10 Downing Street, Whitehall: May 14, 1887.My dear R. C.,—Before we proceed to nominate the Committee on Army and Navy Estimates I should be glad to know if you would take a leading place upon it.I cannot, of course, nominate the Chairman; but, so far as I am concerned, I should be very glad indeed if you would take the Chair, and I should say so to my friends, as I have complete confidence that your influence would be exercised with absolute impartiality and for the good of the public service.Believe meYours very sincerely,W. H. Smith.
10 Downing Street, Whitehall: May 14, 1887.
My dear R. C.,—Before we proceed to nominate the Committee on Army and Navy Estimates I should be glad to know if you would take a leading place upon it.
I cannot, of course, nominate the Chairman; but, so far as I am concerned, I should be very glad indeed if you would take the Chair, and I should say so to my friends, as I have complete confidence that your influence would be exercised with absolute impartiality and for the good of the public service.
Believe meYours very sincerely,W. H. Smith.
Lord Randolph replied at once in the affirmative; but the delay in nominating the members continued, and his patience broke again:—
2 Connaught Place, W.: May 24, 1887.My dear Smith,—I must ask you to excuse me from having the honour of dining with you to-night. The dinner is, of course, an official one, and the names of the guests will be in the papers, and it will be assumed by the public thatthose who dine with the Leader of the House are thoroughly satisfied with the policy and conduct of the Government.As far as I am concerned such an assumption would be entirely unfounded. I have watched a great deal in the action of the Government which I deplore more than I can say; but I cannot pass over without notice your neglect to nominate the Army and Navy Estimates Committee last night, or rather this morning, and your postponing of that most important matter till after Whitsuntide. The delay in appointing that Committee is scandalous and inexcusable. It might long ago have commenced its work had the Government been in earnest about the matter; but last night you gave me a positive promise that you would nominate it without further delay, and, relying on that, I spent the evening till 12.30 in examination of the Estimates with two other gentlemen, and, being then very tired, did not return to the House. I dare say you are all right in thinking that you can afford to indulge in this kind of treatment of one of your supporters, but you cannot expect me to show publicly pleasure or satisfaction.Hodie tibi, cras mihi.Yours very truly,Randolph S. Churchill.
2 Connaught Place, W.: May 24, 1887.
My dear Smith,—I must ask you to excuse me from having the honour of dining with you to-night. The dinner is, of course, an official one, and the names of the guests will be in the papers, and it will be assumed by the public thatthose who dine with the Leader of the House are thoroughly satisfied with the policy and conduct of the Government.
As far as I am concerned such an assumption would be entirely unfounded. I have watched a great deal in the action of the Government which I deplore more than I can say; but I cannot pass over without notice your neglect to nominate the Army and Navy Estimates Committee last night, or rather this morning, and your postponing of that most important matter till after Whitsuntide. The delay in appointing that Committee is scandalous and inexcusable. It might long ago have commenced its work had the Government been in earnest about the matter; but last night you gave me a positive promise that you would nominate it without further delay, and, relying on that, I spent the evening till 12.30 in examination of the Estimates with two other gentlemen, and, being then very tired, did not return to the House. I dare say you are all right in thinking that you can afford to indulge in this kind of treatment of one of your supporters, but you cannot expect me to show publicly pleasure or satisfaction.Hodie tibi, cras mihi.
Yours very truly,Randolph S. Churchill.
Smith replied softly:—
3 Grosvenor Place, London, S.W.: May 24, 1887.My Dear R. C.,—I am very sorry you do not dine with me this evening, and still more for the cause.At half-past five this morning I moved that the Committee be nominated, but I was met by cries from the other side of the House that it was opposed, and by murmurs from our own benches, and I felt it was impossible to proceed further at that hour with a jaded and heated house.I am sure you would have done as I did if you had been in my place.Yours very sincerely,W. H. Smith.
3 Grosvenor Place, London, S.W.: May 24, 1887.
My Dear R. C.,—I am very sorry you do not dine with me this evening, and still more for the cause.
At half-past five this morning I moved that the Committee be nominated, but I was met by cries from the other side of the House that it was opposed, and by murmurs from our own benches, and I felt it was impossible to proceed further at that hour with a jaded and heated house.
I am sure you would have done as I did if you had been in my place.
Yours very sincerely,W. H. Smith.
But the Committee was appointed without further delay.
Meanwhile Lord Randolph had been industriously preparing his general indictment of War Office and Admiralty maladministration. To the intricate and detailed information which he had acquired at the Treasury, he added a mass of material accumulated with the greatest care and trouble by Mr. Jennings and amplified and checked by various expert authorities, with whom he was in communication. Basing himself on this and on the papers presented to Parliament he formulated his charges at Wolverhampton on June 3. He seems to have believed sincerely that it would be possible for him to effect a large reduction in the cost of government. He recalled to his mind the fact that the Government of 1860 was determined on a retrenchment policy, and the Army and Navy Estimates were in five years reduced from 27½ millions to 22½ millions; and that whereas in 1868 the estimates were 25 millions, by 1871 they had been reduced to 21 millions. Such examples may prove the possibility of retrenchment, but they were the achievements of a giant Minister working year by year from inside the Cabinet, and using the whole leverage of the great department over which he presided; and we have since learned from Mr. Morley’s pages that even in Liberal Cabinets elected on the famous watchwords of ‘Peace, Retrenchment and Reform’ Mr. Gladstone had to fight for his economies at the constant peril of his official life.
It is instructive to study the course of an agitation for naval and military economy directed by anyone outside the circle of the Government of the day and without the aid of the machinery of State. It may begin in all undivided earnestness in a simple demand for a reduction of expenditure. The Government and its official advisers will reply that they, too, are the zealous advocates of such a policy, if only they can be shown how to effect it; and they invite suggestions of a specific character. That is the first stage. Thus challenged, the economist leaves for the moment the enunciation of great principles of finance and national policy and descends to grapple with masses of technical details. He discovers a quantity of muddles and jobs, and arrays imposing instances of waste and inefficiency. His statements are, of course, contradicted, and his charges are wrangled overseriatim. Expert is set against expert, and assertion against assertion. The reformer is accused—not, generally, without some justice—of exaggeration; and he is in part and in detail inevitably betrayed into inaccuracy. But in the issue enough is proved to awaken public anxiety and even indignation. Certain main facts of discreditable and disquieting character are clearly established. Many weaknesses, neglects, incompetencies are revealed. There are guns without ammunition. There are fortresses without provisions. There are regiments without reserves. There are ships imperfectly constructed. There are weapons which are obsolete or bad. But in the process of the controversy the movement hasbeen insensibly and irresistibly deflected from its original object. It began in a cry for economy; it has become a cry for efficiency. That is the second stage. The Government and their official advisers at the proper moment now shift their ground with an adroitness born of past experience. They admit the damaging facts which can no longer be denied. The politicians explain that they arise from the neglect or incapacity of their predecessors. They recognise the public demand for more perfect instruments of war. They declare that they will not flinch from their plain duty (whatever others may have done); they will repair the deficiencies which clearly exist; they will correct the abuses which have been exposed; and in due course they will send in the bill to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. So that the third stage of an unofficial agitation in favour of a reduction of expenditure and a more modest establishment becomes an agitation in favour of an increase of expenditure and a more lavish establishment.
