This is a most delightful spot, and very solitary; no tourists, no natives. The house, which is rough to look at, is comfortable enough inside, and Tommy is as amiable and charming as ever. On Saturday, by law, you may not fish after six in the evening till six on Sunday evening. It certainly is very curious having broad daylight at midnight. Fishing after dinner is very pleasant if the night is fine, and I am very glad to have seen this part of the world.... Post has just come in with telegrams from Moore and Rothschild. Certainly most satisfactory news, which confirms all my expectations.... I believe my address did no end of good, but, of course, no one in London will agree. I expect the Tories will now come in, and remain in some time. It seems to me we want the 5,000l.a year badly. But really we must retrench. I cannot understand how we get through so much money....
Torresdal: July 10, 1886.
It is certainly a tremendous journey up here. We arrived last Wednesday, at about eleven o’clock at night, after a very long drive, in carrioles, of seventy miles. We calculate we are about 1,500 miles from Connaught Place. I caught three fish on Thursday—12 lbs., 12 lbs., and 15 lbs.—and lost three; yesterday I killed three—20 lbs., 18 lbs., 20 lbs.—and lost one. The weather has been rainy and raw, but on the other hand we have no flies; I believe, if it is hot, the flies here are terrible. I have heard no election news since Tuesday, when things seemed to be going well. This is doing me a lot of good. I felt very seedy leaving London, and it took me some days to get right.... This is a most delightful spot, and very solitary; no tourists, no natives. The house, which is rough to look at, is comfortable enough inside, and Tommy is as amiable and charming as ever. On Saturday, by law, you may not fish after six in the evening till six on Sunday evening. It certainly is very curious having broad daylight at midnight. Fishing after dinner is very pleasant if the night is fine, and I am very glad to have seen this part of the world.... Post has just come in with telegrams from Moore and Rothschild. Certainly most satisfactory news, which confirms all my expectations.... I believe my address did no end of good, but, of course, no one in London will agree. I expect the Tories will now come in, and remain in some time. It seems to me we want the 5,000l.a year badly. But really we must retrench. I cannot understand how we get through so much money....
From Norwegian delights he was soon recalled to the business of Cabinet-making.
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord JusticeFitzGibbon.Very private.2 Connaught Place, W.: July 25, 1886.It was very pleasant to me to find on my return yesterday morning your very interesting letter. I showed it to Smith and Beach, who were much impressed. Things at the present moment are chaotic, and will not commence to resolve themselves into order until Lord S. returns from Osborne to-morrow.Hartington and Co. definitely decline to join us, but will be the most efficient buttress. They mean to have their own Whips and their own organisation and probably will sit below the gangway on the Ministerial side of the House. If we play our cards well, we ought to remain in office for a long time. I am much in favour myself of the immediate resumption of the policy of January 26, and going on at once with the remaining business of the Session, instead of waiting till October. It will be a big fence to clear, but the horse is fresh; and, once cleared, the government of Ireland would be much simplified.I fear the ‘periplus’ is very doubtful this year, and might have to be undertaken under the auspices of the R. I. Constabulary assisted by Scotland Yard. Possibly Londonderry will become Lord-Lieutenant. All this, besides being very doubtful, is quite secret.
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord JusticeFitzGibbon.
Very private.
2 Connaught Place, W.: July 25, 1886.
It was very pleasant to me to find on my return yesterday morning your very interesting letter. I showed it to Smith and Beach, who were much impressed. Things at the present moment are chaotic, and will not commence to resolve themselves into order until Lord S. returns from Osborne to-morrow.
Hartington and Co. definitely decline to join us, but will be the most efficient buttress. They mean to have their own Whips and their own organisation and probably will sit below the gangway on the Ministerial side of the House. If we play our cards well, we ought to remain in office for a long time. I am much in favour myself of the immediate resumption of the policy of January 26, and going on at once with the remaining business of the Session, instead of waiting till October. It will be a big fence to clear, but the horse is fresh; and, once cleared, the government of Ireland would be much simplified.
I fear the ‘periplus’ is very doubtful this year, and might have to be undertaken under the auspices of the R. I. Constabulary assisted by Scotland Yard. Possibly Londonderry will become Lord-Lieutenant. All this, besides being very doubtful, is quite secret.
