CHAPTER XXITHE PARNELL COMMISSION

1889Æt.40

Lord Randolph Churchill’s right to stand was, of course, incontestable. Compact or no compact, his claim upon the Liberal-Unionist vote was strong. He had polled 4,216 Conservative votes against Mr. Bright himself in that very constituency. He had only been defeated by 773. The Conservative organisation was unanimous in his favour. He was ‘idolised’ (this is the word that is used most frequently in contemporary accounts) by the rank and file. They outnumbered by three or four to one theLiberal Unionists in the division. Their votes had contributed four-fifths of the poll of all the Liberal-Unionist members in the city. Lord Randolph had himself been the principal agent by which the return of these gentlemen had been secured. On the day after the vacancy was declared theBirmingham Daily Post, the official Liberal-Unionist organ, published an article supporting his candidature and giving the Conservatives reason to believe that it would be accepted by both parties; nor did Mr. Chamberlain himself deny that if Lord Randolph came forward it would be his duty to support him. The only question was: Should he come forward?

No sooner was Mr. Bright dead than the Birmingham Conservatives appealed to Lord Randolph. All his friends and well-wishers pressed him to stand. Mr. Jennings was insistent. FitzGibbon urged him to ‘chuck another big town’ at the ‘old gang.’ ‘It would be like the Paris elections to Boulanger,’ said others. Colonel North, with the blunt decision of a business man, telegraphed to him from Santiago: ‘Be sure contest Birmingham.’ Faithful supporters offered to place their seats at his disposal in case of accidents. Lord Randolph does not seem to have anticipated any opposition from Mr. Chamberlain; yet it should have been sufficiently evident that Mr. Chamberlain’s interests and inclinations were not likely to be served by the establishment of ‘Two kings in Brentford.’ So long as they were allies working in concert, it might be—perhaps it must be—endured. Now that they were separatedand pursuing independent, and even divergent, courses the idea was intolerable. No difficulty or dispute was, however, apprehended. On April 2, when the writ was moved, Lord Randolph Churchill had every reason to suppose that complete unanimity prevailed. A deputation of Birmingham Tories waited on him at the House of Commons on that day with a hearty invitation. It seemed that his election was secured, and that a giant majority was certain.

And here I leave the account to Mr. Jennings:—

Mr. Jennings’s Account of the Birmingham Affair.Tuesday, April 2, 1889.On my going to the House I met R. C. in the lobby. He drew me aside, and whispered that the deputation would be here presently. Would I meet them in the outer lobby, bring them inside, and talk to them till he came back? He was just going to see Hicks-Beach a few moments. He was turning away, but came back and said: ‘May I ask you to do me another favour? Go and draw up a draft farewell address to the electors of South Paddington and an address to the electors of Birmingham.’ ‘When do you want them?’ ‘This afternoon.’ he said. After a few more words he went away.I made arrangements with Mr. Mattinson (M.P. for a Liverpool division) to meet the deputation while I went into the library to write out the addresses. I had finished the one for South Paddington and was half-way through the other when Mattinson came to me and told me the deputation were outside. I went to them, and had a little chat. They were radiant, having no reason whatever to anticipate a refusal. Mr. Rowlands told me R. C. was sure of a majority of between 2,000 and 3,000. After a talk I wentback to finish the address, but met E. Beckett in one of the corridors. He said; ‘Have you heard what he has done?’ ‘No.’ ‘He has left it to Hartington and Chamberlain to decide what he will do.’ I was completely bewildered, and went into the smoking-room to look for R. C. Directly he saw me he came up and led me out into the corridor. There we walked up and down a long time, talking about it. He said he had been with Hicks-Beach, who was dead against his going to Birmingham. While they two were talking a knock came at the door and someone said Lord Hartington particularly wished to see Lord R. C. R. C. said: ‘Let him come in here.’ H. did so, and said Chamberlain was ‘furious’ at the idea of R. C. going to Birmingham—that he was ‘in a state of extreme irritability.’ Would they (Beach and Churchill) mind having Chamberlain in to hear what he had to say? Churchill said no, but he would go away for half an hour and leave them to discuss the matter. He would abide by their decision.When he told me this I said: ‘Surely you must know what their decision will be? Why, they would not want half a minute to decide that you shall not go. Chamberlain is "Boss" in Birmingham, and he means to remain so. He does not want you there, dividing his popularity with him or, most likely, taking the lion’s share of it.’ And so on.R. C. did not seem to think it so certain that they would decide against him and said, moreover, that he could not take the responsibility of dividing the Unionist party. After a time he said he would go back and hear their decision. In the meanwhile Akers-Douglas had carried off the Birmingham deputation to his own room.I should think about a quarter of an hour elapsed, when R. C. reappeared in the lobby, from the House, and made for the outer door. He saw me and said: ‘Where are the deputation—in the Conference Room?’ I told him where they were. ‘It is all over,’ he said. ‘I cannot stand for the seat. I’ll tell you all about it by-and-by.’I would not go into the room, because I am not on terms with Akers-Douglas; but when a division-bell rang, and Akers-Douglas came out, I went in. The deputation were very incensed and loudly declared they had been cheated, and would go back and vote for the Gladstonian candidate. R. C. tried to smooth them down, but it was quite useless....