All this happened exactly in the case of Lord Randolph Churchill. In his earlier speeches since his resignation he had confined himself to the need of retrenchment, and this had been the ground on which he had fought in the Cabinet. But at Wolverhampton he sought to show that, in spite of the great and increasing expenditure, the services were in a wholly unsatisfactory and even dangerous condition. And in this he was beyond all question brilliantly successful. In a fierce speech of an hourand forty minutes he unfolded a comprehensive catalogue of follies. His audience, consisting of about 4,000 persons—mainly Conservative working men—at first doubtful and apathetic, were gradually raised, as the newspaper reports testify, to a state of indignation. With a display of feeling unusual even at a partisan meeting, and still more remarkable when the currents of ordinary partisanship were running against the speaker, they interrupted him repeatedly with cries of anger, and he ended amid a perfect tumult of assent.
It is not necessary to this account to examine the details of his charges. Each generation has its own jobs and scandals to confront. The administrative follies of 1887 have passed away. Some survived, to be dwarfed by more astonishing successors; others were corrected, but not extirpated. All have produced a prosperous progeny, nourished in richer pastures, and attaining proportions of which their ancestors could hardly have dreamed. The main outlines of the indictment must, however, be placed on record. The condition of the British Army and Navy in the year 1887 was, in sober truth, a serious public danger. Mr. Gladstone’s Government of 1880 had had, during their tenure of office, to deal with all kinds of military and Colonial enterprises for the effective execution of which a Liberal Administration is not naturally fitted. They detested their work heartily; they executed it very badly. In truth the Cabinet, distracted by the violence of Egyptian and Irish affairs and thegravity of the Eastern situation, torn by the increasing demands of Radicalism, and harassed by a relentless Opposition, was incapable of giving to naval and military matters adequate consideration. There had followed upon all this the two years of political revolution with which this story has been largely concerned. It was natural, it was inevitable, that in the interval which had elapsed since the great Army Reform Parliament of 1868 much waste and inefficiency should have crept into the military system; and in the same period, from considerations altogether outside the course of British politics, an enormous extension and complexity had affected the responsibilities and functions of the Navy.
Lord Randolph alleged in respect of the Army that not a single fortress was properly armed; that no reserve of heavy guns existed; that the artillery, both horse and field, was obsolete; that the rifle of the infantry was defective; that the swords and bayonets broke and bent under the required tests; and that, notwithstanding these deficiencies, the cost of the land service had increased in twelve years by over four millions a year. He charged the Admiralty with such waste as exporting Australian tinned meat to Australia, rum and sugar to Jamaica, flour to Hong Kong, and rice to India; with making improvident contracts for ships, engines, and materials of various kinds; with disarming the Spithead and Portsmouth forts in order to arm warships. He asserted that the whole of the 43-ton guns designed by the Ordnance Department, on which 200,000l.had been spent, were worthless and liable to burst even with reduced charges; that the Ordnance officials had been told beforehand by the principal experts of Messrs. Armstrong that this type of gun was imperfect; that they persisted in making them; that one of the guns had already burst; that the others had been condemned; but that they were nevertheless to be employed on her Majesty’s ships. The most serious count, however, dealt with various classes of ships which had in important particulars failed to realise the expectations of the designers and were in consequence unfit for active service.
He instanced especially theAjaxand theAgamemnon, the battleships of theAdmiralclass and theAustraliaclass of cruisers. Of the armoured cruiserImpérieusehe declared that she drew four feet more water than was expected, with the result that the armour which should have been above water was now below water, and in consequence the ship was actually unprotected. ‘The result of all this is that in the last twelve or thirteen years eighteen ships have been either completed or designed by the Admiralty to fulfil certain purposes, and on the strength of the Admiralty statements Parliament has faithfully voted ... about ten millions, and it is now discovered and officially acknowledged that in respect of the purposes for which these ships were designed, the whole of the money has been absolutely misapplied, utterly wasted and thrown away.’ The foundation for this somewhat sweeping statement was supplied by theexplanatory memorandum to the Navy Estimates, 1887. ‘In one important particular,’ so this document affirmed, ‘there is a discrepancy between ... the original design and its result which, in the case of theImpérieuseand her sister ship theWarspite, attracted some attention, and which is likely to recur in the case of the belted cruisers, seven in number, theWarspiteand the armoured vessels of theAdmiralclass.... If the whole of the 900 tons [of coal] ... be placed on board [theImpérieuse] the top of the belt will, on the ship’s first going to sea, be six inches below the water.’
The Wolverhampton speech made a considerable stir. In spite of the pressure of Irish affairs and the general instability of the political situation, it was for some days the principal topic of public discussion. The powerful interests assailed, retorted at once, and the newspapers were filled with censure and contradiction. Even those which, like theTimes, were forced to acknowledge Lord Randolph Churchill ‘right in his main contention,’ rebuked him ponderously for extravagance of statement and violence of language. His strictures on naval construction brought Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, the late chief constructor to the Admiralty—to whom Lord Randolph had personally alluded—into voluminous protest in the columns of theTimes, and an acrimonious correspondence ensued. Sir Nathaniel denied that he had been ‘dismissed’ from his post and pointed in disproof to his having been made a Knight Commander of the Bath. Lord Randolph replied acidly ‘that K.C.B.’s and officialtestimonials were the usual manner in which the country requited long service when the intentions had been honest, no matter how deplorably defective might have been the capacity’; and expressed himself willing to substitute the phrase ‘allowed to retire’ for the word ‘dismissed.’ On the main question Sir Nathaniel appealed to Lord George Hamilton; and Lord Randolph brought up Sir Edward Reed, a rival constructor of great repute, who confirmed and even aggravated most of his statements. Both parties fell back upon official records, memoranda and Blue Books; and a battle royal developed, around the outskirts of which naval authorities of every rank and description cruised, seeking to intervene, on the one side or the other, with masses of highly technical information couched in highly controversial terms.
Lord Randolph’s contention that theAjaxand theAgamemnonwere failures was not seriously disputed, Sir Nathaniel Barnaby himself admitting (Times, June 7) that he was ‘thankful they were the only approximately circular and shallow sea-going ships we built.’ The fiercest strife raged around the cruiserImpérieuse. Sir Nathaniel Barnaby met the assertion that the money spent upon her was ‘absolutely misapplied, utterly wasted and thrown away,’ by quoting a later Admiralty memorandum which declared her to be, ‘if not actually the most powerful, one of the most powerful ironclad cruisers afloat of her tonnage.’ But Sir Edward Reed was able to show that this was not extravagant eulogy, for that there was only one other ‘ironclad cruiserofher tonnage’ in existence. He also showed that, to lighten her, she had already been deprived of her masts and consequently of her intended sailing powers; and that even so, to bring her to her intended draught, it was necessary to take out the whole of her coal. When the smoke had at length a little lifted, it was generally held that, although Lord Randolph Churchill’s charges were sustained on almost every substantial point, he had injured his case by over-stating it. Full marks were also awarded to the ‘distinguished ex-public servant cruelly assailed in his professional character.’