Lord Salisbury accepted the commission from the Queen in 1886, with leave to resign it, if necessary, to Lord Hartington. Forthwith he strongly pressed the leader of the Whigs to form a Government and assured him, if he did so, of Conservative support. Lord Hartington knew that any Government he could form would be practically Conservative in itscomposition, and must be called by that name. He believed that in these circumstances the Liberal Unionist party would dissolve, Mr. Chamberlain and the Radical section splitting off and probably rejoining the Liberals. He therefore declined; but the fact that the offer had been fairly made placed him in much closer relation with Lord Salisbury, and seemed to secure for a Conservative Administration definite assurances of Whig and Liberal Unionist support. Lord Salisbury, having explained these proceedings to the satisfaction of a meeting of his party at the Carlton Club, then proceeded to form a regular Conservative Ministry. As is usual on these occasions, every rumour found its believers and every conceivable appointment had its advocates. Lord Randolph was variously named for the Indian, the Irish and the Foreign Secretaryships. It was also spitefully suggested in many newspapers that an intrigue in his interests was on foot to eject Sir Michael Hicks-Beach from the Leadership of the House of Commons.
After the meeting at the Carlton Lord Salisbury sent for Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Lord Randolph Churchill. ‘I declined,’ wrote Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in after years, ‘to continue Leader of the House of Commons. I felt that Lord Randolph Churchill was superior in eloquence, ability and influence to myself; that the position of Leader in name, but not in fact, would be intolerable; and that it was better for the party and the country that the Leader in fact should be Leader also in name. LordSalisbury very strongly pressed me to remain, saying that character was of most importance, and quoting Lord Althorp as an instance; but I insisted. I had very great difficulty in persuading Lord Randolph to agree. I spent more than half an hour with him in the Committee Room of the Carlton before I could persuade him, and I was much struck by the hesitation he showed on account of what he said was his youth and inexperience in taking the position. He insisted on my going to Ireland, pointing out that I could only honourably give up the Leadership by taking what was at the moment the most difficult position in the Government.’ The matter was arranged accordingly, and Lord Randolph became in addition Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Leadership of the House of Commons having been settled, other appointments proceeded rapidly. Lord Randolph secured the appointment of Mr. Henry Matthews to the Home Office. Mr. Raikes took the Post Office ‘with a growl.’ Mr. Chaplin indignantly declined the Presidency of the Local Government Board[55]because the offer was unaccompanied by a seat in the Cabinet; and Lord Salisbury, having consulted with Lord Randolph, appointed Mr. Ritchie to that office. Mr. Chaplin received from the Chancellor of the Exchequer a fatherly letter of remonstrance, written more in sorrow than in anger, which he may have read over with satisfaction by the light of subsequent events. One letter onthese delicate matters may, perhaps, be printed without impropriety:—
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury.2 Connaught Place, W.: July 30, 1886.Dear Lord Salisbury,—Your letter received this morning contains so much good news that I am encouraged to press you very earnestly to consider—if possible, favourably—the arrangement of Stanhope for India, Holland for the Colonies, with Gorst as Education Minister. I feel certain that this arrangement would be agreeable to all your colleagues and encouraging to the party, while to the general public it gives an appearance of symmetry to the Government which the appointment of —— would hopelessly disfigure....I do not press Gorst for Education, because, if Stanley takes the Board of Trade, you may want to put Ritchie or Forwood at the Education Office; but I feel certain you would be pleased with the effect of Holland and Stanhope in the two high offices. In case you should wish to see me, I shall be in town until four o’clock this afternoon.Yours most sincerely,Randolph S. Churchill.
Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury.
2 Connaught Place, W.: July 30, 1886.
Dear Lord Salisbury,—Your letter received this morning contains so much good news that I am encouraged to press you very earnestly to consider—if possible, favourably—the arrangement of Stanhope for India, Holland for the Colonies, with Gorst as Education Minister. I feel certain that this arrangement would be agreeable to all your colleagues and encouraging to the party, while to the general public it gives an appearance of symmetry to the Government which the appointment of —— would hopelessly disfigure....
I do not press Gorst for Education, because, if Stanley takes the Board of Trade, you may want to put Ritchie or Forwood at the Education Office; but I feel certain you would be pleased with the effect of Holland and Stanhope in the two high offices. In case you should wish to see me, I shall be in town until four o’clock this afternoon.
Yours most sincerely,Randolph S. Churchill.