Mr. Jennings’s Account of the Birmingham Affair.

Tuesday, April 2, 1889.

On my going to the House I met R. C. in the lobby. He drew me aside, and whispered that the deputation would be here presently. Would I meet them in the outer lobby, bring them inside, and talk to them till he came back? He was just going to see Hicks-Beach a few moments. He was turning away, but came back and said: ‘May I ask you to do me another favour? Go and draw up a draft farewell address to the electors of South Paddington and an address to the electors of Birmingham.’ ‘When do you want them?’ ‘This afternoon.’ he said. After a few more words he went away.

I made arrangements with Mr. Mattinson (M.P. for a Liverpool division) to meet the deputation while I went into the library to write out the addresses. I had finished the one for South Paddington and was half-way through the other when Mattinson came to me and told me the deputation were outside. I went to them, and had a little chat. They were radiant, having no reason whatever to anticipate a refusal. Mr. Rowlands told me R. C. was sure of a majority of between 2,000 and 3,000. After a talk I wentback to finish the address, but met E. Beckett in one of the corridors. He said; ‘Have you heard what he has done?’ ‘No.’ ‘He has left it to Hartington and Chamberlain to decide what he will do.’ I was completely bewildered, and went into the smoking-room to look for R. C. Directly he saw me he came up and led me out into the corridor. There we walked up and down a long time, talking about it. He said he had been with Hicks-Beach, who was dead against his going to Birmingham. While they two were talking a knock came at the door and someone said Lord Hartington particularly wished to see Lord R. C. R. C. said: ‘Let him come in here.’ H. did so, and said Chamberlain was ‘furious’ at the idea of R. C. going to Birmingham—that he was ‘in a state of extreme irritability.’ Would they (Beach and Churchill) mind having Chamberlain in to hear what he had to say? Churchill said no, but he would go away for half an hour and leave them to discuss the matter. He would abide by their decision.

When he told me this I said: ‘Surely you must know what their decision will be? Why, they would not want half a minute to decide that you shall not go. Chamberlain is "Boss" in Birmingham, and he means to remain so. He does not want you there, dividing his popularity with him or, most likely, taking the lion’s share of it.’ And so on.

R. C. did not seem to think it so certain that they would decide against him and said, moreover, that he could not take the responsibility of dividing the Unionist party. After a time he said he would go back and hear their decision. In the meanwhile Akers-Douglas had carried off the Birmingham deputation to his own room.

I should think about a quarter of an hour elapsed, when R. C. reappeared in the lobby, from the House, and made for the outer door. He saw me and said: ‘Where are the deputation—in the Conference Room?’ I told him where they were. ‘It is all over,’ he said. ‘I cannot stand for the seat. I’ll tell you all about it by-and-by.’