Lord Randolph Churchill was duly elected Chairman of the Army and Navy Committee. Mr. Jennings, who was also a member, laboured indefatigably to collect, sift and arrange material. The Committee met without delay, and collected much valuable and startling evidence. They discovered, for instance, that one branch of the War Office cost 5,000l.a year in supervising an expenditure of 250l.a year. ‘Would it have been possible,’ the Accountant-General was asked, ‘for any private member to have ascertained from the Estimates laid before Parliament from 1870 to the present year that the total increase of net ordinary Army expenditure amounted to almost nine millions of money?—A. ‘It would have been extremely difficult.’ Q. ’ ...or that since 1875 there had been an increase of about five millions?’—A. ‘I do not think it would.’ ‘Up to now,’ Lord Randolph suggested, ‘Parliament has never had the smallest ideaof what was the total cost of the services?’—‘Taking the whole of the services,’ replied Mr. Knox, ‘it has not.’ It would be easy to multiply these specimens of the evidence collected by the Select Committee. Day by day, as it was published, it was commented on by the press, and public and Parliamentary scrutiny was increasingly directed towards the Estimates of the two services.
Here is a note which it is pleasant to transcribe:—
One odd effect of your Committee: [wrote Jennings July 27]. Bradlaugh came to me this afternoon—said he had been reading the evidence—was immensely struck with it—thought you had done enormous service already. I told him a little more about it. He said: ‘He has done so much good that I really think I must close up my account against him.’ ‘Well, surely,’ I said, ‘there is no use in keeping it open any longer. It only looks like vindictiveness.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think I will close the ledger.’
One odd effect of your Committee: [wrote Jennings July 27]. Bradlaugh came to me this afternoon—said he had been reading the evidence—was immensely struck with it—thought you had done enormous service already. I told him a little more about it. He said: ‘He has done so much good that I really think I must close up my account against him.’ ‘Well, surely,’ I said, ‘there is no use in keeping it open any longer. It only looks like vindictiveness.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think I will close the ledger.’
It will be convenient to follow Lord Randolph’s economy campaign to its conclusion. As it gradually became directed to efficiency rather than simple economy it enlisted an increasing measure of professional support. By May 1888, public opinion had become so vigilant that, following upon some outspoken and not very temperate statements by Lord Wolseley, then Adjutant-General, the Government determined—momentous resolve!—to appoint a Royal Commission with Lord Hartington at itshead. Mr. Smith invited Lord Randolph Churchill to join it:—
10 Downing Street, Whitehall: May 18, 1888.My dear R. C.,—You will render great service to the administrative reform of the two great departments if you will join the Royal Commission over which Lord Hartington will preside.Mr. Gladstone has asked Mr. Campbell-Bannerman to represent the Opposition; I am to go on, on behalf of the Government; and you would represent those who believe that efficiency and economy may result from a change of system. General Brackenbury will join as a soldier, and Sir F. Richards, who has just returned from sea, as the sailor. Two civilians with extensive knowledge of large business transactions are to be added, and Sir Richard Temple will also be asked as a capable and successful Indian Administrator. These are the people with whom you would be associated in the effort to improve our system, and I hope most sincerely that you will not refuse your help.Believe meYours very truly,W. H. Smith.I enclose a copy of the reference.‘To inquire into the civil and professional administration of the Naval and Military Departments and the relation of those Departments to each other and to the Treasury; and to report what changes in their existing system would tend to the efficiency and the economy of the Public Service.’
10 Downing Street, Whitehall: May 18, 1888.
My dear R. C.,—You will render great service to the administrative reform of the two great departments if you will join the Royal Commission over which Lord Hartington will preside.
Mr. Gladstone has asked Mr. Campbell-Bannerman to represent the Opposition; I am to go on, on behalf of the Government; and you would represent those who believe that efficiency and economy may result from a change of system. General Brackenbury will join as a soldier, and Sir F. Richards, who has just returned from sea, as the sailor. Two civilians with extensive knowledge of large business transactions are to be added, and Sir Richard Temple will also be asked as a capable and successful Indian Administrator. These are the people with whom you would be associated in the effort to improve our system, and I hope most sincerely that you will not refuse your help.
Believe meYours very truly,W. H. Smith.
I enclose a copy of the reference.
‘To inquire into the civil and professional administration of the Naval and Military Departments and the relation of those Departments to each other and to the Treasury; and to report what changes in their existing system would tend to the efficiency and the economy of the Public Service.’
Lord Randolph, however, knowing a good deal of the ways of such bodies, declined. He was persuaded by Lord Hartington, who wrote:—
Hôtel du Rhin, 4 Place Vendôme: May 26, 1888.My dear Churchill,—Smith has sent me your letter declining to serve on the Army and Navy Commission. I hope very much that if you have not absolutely made upyour mind you may be induced to reconsider your decision, as we are both very anxious to have your assistance.I think that your Committee has taken some very valuable evidence which shows the inefficiency and defects of the present system. But I should doubt whether you will effect much more by the examination of minor officials or by investigating the details of the separate votes; and I should think it might be possible for you to leave the inquiry to be finished by some one else. My own opinion is that we shall never get either efficiency or economy until we can find some way of giving the professional men more power and at the same time more responsibility; but how this can be done in combination with our Parliamentary system is a very difficult problem which requires bold and original treatment.If we cannot suggest a more efficient and intelligent system of superior administration, I think that we shall do very little good by exposing details of maladministration in minor matters; and as the subject-matter of our inquiry is to be the real centre of the whole question of administrative reform, I cannot help thinking that you would find our inquiry more interesting and important than any which you can take up or continue on other branches of the same question.I remainYours sincerely,Hartington.
Hôtel du Rhin, 4 Place Vendôme: May 26, 1888.
My dear Churchill,—Smith has sent me your letter declining to serve on the Army and Navy Commission. I hope very much that if you have not absolutely made upyour mind you may be induced to reconsider your decision, as we are both very anxious to have your assistance.
I think that your Committee has taken some very valuable evidence which shows the inefficiency and defects of the present system. But I should doubt whether you will effect much more by the examination of minor officials or by investigating the details of the separate votes; and I should think it might be possible for you to leave the inquiry to be finished by some one else. My own opinion is that we shall never get either efficiency or economy until we can find some way of giving the professional men more power and at the same time more responsibility; but how this can be done in combination with our Parliamentary system is a very difficult problem which requires bold and original treatment.
If we cannot suggest a more efficient and intelligent system of superior administration, I think that we shall do very little good by exposing details of maladministration in minor matters; and as the subject-matter of our inquiry is to be the real centre of the whole question of administrative reform, I cannot help thinking that you would find our inquiry more interesting and important than any which you can take up or continue on other branches of the same question.
I remainYours sincerely,Hartington.