Lord Randolph Churchill accepted the responsibilities of his high offices without elation. ‘How long will your leadership last?’ asked a Liberal friend. ‘Six months,’ replied Lord Randolph gaily. ‘And after that?’ ‘Westminster Abbey!’ He had neither the time nor the inclination to dwell upon the many twists of fortune that had served him or the dangers and obstacles he had escaped. If he had cherished the ambition of leading a great party, he had not scrambled for place. He had driven Sir Stafford Northcote from the House of Commons, but he had not counted upon being his successor. Hewould have been perfectly content to serve under Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. He had fought fiercely and ruthlessly for his opinions and to have things settled as he thought they should be settled; but not consciously for his own interests. These had followed in the track of the fighting. His advancement had been the result, and not the reason, of his exertions. Real leaders of men do not come forward offering to lead. They show the way, and when it has been found to lead to victory they accept as a matter of course the allegiance of those who have followed. His personal ascendency was not the result of calculations. It was natural; and it was everywhere recognised, even by those who disliked and distrusted him—and that was a numerous band—as a fact ascertained and indisputable. It could not have been created by any process of scheming. Indeed, as this account has witnessed, he had more than once offered to stand aside to promote a coalition which must have excluded him for years from any chance of leading the House of Commons. He had lingered at his salmon-fishing, after the election was determined, in the expectation of a coalition and anxious not to disturb it.
It is easy to deal with men whose motive is self-interest. Others can cypher out the chances, too. The influence which Lord Randolph Churchill exerted upon the men with whom he came in closest contact, upon Lord Salisbury and upon Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, could never have been acquired by a self-seeker, however brilliantly endowed. Aveil of the incalculable shrouded the workings of his complex nature. No one could tell what he would do, or by what motive, lofty or trivial, of conviction or caprice, of irritation or self-sacrifice, he would be governed; and in these good days of fortune the double fascination of mystery and success lent him an air of authority which neither irreverent language nor the impulsive frankness of youth could dispel. He became Leader of the House of Commons, not because he had schemed for it, nor because it was his right in lawful succession, not assuredly because the Conservatives loved him or felt they would be safe in his hands. Hewasthe leader at that moment—natural, inevitable and, as it seemed, indispensable.
Yet the world, when confronted with the result, was astonished. No appointment—not all the appointments together—created such a stir of interest and dispute. Not only at home, but in Europe and in the United States, it was universally the subject of anxious or sympathetic comment. In the House of Commons, where men eye each other so narrowly and where capacity can be judged so exactly, the fact was accepted without demur. It was right, it seemed, that the prizes of that assembly should go to those who were in fact its leading spirits. The part he had played in the decision of the Home Rule battle had been unsurpassed in importance. He had never wavered. He had named the Unionist Party. He had been a principal agent in the electoral compact on which it was based. He was the link withChamberlain. His authority had roused Belfast and soothed Birmingham. His dexterous energy had foiled Mr. Gladstone’s last attempt at compromise. Much, though not all, of this was understood by politicians.
To the Tory Democracy no news could be so good as his success. The English like to be governed by men they know. The working-class electors, who had voted at two rapidly succeeding elections against Mr. Gladstone, saw in Lord Randolph Churchill their favourite and champion. They recalled the disasters and depression of their party in the past and the political convulsion from which it had at length emerged. They saw it triumphant where it had lately been despised. They saw it united where it had lately been distracted; and, with what measure of reason the reader can judge, they attributed this revolution to Lord Randolph Churchill more than to any other man.
But other classes have to be considered in Great Britain besides politicians and working men. All sorts of persons of influence and station in their different spheres had been offended by the very process which had attracted the democracy. ‘An insular people,’ wrote Disraeli in ‘Endymion,’ ‘subject to fogs and possessing a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen.’ And there were many who saw in Lord Randolph only an audacious fellow, whose methods were shocking to serious folk, whose violence impaired the dignity of public life and whose headlong career seemed strewn with the wreckage ofoverturned authority. How, they asked, was such an impatient person to endure the vexations of a Parliamentary session? How could a young man of thirty-six possess or obtain the knowledge necessary to deal with the varieties of complicated questions upon which a Leader is required to pronounce? How was this spirit of strife and revolt to reconcile differences between colleagues and exact discipline from a party? How was the flagrant obstructionist of 1884 to direct the course of business in 1886? How was the writer of the letter to Lord Granville and the erstwhile leader of the Fourth Party to maintain the dignity and principles of Unionist and Imperial administration? To all these questionings an answer was found even in the very short time that remained.