I would not go into the room, because I am not on terms with Akers-Douglas; but when a division-bell rang, and Akers-Douglas came out, I went in. The deputation were very incensed and loudly declared they had been cheated, and would go back and vote for the Gladstonian candidate. R. C. tried to smooth them down, but it was quite useless....

The deputation were not alone in their disgust. Mr. Jennings was so vexed by what he conceived to be the weak and capricious abandonment of a cherished plan that for several days he could hardly bring himself to discuss it with Lord Randolph. His other friends were puzzled and discouraged. They ridiculed the impartiality of the committee of three. Chamberlain was an interested party, with a perfectly open and declared wish to prevent Lord Randolph standing. Hartington as leader of the Liberal Unionists could not act against the interests of his own followers. Beach, though a staunch friend, was a member of the Government. No wonder they had been able to come so promptly to a decision. To Lord Randolph himself the result was a cruel disappointment. He was isolated. He had few loyal followers and many powerful enemies. He could ill afford to surrender such advantages as he possessed. The others were armed with all the resources of a vast confederacy. Of his little he gave freely. In their prosperity and power they accepted the sacrifice as a matter of course. Mr. Chamberlain, it is true, was careful to say publicly[67]that Lord Randolph’s action was ‘in loyal accord with the arrangements made with the Conservativeleaders, including himself, in 1886,’ and to emphasise his ‘honourable determination not to break the national compact of which he was a chief party in 1886.’ But theTimes, then in the closest agreement with the governing forces of the Conservative party, though admitting that Lord Randolph had acted ‘with thorough loyalty to the great cause that unites us all,’ permitted itself (April 6) to observe that ‘if the Birmingham Conservatives had any right to be aggrieved at the loss of their pet candidate it was to him, and to no one else, that they ought to address their complaints.’

The dispute was continued passionately at Birmingham. Mr. John Albert Bright was duly brought forward as the Liberal-Unionist candidate for the Central Division. The Conservative leaders there—Rowlands, Sawyer, Satchell-Hopkins, Moore Bayley—utterly refused to support him. They were local men, and against them were arrayed the whole authority of their party chiefs and the force and influence of a great national politician. But they had fought hard battles before, and although they thought themselves deserted by Lord Randolph Churchill they faced the situation with obstinacy. They declared that the Liberal Unionists had broken faith with them and that Mr. Chamberlain had intrigued and used unfair pressure to prevent Lord Randolph from standing. Their determination not to support Mr. J. A. Bright was endorsed by their followers. For several days it seemed as if the Gladstonian candidate, Mr. Phipson Beale, would carry the seat.

So critical was the position that Mr. Balfour was hurried down to restore peace. A crowded meeting was held, at which Mr. Rowlands was bold enough to say that the Birmingham Conservatives were not prepared to bow down to anything that might be settled in London, and the more vigorous members of the Midland Conservative Club shouted ‘No surrender!’ Mr. Balfour was at his best. He dwelt upon Lord Randolph’s refusal to stand—‘he had absolutely declined to do so.’ There was almost a suggestion that the speaker doubted the wisdom of that decision—but there it was! He then asserted the unimpeachable right of the local Conservatives to choose their own candidate. He deprecated strongly the interference of London politicians in local matters. But he urged them, in the free exercise of their discretion, utterly uninfluenced by such interference, to oppose the return of a Gladstonian. He carried the meeting with him. The local leaders were divided. Some acquiesced; some stood aside for a time. The part Mr. Rowlands had played had been too bold and prominent for retreat or pardon. Birmingham politics are bitter. Notwithstanding that every Conservative organisation in the city passed resolutions urging him to retain his leadership, he resigned his offices and withdrew altogether from public life. He should be remembered for having carried out the arrangement of 1886, whereby the Conservatives gave their full support to the Radical Unionists, ‘asking for no return, making no boast or taunt,’ on which arrangementMr. Chamberlain’s second empire in Birmingham was ultimately established; and also for his firmness and courage amid peculiar and uncertain circumstances. Mr. John Albert Bright was elected by a large majority, practically the whole Conservative party having voted in his support.