The Commission appointed on June 17, 1888, did not report till March, 1890. Lord Randolph’s separate memorandum, which will be found in the Appendix, is well known. Its sweeping proposals were not adopted by the majority of the Commissioners; but it has been so often quoted, and bears so closely upon modern controversies, that the reader who is interested in these subjects should not neglect to study it. The indirect results of his agitationwere, perhaps, more fruitful. Lord George Hamilton, with whom he so often engaged in sharp argument when Navy Estimates recurred, bears a generous tribute to the unseen influence which severe public criticism exerts upon the workings of a great department. It would seem that Lord Randolph Churchill’s belief that considerable economies were possible on the establishments of 1886 was not without foundation.
Lord George Hamilton writes, October 4, 1904:—
During my tenure of office at the Admiralty great changes were made, and in the foremost rank of these reforms was the reorganisation and renovation of the Royal dockyards. These establishments had been allowed to grow and develop without a sufficient regard to the revolution in shipbuilding which the substitution of iron and steel for wood had caused. Laxity in supervision, connivance at practices neither economical nor efficient, dawdling over work, obsolete machinery and ill-adjusted establishments, associated with Estimates framed for political exigence rather than naval needs, all combined to bring these great national building yards into disrepute. Thepersonnelwas first-rate both in ability and integrity and the material used as good as money could obtain. All that was required was a thorough readjustment of the establishments to the work they were called upon to do, by the reduction of the redundant and superfluous workmen, by the dismissal of the incompetent, and an increase to the numbers working in steel and iron. Changes such as these, if associated with the introduction of the methods and checks in force in the best private yards, were quite sufficient to put our dockyards in the first rank of building establishments. But whoever undertook the task would be subject to much obloquy, both local and Parliamentary. The stern suppression of long-standing malpractices, the dismissal of a large number of unnecessaryand indifferent workmen, if enforced on a large scale, required a strong current of public opinion behind it for its consummation. This assistance I obtained from Lord Randolph Churchill’s crusade on economy. He and I differed on many questions of naval administration, but we were at one as to the necessity of dockyard reform. Many economists who, though agreeing in the abstract with Lord Randolph’s views, hesitated to cut down the effective fighting forces of the Army and Navy, were delighted to co-operate with him in so non-contentious an improvement. The Labour party was not then as well organised or represented in Parliament as they have since become, and their opposition to dockyard dismissals was less strenuous than it would be now.I was thus enabled, after two years of continuous labour and trouble, to organise the dockyards from top to bottom, to put down establishments that were not required, to dismiss the loiterers, and to establish, modelled on the practice of the best private yards, a completely new system of supervision, check, and control. The effect was electrical. The dockyards at once became the cheapest and most economical builders of warships in the world. The largest ironclad ever designed, up to 1889, was built, completed and commissioned ready for sea in two years and eight months from the date of the laying down of its keel. No large ironclad had been previously completed within five years. Up to 1886 the average cost of the big ships building in these yards was 40 per cent. above their original estimate; since then the estimates have rarely been exceeded. In the first year of the new system there was an instantaneous saving of 400,000l.The continuous and satisfactory progress of our vast and annually increasing building programme is mainly due to those changes, and Lord Randolph could, I think, fairly claim that, though his name was not publicly associated with the great national gain thus achieved, it was the public opinion which he aroused, which largely contributed to the consummation of dockyard reform.
During my tenure of office at the Admiralty great changes were made, and in the foremost rank of these reforms was the reorganisation and renovation of the Royal dockyards. These establishments had been allowed to grow and develop without a sufficient regard to the revolution in shipbuilding which the substitution of iron and steel for wood had caused. Laxity in supervision, connivance at practices neither economical nor efficient, dawdling over work, obsolete machinery and ill-adjusted establishments, associated with Estimates framed for political exigence rather than naval needs, all combined to bring these great national building yards into disrepute. Thepersonnelwas first-rate both in ability and integrity and the material used as good as money could obtain. All that was required was a thorough readjustment of the establishments to the work they were called upon to do, by the reduction of the redundant and superfluous workmen, by the dismissal of the incompetent, and an increase to the numbers working in steel and iron. Changes such as these, if associated with the introduction of the methods and checks in force in the best private yards, were quite sufficient to put our dockyards in the first rank of building establishments. But whoever undertook the task would be subject to much obloquy, both local and Parliamentary. The stern suppression of long-standing malpractices, the dismissal of a large number of unnecessaryand indifferent workmen, if enforced on a large scale, required a strong current of public opinion behind it for its consummation. This assistance I obtained from Lord Randolph Churchill’s crusade on economy. He and I differed on many questions of naval administration, but we were at one as to the necessity of dockyard reform. Many economists who, though agreeing in the abstract with Lord Randolph’s views, hesitated to cut down the effective fighting forces of the Army and Navy, were delighted to co-operate with him in so non-contentious an improvement. The Labour party was not then as well organised or represented in Parliament as they have since become, and their opposition to dockyard dismissals was less strenuous than it would be now.
I was thus enabled, after two years of continuous labour and trouble, to organise the dockyards from top to bottom, to put down establishments that were not required, to dismiss the loiterers, and to establish, modelled on the practice of the best private yards, a completely new system of supervision, check, and control. The effect was electrical. The dockyards at once became the cheapest and most economical builders of warships in the world. The largest ironclad ever designed, up to 1889, was built, completed and commissioned ready for sea in two years and eight months from the date of the laying down of its keel. No large ironclad had been previously completed within five years. Up to 1886 the average cost of the big ships building in these yards was 40 per cent. above their original estimate; since then the estimates have rarely been exceeded. In the first year of the new system there was an instantaneous saving of 400,000l.The continuous and satisfactory progress of our vast and annually increasing building programme is mainly due to those changes, and Lord Randolph could, I think, fairly claim that, though his name was not publicly associated with the great national gain thus achieved, it was the public opinion which he aroused, which largely contributed to the consummation of dockyard reform.
Lord Randolph Churchill addressed five meetings in the autumn and winter of 1887—two at Whitby and Stockport respectively for his two friends, Mr. Beckett and Mr. Jennings; and three in the North. The Whitby meeting in September afforded an opportunity for a display of the hostility with which he was regarded by the dominant section of the Conservative party, for several prominent local worthies publicly refused to attend—a proceeding which even theTimeswas compelled to censure. The 7,000 persons who gathered upon the sands and around the slopes of a kind of natural amphitheatre under the west cliff gave him a very different welcome, and listened with delighted attention during that beautiful afternoon to a spirited and ingenious defence of the miserable session through which the Government had shuffled. In Yorkshire and Lancashire, as in the earlier meetings of the year, and later in the North, his popularity with the Conservative masses was still undimmed. He was greeted everywhere by immense crowds. The largest halls were much too small. Paddington was loyal and contented. His Birmingham supporters asked no better than to fight for him at once. At Nottingham, long before his arrival, the streets were thronged; and all the way from the station to the Albert Hall he passed through continuous lines of cheering people.[64]Similar scenes took place at Wolverhampton, and the Conservative Association of that borough passed a formal resolution supporting his policy of economy. In the North he made a regularprogress. He visited three important centres in a single week and made a ‘trilogy of speeches’—no light task for a speaker whose every word is reported and examined. He spoke on the afternoon of October 20 at Sunderland, at great length, in reply to a previous speech of Mr. Gladstone, covering the whole field of domestic policy and defining the immediate limits of the Tory Democratic programme. These proved sufficiently comprehensive to include Free Education, Local Option in the sale of drink, a compulsory Employer’s Liability Act, the abolition of the power of entailing land upon unborn lives, ‘One man, one vote,’ and Parliamentary registration at the cost of local bodies. At Newcastle, two days later, he spoke in defence of the Union, justified the Government policy in Ireland, and vehemently attacked Mr. Gladstone for the countenance which he showed towards lawlessness and disorder.