Much was also said of his going to the Treasury. It is amusing to read, by the light of after days, the lectures, kindly yet severe, in which the Times sought to warn him against fiscal temptations. ‘A Budget on ordinary lines, framed with the aid and advice of experienced permanent officials,’ would alone avoid ‘injurious innovations’ and ‘the raising of disquieting problems.’ He was adjured to remember how utterly fatal to the Unionist alliance any departure from ‘sound principles of finance, understood and acted upon by successive Administrations, Conservative as well as Liberal,’ would inevitably prove. For the sake of the Liberal-Unionists, for the sake, at least, of Mr. Chamberlain, he must forbear. Other newspapers reminded him of hisdeclarations in favour of economy. ‘The first and most vital interest of the nation,’ he had said, ‘is finance. Upon finance everything connected with government hinges. Good finance ensures good government and national prosperity; bad finance is the cause of inefficient government and national depression.’ And, again: ‘I should like to see the House of Commons devote one or even two entire sessions to nothing but finance. I should like to turn the House of Commons loose into our public departments on a voyage of discovery. I should like to see every one of our public departments rigorously inquired into by small Committees of about seven experienced and practical members of Parliament each.... I firmly believe that such an inquiry would demonstrate that those useful arrangements of economy of time, economy of labour and economy of money are absolutely unknown in our public departments.’ How would all these fine opinions fare now that he was himself the Minister responsible? And the Liberal papers did not delay to prophesy ‘his certain repudiation in office of every principle of economy and of that policy of inquiry which he had so eloquently professed in Opposition.’ And that, again, was a matter which time would soon resolve.
One shrewd warning came from a friend. ‘Can Goschen by any means whatever,’ wrote Lord Justice FitzGibbon on July 27, ‘be induced to take the Exchequer? I suppose you think me uncomplimentary in such a suggestion. I am not. Age andfinancial experience have immense weight in that post out-of-doors, and I confess I fear that you would bring down upon yourself a weight of hostility from the front, and would have a dead weight of jealousy from behind and beside you, that might make the place unbearable to yourself or so laborious that you could not stand it. Of course, if "the lead" must not be separated from the Exchequer, it can’t be helped; but if I were you I would rather not be obliged to carry as Leader the financial reputation of the State in addition to the rest of the load. The English are your sheet-anchor, and finance is their pole-star; and a middle-aged commercial Chancellor would make them easy in their minds, when you could not.’ Of this more anon.
The re-election of Mr. Matthews on his appointment to the Home Office caused various embarrassments in East Birmingham and elsewhere. His opponent, Mr. Alderman Cook, who had been defeated as a Gladstonian Liberal at the General Election, now promised to oppose anything like the Land Bill of the late Government, to insist upon the retention of the Irish members at Westminster and to grant to Ireland only a Parliament subordinate to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Mr. Chamberlain was thus placed in a position of extreme difficulty, for it was clear that without his support the Home Secretary would probably be defeated; and yet how could Mr. Chamberlain oppose the Radical candidate who had almost exactly adopted his platform? Lord Randolph Churchill, however, put thegreatest possible pressure upon him. ‘The election of Matthews,’ he wrote (August 7), ‘is almostvitalto me; and I feel sure, if other things are equal, you will stretch a point in my favour.’ And again on the 9th: ‘This much arises clear and plain out of all that is doubtful and dark in Birmingham politics. If Matthews wins, the credit goes to you; it is your victory. If he loses, it is Schnadhorst’s victory, and a pretty hulla-balloo he will make.’ Thus exhorted Mr. Chamberlain took a very definite and decided step forward. The Radical Unionists refused at his instance to support Mr. Cook, and the Home Secretary was ultimately returned unopposed. ‘I am delighted,’ wrote Lord Randolph (August 12). ‘I expect the Midland Conservative Club will put up a statue to you, which I shall have to unveil.’
Mr. Matthews’ appointment caused heart-burnings in another quarter.
The Secretary of the Scottish Protestant Alliance wrote in haste to Lord Randolph Churchill:—
I have the honour to inform you that at a meeting in Glasgow yesterday of the directors of the Scottish Protestant Alliance the recent appointment of a Roman Catholic to the Cabinet office of Home Secretary was considered, when the following resolution was unanimously adopted: ‘That as the Papacy claims universal supremacy over all Sovereigns and their subjects, as Roman Catholics can no longer render an undivided allegiance to Protestant Princes, and as the avowed aim of the Papacy is to reduce Britain to the subjection of the Vatican, this meeting protests against the elevation of Roman Catholics to positions of power and trust in the British Empire.’
I have the honour to inform you that at a meeting in Glasgow yesterday of the directors of the Scottish Protestant Alliance the recent appointment of a Roman Catholic to the Cabinet office of Home Secretary was considered, when the following resolution was unanimously adopted: ‘That as the Papacy claims universal supremacy over all Sovereigns and their subjects, as Roman Catholics can no longer render an undivided allegiance to Protestant Princes, and as the avowed aim of the Papacy is to reduce Britain to the subjection of the Vatican, this meeting protests against the elevation of Roman Catholics to positions of power and trust in the British Empire.’
The Chancellor of the Exchequer sent an answer without undue delay:—
Treasury Chambers, Whitehall: September 9.Sir,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing a copy of a resolution passed by the directors of the Scottish Protestant Alliance, and, in reply, to remark that I observe with astonishment and regret that, in this age of enlightenment and general toleration, persons professing to be educated and intelligent can arrive at conclusions so senseless and irrational as those which are set forth in the aforesaid resolution.I am, Sir,Yours faithfully,Randolph S. Churchill.
Treasury Chambers, Whitehall: September 9.
Sir,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing a copy of a resolution passed by the directors of the Scottish Protestant Alliance, and, in reply, to remark that I observe with astonishment and regret that, in this age of enlightenment and general toleration, persons professing to be educated and intelligent can arrive at conclusions so senseless and irrational as those which are set forth in the aforesaid resolution.
I am, Sir,Yours faithfully,Randolph S. Churchill.
Of the two courses which lay open—to reassemble in October for an autumn session or to sit through August and obtain enough money at once to last till February—the Cabinet selected the second. In the interval necessitated by the re-election of Ministers the policy to be submitted to Parliament was settled.
Lord Salisbury to Lord Randolph Churchill.Confidential.10 Downing Street, Whitehall: August 20, 1886.My dear Randolph,—It has occurred to me, thinking over the list of measures of private members you read to me this morning, that if we have to make up our Cabinet mind over all of them we shall have a great deal of trouble and possibly some friction. A difficulty arises specially in the case of the Peers. With these small measures the Peers can practically do what they like. But what they like may very often be inconvenient for the Cabinet to profess and act upon in the House of Commons. It may often happen that some of the followers, or even of the members, of the Government in the Commons could not, without offending their constituents, take the line which the Conservative Peerswould naturally take, and which they will not be withheld from taking without a great deal of discontent. I want you to think whether the followingmodus vivendimight not be possible. Our position as a Ministry is very peculiar. We have not a majority except on certain vital questions. Might we not fairly say that we will only be responsible for the guidance of Parliament on the questions which we ourselves submit to it? All questions submitted by independent members, unless they affect our Executive action or the measures we have proposed, we shall treat as open questions, taking no collective responsibility for the decision of Parliament upon them. This is in the sense of Chamberlain’s recommendation that we should havenovital questions. We cannot go quite as far as that, but it is sound advice up to a certain point. Open questions were much more common when I entered Parliament than they are now; but as we are entering again upon the period of precarious majorities the system will have to be resumed. Pray think of this. I see great difficulties if we have to decide, as a Government, on all the fads.Yours very truly,Salisbury.
Lord Salisbury to Lord Randolph Churchill.
Confidential.
10 Downing Street, Whitehall: August 20, 1886.
My dear Randolph,—It has occurred to me, thinking over the list of measures of private members you read to me this morning, that if we have to make up our Cabinet mind over all of them we shall have a great deal of trouble and possibly some friction. A difficulty arises specially in the case of the Peers. With these small measures the Peers can practically do what they like. But what they like may very often be inconvenient for the Cabinet to profess and act upon in the House of Commons. It may often happen that some of the followers, or even of the members, of the Government in the Commons could not, without offending their constituents, take the line which the Conservative Peerswould naturally take, and which they will not be withheld from taking without a great deal of discontent. I want you to think whether the followingmodus vivendimight not be possible. Our position as a Ministry is very peculiar. We have not a majority except on certain vital questions. Might we not fairly say that we will only be responsible for the guidance of Parliament on the questions which we ourselves submit to it? All questions submitted by independent members, unless they affect our Executive action or the measures we have proposed, we shall treat as open questions, taking no collective responsibility for the decision of Parliament upon them. This is in the sense of Chamberlain’s recommendation that we should havenovital questions. We cannot go quite as far as that, but it is sound advice up to a certain point. Open questions were much more common when I entered Parliament than they are now; but as we are entering again upon the period of precarious majorities the system will have to be resumed. Pray think of this. I see great difficulties if we have to decide, as a Government, on all the fads.
Yours very truly,Salisbury.