On the Monday he spoke at Stockton, and here he turned aside to deal with another subject which had been thrust much upon him of late. Mr. Jennings, like Lord Dunraven, was, as the reader is aware, a Fair Trader, and throughout the year—from the very beginning of their association—he had laboured tactfully, but persistently, to win Lord Randolph to his views. He knew that although the cry of ‘Less waste and no jobbery’ might appeal to many, ‘Economy’ was not in itself a popular cause to submit to a Democratic electorate, and was, moreover, foreign to the instincts and traditions of Toryism. ‘Fair Trade,’ on the contrary, touched a verytender spot in a Conservative breast; and, quite apart from this consideration, Mr. Jennings was an enthusiast. He had examined the question both from an American and a British point of view. He possessed a large and well-stored arsenal of fact and argument. On such subjects as ‘One-sided Free Trade,’ ‘Our Ruined Industries,’ ‘The Dumping of Sweated Goods,’ ‘The Commercial Union of the Empire’ or ‘Our Dwindling Exports’ he could write, as his frequent letters show, with force and feeling. Scarcely since St. Anthony had there been such a temptation on the one hand or such austerity on the other.
‘The main reason,’ Lord Randolph had said at Sunderland, ‘why I do not join myself with the Protectionists is that I believe that low prices in the necessaries of life and political stability in a democratic Constitution are practically inseparable, and that high prices in the necessaries of life and political instability in a democratic Constitution are also practically inseparable.’ And this having drawn upon him the wrath of Mr. Chaplin, he proceeded at Stockport to make his case good. He used no economic arguments. He pointed to the supremacy of the Conservative party as a proof of political stability under low food-prices. He pointed to the conversion of Sir Robert Peel as a proof of political instability, under high food-prices. To make wheat-farming profitable a duty was required which would raise the price of corn from 28s. a quarter to something between 40s. and 45s. a quarter. Would anyonepropose a sufficient tax on imported corn to make it worth while for the rural voter to pay the higher prices which Fair Trade would secure for the manufactures of the urban voter? How did the Fair Traders propose to deal with India? How did they propose to deal with Ireland? Could they prove that France, Austria and Germany were more prosperous than Great Britain? ‘It is no use saying to me, "Go to America or New South Wales." I will not go to America, and I will not go to New South Wales. There is not the smallest analogy between those countries and England. America is a self-contained country and almost everything she requires for her people she can produce in abundance. We cannot. We have more people than we can feed; and not only for food, but for our manufactures, we depend upon raw material imported from abroad. Therefore I decline to go to America or New South Wales; but I would go to European countries—to France, Austria and Germany—and I want to know whether the Fair Traders can prove that the people of those countries are more prosperous than ours.’
This Stockton speech was naturally a great disappointment to Jennings. ‘I cannot deny,’ he wrote, ‘that you gave many of your followers a bitter pill to swallow. I think I could give you satisfactory grounds for admitting that your objections to "Fair Trade" will not stand much investigation; but, of course, the real difficulty is that in many of our constituencies the question is popular. We have been partly elected on the strength of it; and whenyou attack it, you fire a broadside into your own supporters and give the Radicals in our boroughs a stick to beat us with. It is hard for us to fight against your authority, especially when we have been drilling into the minds of the people that yours are the views they should adopt. If you ever had half an hour to spare, I wish you would allow me to put the facts before you. You would soon see, for example,....’ And then follow pages of tersely stated arguments of a kind with which most people are now only too familiar.
They produced no effect upon Lord Randolph. ‘The policy which you advocate,’ he replied (October 30), ‘of duties on foreign imports for revenue purposes, much attracted me at one time; but I came to the conclusion that, although such a policy would gain the adhesion of the manufacturing towns, it is open to such fearful attack from the Radicals among the country population that we should lose more than we should gain. I cannot see how you can persuade yourself that the country population would accept a method of raising revenue which would directly benefit the manufacturing population at their expense. The election of ‘85 made a great impression upon me. Then the defection of the rural vote completely neutralised our great successes in the English boroughs.’ And again on November 3, after the discussions at the conference of Conservative Associations: ‘Do you see how the Fair Traders have been wrangling and disputing with each other—everyone going in a differentdirection—confirming all that I said at Stockton about their not knowing their own minds?’ Late in November came an invitation from the ‘British Union,’ a Protectionist Association having its headquarters in Manchester—of all places—to which Lord Randolph replied as follows:—
2 Connaught Place, W.: November 26, 1887.I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 25th inst. I understand that your Committee are good enough to do me the honour of asking me to preside at a meeting to be held on January 24 in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, in favour of Fair Trade.You allude to the recent vote of the Conservative National Union bearing upon this subject, and inquire as to what effect that vote has had upon my mind. I may reply: ‘None whatever, except to confirm me in the opinions I expressed at Stockton in the course of last month.’ Both at the Fair Trade Conference recently held, as well as at the conference of the delegates of the National Union, I observed that the sentence which would best characterise those discussions wasquot homines tot sententiæ. There is not among those who desire extensive fiscal reform the slightest approach to real agreement either as to objects or to methods. I must also point out that the delegates of the National Union do not appear to have had any instructions from those whom they were supposed to represent to debate and to decide on the question of Fair Trade, neither did they in any way specially represent trade interests. Their decision in favour of Fair Trade, therefore, is not more weighty than their decision in favour of ‘Women’s Suffrage,’ which latter would certainly not be accepted by the Tory party as a whole.Under these circumstances you will see that it is not possible for me to depart in any way from the views I have recently expressed on Fair Trade; nor could I, as you kindlyinvite me to do, ‘take the helm of a movement’ which up to the present remains altogether vague and undefined.
2 Connaught Place, W.: November 26, 1887.
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 25th inst. I understand that your Committee are good enough to do me the honour of asking me to preside at a meeting to be held on January 24 in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, in favour of Fair Trade.
You allude to the recent vote of the Conservative National Union bearing upon this subject, and inquire as to what effect that vote has had upon my mind. I may reply: ‘None whatever, except to confirm me in the opinions I expressed at Stockton in the course of last month.’ Both at the Fair Trade Conference recently held, as well as at the conference of the delegates of the National Union, I observed that the sentence which would best characterise those discussions wasquot homines tot sententiæ. There is not among those who desire extensive fiscal reform the slightest approach to real agreement either as to objects or to methods. I must also point out that the delegates of the National Union do not appear to have had any instructions from those whom they were supposed to represent to debate and to decide on the question of Fair Trade, neither did they in any way specially represent trade interests. Their decision in favour of Fair Trade, therefore, is not more weighty than their decision in favour of ‘Women’s Suffrage,’ which latter would certainly not be accepted by the Tory party as a whole.
Under these circumstances you will see that it is not possible for me to depart in any way from the views I have recently expressed on Fair Trade; nor could I, as you kindlyinvite me to do, ‘take the helm of a movement’ which up to the present remains altogether vague and undefined.
So far as I have been able to discover, this was, with one exception, his last public word on the subject.[65]His objections to Fair Trade were not based on principle. They were entirely practical. He cared little for theory. He hated what he used to call ‘chopping logic.’ He was not at all concerned to vindicate Mr. Cobden, and he mocked at ‘professors’ of all kinds. But he thought that as a financial expedient a complicated tariff would not work, and he was sure that as a party manœuvre it would not pay. He saw no way by which the conflicting interests of the counties and the boroughs could be reconciled and he believed that without such reconciliation the movement would prove disastrous to the Conservative cause. He was, no doubt, strengthened in his views by his desire so far as possible to work in harmony with Mr. Chamberlain and so to combine and fuse together all the Democratic forces which supported the Union. Yet Fair Trade had much to offer to a Conservative statesman. To him, above all other Tory leaders, the prospect was alluring. That section of Tory Democracy which had received the gospel of Mr. Farrer Ecroyd—and it was already important—would have followed a Fair Trade champion through thick and thin. In every town he would have secured faithful and active supporters. His earlier speeches had prepared the way. His own immediate allies in Parliament, his best friends inthe press, were ardent Fair Traders. Hardly a day passed, as he said at Stockton, without his receiving letters from all classes of people imploring him to come forward as a Fair Trader. He had only to raise the standard to obtain a following of his own strong enough to defy the party machine. The National Union might still afford the necessary organisation. And had he been, as it was the fashion to say, willing to advance his personal position regardless of the interests of the Conservative party, there lay ready to his hand a weapon with which he might have torn the heart out of Lord Salisbury’s Government.
‘Love as if you should hereafter hate; and hate as if you should hereafter love.’—Bias(quoted by Aristotle).
‘Love as if you should hereafter hate; and hate as if you should hereafter love.’—Bias(quoted by Aristotle).
‘ALLthe politics of the moment,’ said Lord Salisbury on March 5, 1887, to the members of the National Conservative Club, ‘are summarised in the word "Ireland."’ The fierce struggle in the English constituencies was over. The Home Rulers had been totally defeated. Mr. Gladstone had been driven from office. A Conservative Government, strong in its own resources of discipline and class, strengthened by most of the forces of wealth and authority which had hitherto been at the service of the Liberal party, and supported by the energetic multitudes of Tory Democracy, sat in the place of power. Among the ranks of the Opposition, fortified in their midst, with leaders of their own upon their Front Bench, was a solid band of seventy gentlemen of unusual ability actively engaged in preventing the return of their neighbours to office. Such was the grim aspect of the field upon the morrow of the great battle. Such was the change of fortune which a year of Irishpolicy had brought to the Liberal party. But, although the relative forces of the combatants in the political arena had been so surprisingly altered, the question in dispute remained utterly unsettled and ‘Ireland’ was still the vital and dominant factor in the political situation.
So long as the Liberal Unionists adhered to Lord Salisbury’s Government it was, of course, unshakable; for it enjoyed the double advantage of their support and of the cleavage which they caused in the Opposition. But the conditions under which Liberal-Unionist support would be continued could not be definitely known; and its withdrawal meant the immediate fall of the Administration. Forced thus to live from day to day upon the goodwill of its allies, with few means of knowing and not always a right to inquire when that goodwill might be impaired, the Government was apparently deficient in real stability or power. Nor could it be said to make up in talent what it lacked in strength. The retirement of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach deprived the Treasury Bench of its sole remaining Conservative Parliamentarian; Mr. Goschen’s position was, at any rate for the first year, difficult and peculiar; Mr. Balfour had yet his name to make; and the choice of Mr. Smith for the leadership of the House of Commons, however justified by his courage and his character, so far as the distinction of debate was concerned, only revealed the nakedness of the land.
In all these circumstances it was with no little anxiety that the Conservative party watched theprogress of the negotiations which attended the Round Table Conference and endeavoured to estimate the effect upon those negotiations and upon the general attitude of the Liberal-Unionist party of the growing tension of Irish affairs. Mr. Chamberlain’s intentions were especially uncertain. His effective co-operation with the Conservatives had been largely facilitated by his good relations with Lord Randolph Churchill and the very considerable agreement in political matters which existed between them. But Lord Randolph Churchill had now left the Government; and how could a Radical support a policy from which a progressive Tory had been forced to separate? Moreover, Mr. Chamberlain was closely associated with Sir George Trevelyan. They had resigned together from the Home Rule Cabinet. They fought side by side in the election which followed. They were the joint representatives of Liberal Unionism at the Round Table Conference. On January 22, 1886, while the issue of that conference was still undetermined, Mr. Chamberlain was the chief speaker at a demonstration at Hawick in Sir George Trevelyan’s honour; and Sir George Trevelyan was all the time known to be earnestly and eagerly labouring for the reunion of the Liberal party. ‘It is because I believe,’ said Mr. Chamberlain on this occasion, ‘that at all events a great approximation to peace, if not a complete agreement, may be attained without a betrayal of the trust which has been reposed in us that I ask you to await with hope and confidence the result of our further deliberations.’ Lord Hartington took, indeed, no part in these negotiations. ‘Some one,’ he said, characteristically, ‘must stay at home to look after the camp;’ but he proceeded to wish the Conference ‘every measure of success,’ and he was careful not to destroy by any words of his the prospects of reconciliation.
The whole situation—already delicate, uncertain and seemingly critical—could not fail to be profoundly influenced by the course of events in Ireland. The winter of 1886 was accompanied by a widespread, though by no means general, refusal or inability to pay rents. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had never been too enthusiastic in his sympathy with the Irish landowner, and during the winter he had endeavoured to mitigate the severities of the time by the exercise of a kind of ‘dispensing power.’ Landlords were given to understand that the whole machinery of the Executive would not necessarily be at their disposal for the purpose of enforcing against their tenants claims which, in the opinion of the Chief Secretary, were harsh or unjust. This rough-and-ready method was heartily supported by Sir Redvers Buller, and to its adoption the comparative crimelessness of the winter was largely due. But, however satisfactory its results in practice might be, it was easily and justly assailable in principle; and after the Lord Chief Baron Palles had authoritatively declared that the attempt to withdraw the police from supporting the legal claims of private persons was altogether unjustifiable, the ‘dispensing power’ had to be abandoned,and the law took its regular course. The consequence of the numerous and, in some cases, ruthless evictions which followed was a formidable agrarian conspiracy. The tenants on different estates joined themselves together to offer to the landlord whatever rent they considered just, and where it was refused as insufficient they deposited the whole sum with a managing committee to be used for the purposes of resistance. This movement, known to history as the ‘Plan of Campaign,’ was the immediate result. The secondary, though not less direct, result was the advent in the House of Commons of a Land Bill and a Coercion Bill, both of which must expose to uncalculated strains the composite forces on which the Government depended.