The new Parliament, having re-elected Mr. Peel Speaker on August 5, met for the transaction of business on the 19th. The Royal Speech briefly declared that the ordinary work of the year had been interrupted, ‘in order that the sense of Her Majesty’s people might be taken on certain important proposals with regard to the government of Ireland,’ and that the result of that appeal had been ‘to confirm the conclusion to which the late Parliament had come.’ In view of the ‘prolonged and exceptional labours’ to which the members had been subjected, the Sovereign abstained from recommending any measures except those which were essential to the conduct ofthe public service during the remaining portion of the financial year. As, furthermore, the Chancellor of the Exchequer drily announced that ‘for the convenience of honourable members’ the Government would take on themselves the responsibility of putting down notices of opposition to all the private members’ Bills and notices of motion which appeared on the order paper, the only task demanded of the House of Commons was to terminate the provisional arrangements which had been made for Supply and to vote the remaining Estimates of the last Parliament.
The Address to the Crown was moved by Colonel King-Harman. Lord Randolph Churchill arranged that Mr. Maclean, the member for Oldham, who had formerly opposed him at such a critical moment on the Council of the National Union, should second it. Mr. Gladstone spoke with admirable temper, as not forgetting ‘what is due to a Government which has just taken office.’ But the interest of the assembly was concentrated upon the young Minister who had cut so swift and strange a path to power. When Lord Randolph rose, as Leader of the House, to follow Mr. Gladstone, an intense hush of expectancy and anxiety prevailed. In spite of all his skill and ease as a speaker, his nervousness was apparent. Mr. Smith dwells on it in a letter to his wife which has since been published. But he spoke with dignity and strength and his lucid, ordered statement left no feeling of inequality in the minds of those who had just listened to the greatest of Parliamentarians. Although the Irish were inclined to interrupt derisively, theHouse was generally sympathetic; and loud and long were the Tory cheers when the speaker ended.
The policy towards Ireland which he declared, was definite and simple. It is the same policy which the reader will already have remarked in a memorandum to Lord Salisbury after the election of 1885, from which during the remainder of his life Lord Randolph never diverged either in one direction or the other. The Irish Question presented itself, he said, in three aspects—social order, the Land question and Local Government. The late Administration were of opinion that these three questions were indissolubly connected and their policy was to deal with them all by one measure. The new Government proposed to treat them to a very large extent as separate and distinct. The law was to be uncompromisingly maintained, whether against Orangemen in Belfast, which was still distracted by savage riots, or against Nationalists in Kerry, where a grave increase in ‘Moonlighting’ and boycotting had been recorded. Sir Redvers Buller would be sent forthwith to take all necessary measures. In regard to land—which subject a Royal Commission was also to examine—the Government would not encourage any extension of the principle of revision of rent by the direct interposition of the State; but would rather aim at the creation of a general system of single ownership by the influence and leverage of the credit of the State. The material resources of Ireland were to be developed after inquiry by grants from the British Exchequer in three distinct channels: first,the creation of a deep-sea fishing industry on the west coast of Ireland by the construction of harbours of refuge and the connection of those harbours with the main lines of rapid communication; secondly, the improvement and extension of the railway, light railway and tramway system; and, thirdly, the construction of those great arterial drainage works for the Shannon, the Bann, and the Barrow, which prosperous agriculture seemed to require, but which were far too considerable to be attempted by the resources of single localities.
Upon Local Government, decisive action would be taken. ‘When Parliament reassembles at the beginning of February next, the Government are sanguine that they will be prepared with definite proposals on that large question. Their object will be, as far as possible, to eliminate party feelings and to secure for the consideration of the question as large an amount of Parliamentary co-operation as can be obtained; so that whatever settlement may be arrived at may not be regarded as a political triumph of either party, but rather in the nature of a final and lasting settlement.... The great sign-posts of our policy are equality, similarity and, if I may use such a word, simultaneity of treatment, so far as is practicable, in the development of a genuinely popular system of government in all the four countries which form the United Kingdom.’ He ended by declaring in simple terms that the verdict of the constituencies for the maintenance of the Parliamentary Union must be considered final and irreversible.
Such was the policy which Lord Randolph Churchill was permitted to declare with the assent of the Prime Minister and of the Cabinet. In order that there might be no misunderstandings, he took the precaution of writing out the actual words and submitting them beforehand to the principal Ministers. It was the policy of his own heart. It is the policy which, in spite of some lamentable lapses, of many purposeless and vexatious delays and of more than one incident of prejudice or even tyranny, has upon the whole, as history records, been carried laboriously forward by Unionist Administrations during nearly twenty years and which in the end, whatever problems it has left unsolved, has notably advanced the social, political and economic stability of the Irish people.