But now and in the years that were to come the far-seeing statecraft with which the Conservative leaders had stimulated and sustained the schism in the Liberal party and had dealt with the crisis of the General Election was to be vindicated. They had built far stronger than they knew. Underneath the smooth words of the Liberal-Unionist leaders towards their former friends, and behind all the generous emotions of the Round Table Conference, stubborn brute forces were at work which, though they did not necessarily conduce to the stability of the Conservative Government, were inevitably fatal to Liberal reunion. The Liberal-Unionist members who had come back safely to Westminster, having broken with their party organisations and defied the Grand Old Man, were very particular to call themselves Liberalsand to deny that they had severed themselves in any degree from the principles and traditions of Liberalism. They banned Tory colours and Tory clubs. When they attended public meetings they took care that the complexion of the platform should be Liberal Unionist. Even Mr. Goschen, after taking office in a Conservative Government, thought it necessary to assert in his election address his unaltered and unalterable character as a Liberal, and to apologise to the Conservative electors for the strain put upon their natural partisanship by his candidature. And there is no doubt that they were perfectly honest in their belief. They were not conscious of any abandonment of principle. They declared that they agreed with the Liberal party on every other question except the Irish Question, and even in regard to Ireland there was agreement on three points out of four. The Conservatives had exacted no pledges from them. They did not feel themselves divorced from one body of doctrine and engaged to another. They remained in political opinion on all the great contested questions of the day exactly where they had been when Parliament met in January 1885, and they sat in the same places and among the same party.
But, in fact, one change had taken place in their character of more practical importance than all the symbols and nomenclature of party, and counting more in political warfare than any change of principles, however sudden or sweeping: they had changed sides. Abstract principles and party labels might be the same, but whereas in January 1886 they wishedand worked for a Liberal victory and a Conservative defeat, in January 1887 they wanted to see the Conservatives win and the Liberals beaten. Otherwise no change! No disagreement, outside Ireland, with the Liberal party—except that they sought its overthrow; no difference except the one difference which swallows up all others—the difference between alliance and war. And this difference, be it noted, was not founded on any passing mood of anger or caprice which smooth words and fair offers might dispel. It was fundamental and innate. It was the basis of the election of these seventy members. They had stood as opponents of Mr. Gladstone and all the forces he directed. They were elected for the very purpose of preventing his return to power by electors nine-tenths of whom at least were Conservatives. While they opposed Mr. Gladstone, they responded to the constituent bodies by whom they were returned. If they made friends with him—no matter upon what terms—they ceased to represent nine-tenths at least of their electorates.
Moreover, few men go through the experience of an internecine quarrel, with its taunts and charges of treachery and ingratitude exchanged between old comrades who know each other well, and with all the wrenching and tearing asunder of friendships and associations, without contracting a deep and abiding antagonism for those from whom they have broken. Sir George Trevelyan—unembarrassed by a constituency—indeed went back; but he went back alone. The rest remained to justify, bytheir consistent action, the wisdom of Conservative tactics; to prove, as the years went by, the most trustworthy supporters of the Conservative party, and in the end to secure the main control of its policy. From that strange pilgrimage—‘that bitter pilgrimage,’ as Mr. Chamberlain calls it (was it so very bitter, after all?), there could be no turning back after the first decisive steps were taken.
All this was, however, either unknown or imperfectly appreciated in 1887; and even if the Liberal-Unionists’ mind had been thoroughly understood, the uncertainty of the political situation would not have been by any means concluded. For, although there never was any real chance of Liberal reunion, there were repeated possibilities of a Conservative collapse. The Liberal Unionists were resolved to do nothing that would bring Mr. Gladstone back to power. Apart from imperilling the cause of the Union, that process would probably involve the political extinction of most of their party. But, subject to that dominant proviso, they could not feel any particular affection for Lord Salisbury’s Government. They disliked much of its action, they did not agree with its general views, and they could not be impressed by the Parliamentary exposition with which they were favoured. Their leaders were not desirous of office for its own sake; but they were gravely disquieted by the policy adopted towards Ireland, and more than once drawn to the conclusion that a wide reconstruction of the Cabinet would be necessary to maintain the reputation of the Unionist party in Parliamentand the country. In view of their evident power to change the Government at any moment by a vote, the passage of the Irish Bills through the House of Commons was attended with extreme danger to the Ministry. On more than one occasion its life depended upon a single hand, and once it was decided that that hand should be withdrawn.
About Ireland and all that concerned her Lord Randolph cared intensely. He felt responsible in no small degree for the denial of Home Rule. As to that he had no doubts; but he had always intended, and had been allowed, with the full sanction of the Cabinet, to declare that the counterpart of the assertion of the Union was a generous, sympathetic, and liberal policy towards the Irish people in regard to religion, self-government, and land. Intimately acquainted as he was with many shades of Irish opinion, he was both grieved and angered at the temper displayed by the conquerors in the years that followed their victory. To Coercion, indeed, so far as it should be necessary to maintain the law, he had made up his mind before he left the Cabinet, and he had no thoughts of going back on that; but the Bill and its enforcement stirred all the latent Liberalism in his character. He discovered, as time went on, that special legislation was not regarded by the Government as a hateful necessity; but as something good in itself, producing a salutary effect upon the Irish people and raising the temper of the Ministerial party. He was offended by the calm assumption of social and racial superiority displayed,as a matter of course, by Ministers towards their Irish opponents, and the studied disregard of Nationalist sentiments and feelings which, even when no public object was to be gained, marked these dark years of Unionist policy; and with all his determination never in any degree weakened to maintain the Union, it was in the conduct of Irish affairs from 1887 to 1890 that he realised most acutely his differences with the Government, and out of which his open quarrel with the Conservative party ultimately sprang.
The retirement of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach from the Irish office on account of his eyesight was the first blow.
‘I waited till I got home,’ Lord Randolph wrote on March 30, ‘before writing to you, as I did not know where a letter might find you: but I feel sure no letter from me was needed for you to be convinced how profoundly grieved I was at your having to give up official work, and at the cause. I knew you had trouble before you, but was in great hopes that it might have been for long delayed. I saw Roose yesterday, and it was very pleasant to hear him assert with confidence that you would be as strong and well as ever before the close of the year. Indeed, you are a great loss to Ireland and to the party and to me. Now that you are gone, there is no one in the Government I care a rap about.... I should so much like to see you and have a long talk. I have as yet seen none of my late colleagues, nor do I want to. Don’t trouble to answer this; butbelieve that there is no one who more truly and earnestly wishes for your renewed health and strength.’