Lord Randolph Churchill was much praised for his speech. The Conservatives were in high spirits, and the newspapers next morning emphasised the favourable impression which had been produced. Yet he does not seem himself to have been much affected by these tributes; for on being asked the next day ‘whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce any changes in the fiscal laws of the country by placing duties on imported manufactures, by taxing foreign corn, by countervailing bounties or in any other respect,’ he replied, with an odd gleam of foresight or of humour: ‘The ways and means for the year 1887-8 which the Government will propose to Parliament, will be communicated to the House on or about March 31 next by the person—whoever hemay be—who at the time happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.’
enlarge-imageReproduced by permission of the proprietors of ‘Punch.‘ THE GRAND YOUNG MAN. Shade of ‘Dizzy,‘ loquitor: You stand—at your age—where I stood after years Of waiting on Fortune and working on fools. Not forty! Unwearied by failures or fears. To him who can use them are ever the tools, But there’s an advantage you’ll scarce understand In having the tools ready shaped to your hand. Punch, August 7, 1886.Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of ‘Punch.‘THE GRAND YOUNG MAN.
The debate on the Address and its amendments was protracted. It had opened with much calmness; but as it progressed the smouldering fires of the great encounter began to sparkle. In this flicker the deep antagonisms which the election had made permanent between friends and parties, became visible. Lord Hartington’s speech on the third night was uncompromising. Standing in the midst of his old colleagues on the Front Opposition Bench, with much formal courtesy and weighty argument he made it plain that he would exert his whole strength to sustain the Ministry in power. He was heard by his party in moody silence, broken from time to time by Irish interruptions and Tory applause. Mr. Parnell, who moved next day an amendment of his own, took pains to cast back disdainfully, as trash unworthy of notice, the material aid to Irish resources which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had proffered. He spoke of the ‘dishonesty of bolstering up the system of landlord and tenant in Ireland by the expenditure of large sums of money the repayment of which is quite uncertain and highly problematic,’ and of the ‘folly of building harbours of refuge for fishing-boats that do not exist.’ He derided the proposal to spend three-quarters of a million on the arterial drainage of the Bann and the Shannon, where nothing less than ten millions would suffice. Fed by such fuel, an ugly glow grew gradually in the House.
The sixth day of the debate on the Address was stormy. It began with an unexpected motion for the adjournment of the House as a protest against the despatch of Sir Redvers Buller to Kerry. The member who moved it, Mr. Edward Russell, made an elaborate and indignant speech. He enlarged on the iniquity of employing a military officer accustomed to dealing with savage tribes to discharge duties which properly belonged to the civil magistrate. Lord Randolph dealt with this motion in a summary and even audacious manner. ‘In the opinion of the honourable gentleman,’ said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ‘the appointment of Sir Redvers Buller is a startling innovation in our Constitution, a serious blow to civil and religious liberty, a wilful invasion of the immutable principles of justice, and other things of that serious kind. He holds strong opinions and he prophesies the most alarming results. He declares that all Kerry will immediately take an active part in the proceedings of the "Moonlighters" and that all Ireland will very shortly be involved in a general conflagration. Now, sir, I do not complain of the honourable member holding these opinions; they are opinions he is perfectly entitled to hold and to express. What I want the House to do is to compare the opinions he holds with the course he suggests. What is the course he proposes? He proposes that the House of Commons should immediately adjourn. What will be the effect of that course on Sir Redvers Buller or his appointment? Absolutely none. The House wouldadjourn, if they agreed with the honourable member, and, like the Emperor Titus, might exclaim that they had lost a day; but, before the House met again, Sir Redvers Buller would be well on his way to Kerry.
‘As to employing military officers in civil positions, had not Mr. Gladstone after the London riots appointed Sir Charles Warren, an officer on the active list, liable to be called away at any moment on military service, not to look after "Moonlighters," but after the civilised inhabitants of London?’ He suggested that the motion had been brought forward to delay the speech which Mr. Chamberlain, who had obtained the adjournment on the previous night, was known to be about to deliver. No greater compliment could be paid to a member than that his opponents should show that they feared what he was going to say. ‘I have to announce,’ he concluded, ‘that Her Majesty’s Government entirely decline to take any part in the discussion.’
This was hard hitting, but it succeeded. ‘Lord Randolph Churchill,’ said theTimesthe next day, ‘pricked the bubble with a Disraelian dexterity of touch.’ Angry speeches in reply failed to sustain the debate. The fate of the motion was never for a moment doubtful, and on a division it was rejected by a majority of 241 against 146.
The motion for the adjournment being thus brushed aside, the consideration of Mr. Parnell’s amendment was resumed. The treatment accorded to Mr. Chamberlain’s speech afforded some foundation for Lord Randolph’s charge. He was repeatedlyinterrupted both from above and below the gangway. Mr. Speaker was invited to notice the smallest deviation from the strictest relevancy. Cries of fierce derision saluted him from the Irish benches. The men around him did not conceal their discontent. And in his turn he struck back with dexterous severity. Ceremonious language, much ‘right honourable be-friending,’ smoothly-turned sentences, soft, purring accents, ineradicable antagonism; such was his speech. It was the first of many similar episodes in this new Parliament. Yet some respect is due to the forbearance of the Liberal majority. For six weary years the Liberal-Unionist leaders sat on the Front Opposition Bench. Their followers held the balance of every division. Their authority sustained the Conservative Government. Their debating skill was always at hand when all else failed. They supported Coercion; they justified Mitchelstown; they even defended the Special Commission; and with decisive effect. Yet never once, not even at times of sharpest indignation, were they denied by those who surrounded them their freedom of debate.
The Government were naturally delighted at this decided support. ‘You made a splendid speech last night,’ wrote Lord Randolph to Mr. Chamberlain (August 27). ‘It is curious, but true, that you have more effect on the Tory party than either Salisbury or myself. Many of them had great doubts about our policy till you spoke.’
On September 1, Mr. Sexton brought forward an amendment drawing attention to the Belfast riots,and this, of course, served as a convenient peg on which to fasten an almost interminable series of attacks upon Lord Randolph Churchill. At least twenty-five persons had been actually killed in the streets and many hundreds injured or arrested. All was attributed to the epigram, ‘Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right.’ Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was able to make a good defence. In spite of a long and solemn denunciation from Sir William Harcourt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer remained silent; but the debate ran on, full of life and spite, until on September 3 Mr. Labouchere sought to provoke him by embodying a direct charge in a special amendment. ‘Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird,’ said Lord Randolph piously; ‘and of all the unskilful and clumsy Parliamentary fowlers of whose manœuvres it has been my lot to be a witness, I never met a sorrier practitioner than the honourable member. In the various snares and wits and wiles with which he distinguished himself in the last Parliament he only succeeded in this—that he made himself the laughing-stock of the Parliament and of the public; and he appears to be desirous to add to-night to his already great reputation.’ ‘There was not,’ the speaker declared, with some boldness, ‘a shred of a shadow of a shade, or a shade of a shadow of a shred’ of foundation for such charges. So the attacks were brushed contemptuously away, and the Government majority did not fail in the Lobby to endorse their Leader’s disdain.
On September 3 the Chancellor of the Exchequermoved a resolution securing precedence for the Committee of Ways and Means and of Supply. So far as form was concerned, he based himself upon the precedent of 1841. But he ventured further upon an earnest yet restrained appeal to the House. ‘We have pledged ourselves as a Government to produce at the meeting of Parliament next year such schemes of legislation as we may be able to decide upon and mature in the autumn and winter. If the proceedings of this session were to be greatly protracted and if the energies of members and Ministers were to be greatly exhausted by them, it would become very difficult for the Government to summon Parliament as early next year. I ask no consideration on behalf of the Government, but in the interests of Parliament and of the country. This motion is intended to wind up, with as much expedition as is reasonable and decent, the business of the session, and to allow members to separate in time for the annual recess. I would not for a moment wish the House to understand that I am advocating a rapid or slovenly discussion of the Estimates. I have always protested against that and always shall. I ask only that the House will concentrate its attention on the Estimates and proceed without unusual dilatoriness and loss of time. The difficulties which lie in the future before the Government, are very great indeed. No one can be more deeply impressed with their magnitude than my colleagues and myself; and certainly I see no possibility of arriving at anything like a solution of those difficulties unless the Houseis prepared to give a reasonable amount of time during which the Government may take thought for a future so anxious and grave.’
The effect of this appeal, conjoined as it was with a promise that Mr. Parnell should have an opportunity for bringing forward his Tenants’ Relief Bill, was to induce the House to consent without a division to endow the Government with full control over public time. Lord Randolph, however, thought it proper to write a special letter of explanation to Lord Hartington, fearing apparently lest the Whig leader should become suspicious of any compact with the Nationalist party:—