The Land Bill opened various difficulties. Many of the Liberal Unionists thought it inadequate, and both Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Randolph had decided opinions of their own upon several of its most important clauses. All through the summer of 1887 these two disinherited chiefs of democracy drew closely together. They were both, as Mr. Chamberlain describes it, ‘adrift from the regular party organisations.’ Yet each possessed great influence in Parliament and the country. It was natural that the idea of some Central party should present itself to their minds in a favourable light. And, indeed, the increasing weakness of the Government in the House of Commons and the apparently uncertain character of its majority made such speculations very reasonable. On at least two occasions a defeat in Committee on the Land Bill appeared certain; and in that emergency only a coalition headed by Lord Hartington and strengthened by both Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Randolph Churchill could have prevented the return of the Home Rulers to power, with a disastrous election to follow. In many letters and in several speeches the idea of a ‘National party’ recurs. In July the situation appeared so critical and the prospects of a collapse so imminent that Lord Hartington himself seems to have regarded the reconstruction of the Government as inevitable. In that event it was known that the two democraticleaders stood together and that neither would enter any Cabinet without the other.
The crisis passed, and with it the agreement. With the best will in the world Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Randolph Churchill found it very difficult to work in close accord. Their opinions were nearly alike, but their political positions were different. They had similar aims, but divergent antagonisms. The disputes within a party are always fiercer than those between regular political opponents and their rage burns long in the breast. Mr. Chamberlain had resigned from Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet, and his attitude tended to become mainly one of opposition to him. All other political leaders, of whatever complexion, stood more or less in shadow. Lord Randolph, on the other hand, had resigned from Lord Salisbury’s Cabinet and the differences which most concerned him were those which separated him from the ‘old gang.’ Hence that strenuous alliance which was the necessary foundation of the National party was, from the very outset, subjected to perilous strains. Further difficulties arose from the topography of the House of Commons. The two friends sat on opposite sides of the House. No intercourse in the Chamber was possible without exciting notice and perhaps remark. On the other hand, the shifting course of the debates made constant consultings indispensable to harmonious action. Without them misunderstandings and disagreements were bound to arise. Both men formed strong and immediate opinions on every small point that arose. Both spoke with dangerousfacility. Both had sharp tongues and some readiness to use them when provoked. During the long-drawn session of 1887 several petty disagreements, taking the form of public expression, arose.
One of these incidents occurred during the consideration of the bankruptcy clauses of the Irish Land Bill, August 1, 1887. The subject was technical, and the issue mixed. Lord Randolph Churchill had made a short argumentative speech upon an amendment which had been moved from the Liberal-Unionist benches. Mr. Chamberlain followed, and took a totally different line. ‘The noble lord,’ he said, ‘has not told the Committee how he intends to vote on this amendment.’ Lord Randolph said he would vote with the Government. ‘I confess,’ said Mr. Chamberlain, ‘I did not come to that conclusion from his speech. I thought the noble lord intended to support the amendment, and upon that I was going to point out to him that the greater part of his speech was against it.’ He then proceeded to indicate considerable differences with Lord Randolph on the merits of the question. The House was in Committee, and both men could therefore speak again. Lord Randolph referred to Mr. Chamberlain’s opening remarks as ‘a characteristic sneer.’ ‘The right honourable gentleman evidently does not understand the process of differing from one’s party and yet supporting it. On this question of the Irish land I hold certain opinions which I have ventured—I hope, with moderation—to press very rarely—I think, only three times—on Her Majesty’s Government.And then, if the Government have not altogether agreed with these opinions, I do not think it necessary to assume that the Government are entirely wrong or that I am infallibly right. Well, on the whole, I adhere to my view of the case. I see nothing inconsistent in supporting them after the remarks I have made—not in a dictatorial, but in a pleading manner.’ Mr. Chamberlain’s retort was prompt and sharp. He denied that he had intended a sneer of any kind. He was sincerely in doubt as to how Lord Randolph would have voted. ‘I am rather glad,’ he said, ‘that this incident has occurred, inasmuch as it has enabled the noble lord to pay me a compliment; and I can assure him that, coming from him, I very much value it. The noble lord said that I, at any rate, am not one of those who differ from their party and yet support it; neither am I one who speaks one way and votes another.’ There the matter dropped so far as the House of Commons was concerned. Mr. Chamberlain wrote the next day to put matters right. ‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that in this case it isira amantium redintegratio amoris.’
Lord Randolph was not, however, easily placated. ‘I freely confess,’ he replied, ‘that I had viewed your action last night with the greatest possible surprise and some vexation, which I thought proper to express. When on Clause IV. you took similar action, hostile to my views, I refrained from any public comment. I am quite at a loss to understand why you have thought it necessary on two occasions within a week to express in a most marked manner yourentire disagreement with me; but I am sure you have excellent reasons for all you do.’
This ill-humour lasted only a few days. Within the week the two men were dining and consulting with each other on personal terms as friendly as before. Yet some scars seem to have smarted, for there are signs in Lord Randolph’s correspondence that from this date he began to draw more closely in matters political towards Lord Hartington, and less freely to confide in his former ally. One morning soon after this Lord Randolph and Mr. Chamberlain went for a walk together in Hyde Park. They discussed the whole position in the frankest way and decided by mutual consent to work independently and to pursue the objects they sought in common by separate paths. Thus ended that intimate political understanding which had united these fiery spirits during the period of storm in a comradeship which had not been without its effects upon public affairs. They parted, with many expressions of goodwill, to follow after a time different roads and to face in the end contrasted fortunes. Their alliance had been brief. Even in the few years with which this account is concerned, they will be seen in sharp antagonism. Yet both were accustomed to preserve, amid the inexhaustible vicissitudes of politics, pleasant memories of those exciting and eventful days.
With this separation the prospects of a National party fade again into that dreamland whence so many have wished to recall them. Few, indeed, are the politicians who have not cherished these visions attimes when ordinary party machinery is not at their disposal. To build from the rock a great new party—free alike from vested interests and from holy formulas, able to deal with national problems on their merits, patient to respect the precious bequests of the past, strong to drive forward the wheels of progress—is without doubt a worthy ideal. Alas, that the degeneracy of man should exclude it for ever from this wicked world!
Late in August Ministers determined to put their powers under the Crimes Act into force. All the independent men who kept them in office, seem to have been pained and dismayed by this decision. They feared its effects upon the majority, and doubted its necessity in Ireland.
‘I am desperately puzzled,’ wrote Lord Randolph to Lord Hartington (August 20), ‘to know what line to take about this last action of the Government. I disapprove of it profoundly, but distrust my own opinion—all the more that I do not know what special information Ministers have to support their action. There is unquestionably a smack of vindictiveness about the proclamation,prima facie, which the country will be quick to feel. This, coupled with their singular treatment of the Land Act, cannot produce a good effect. I am anxious to know whether, before their final decision, they secured your concurrence, as in that case I should keep my opinions to myself and give a silent vote in their support.
‘I have a letter from Chamberlain showing considerable irritation and impatience at your lastcommunication to him, and great alarm for the future and his future; but he says he has decided to postpone any action tending to emphasise any difference of opinion between yourself and him. This, however, was written apparently before he was aware of the proclamation of the League and I do not know what effect that may produce on him.’
Lord Hartington’s measured reply makes plain the debt which the Conservative Government owed to this grave, calm, slow-moving man:—