Mr. Chamberlain and his friends, like practical people, said nothing until the election was over and their candidate was returned. Then he addressed a letter to the Birmingham papers challenging the local Conservatives to make good their charges of bad faith and intrigue. ‘I am perfectly ready,’ he wrote, ‘to accept full responsibility for the advice which, in common with Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Lord Hartington, was tendered to Lord Randolph Churchill when he asked our opinions. I had no right and no wish to conceal my view that Lord Randolph Churchill’s candidature might possibly be unsuccessful, and would certainly be regarded with disfavour by Liberal Unionists in all parts of the country, as taking from the party one of the comparatively few seats held by them in 1886. While, however, I maintained this opinion, I expressed my readiness to do all in my power to promote his return if he should finally decide to come forward.’ To the challenge to produce proofs of a broken compact the Conservatives replied with vigour and volubility. A whole page of theBirmingham Gazettewas occupied with their statements, which appear to have been both explicit and complete. But as the dispute turned largely on the exact terms of the ‘understanding,’ whether thoseterms constituted a ‘compact,’ and how far this compact, if it existed, was modified by a general compact relating to Liberal-Unionist seats throughout the country, and as both parties relied mainly on their recollection of conversations which had taken place at intervals during the preceding year, no definite issue could be reached. But the Birmingham Conservatives were provoked anew by the triumphant resolution passed by the Liberal Unionists affirming that the recent election had proved their ‘preponderance of power’ in the Central Division, and the quarrel was protracted with the rancour of civil war and the amenities of political discussion in Birmingham.

These proceedings, which were reported very fully throughout the country, forced Lord Randolph Churchill to publish on April 23 a detailed statement in the form of a letter to Mr. Chamberlain. After dealing at length with the questions of the compact he continued:—

My going to Birmingham as candidate or not going always practically rested with you, as you perfectly well know, and you decided, no doubt on public grounds alone, that I was not to go. Now you have had your way, you have seated your nominee. I may claim to have assisted you materially, not only by yielding to your desire that I should refuse the request of the Birmingham Conservatives, but also by counsel, oral and written, as Mr. Rowlands and others can testify, to my friends in Birmingham to support Mr. John Albert Bright. If ever a man was compelled by duty to be magnanimous, or could afford to be magnanimous, it was yourself after such a conspicuous success. Your position demanded that you should neglect to noticeany words which legitimate disappointment may have prompted, that you should do your best to soothe irritated but just susceptibilities, that you should suggest arrangements by which, in future electoral contests, the two sections of the Unionist party might work together cordially for their mutual advantage.How widely different, however, has been your action! How curious the return you make to the Conservatives who voted in such large numbers for Mr. Bright, and to me, who thought I was your friend, and who certainly—to put the matter in the most negative and colourless manner—did nothing to interfere with Mr. Bright’s return.As far as I am concerned, you endeavour to embroil me and my friends in Birmingham by representing, and by seeking to make it appear, that I have played fast and loose with them, although in dealing with the incident I have regarded your interests a great deal more than my own; and in respect of the Conservative party in Birmingham they are rewarded by an acrimonious attack from you and their leaders, by contumely and denunciation being poured upon men to whom they owe much and whose services they highly value; and, finally, in order that insult may be heaped upon injury, you allow the Liberal-Unionist Association, which is completely under your control, at a meeting over which you presided, to set forth in a formal and written resolution an assertion so questionable as to be almost ridiculous, to the effect that the recent election has shown ‘that the preponderance of political power in Central Birmingham is with the Liberal-Unionist party.’I have entered into this controversy with you with much reluctance and have in no way sought it; but I owe too much to the Conservatives in Birmingham not to take up pen in their behalf when, as it appears to me, they are treated with unqualified injustice.

How widely different, however, has been your action! How curious the return you make to the Conservatives who voted in such large numbers for Mr. Bright, and to me, who thought I was your friend, and who certainly—to put the matter in the most negative and colourless manner—did nothing to interfere with Mr. Bright’s return.

As far as I am concerned, you endeavour to embroil me and my friends in Birmingham by representing, and by seeking to make it appear, that I have played fast and loose with them, although in dealing with the incident I have regarded your interests a great deal more than my own; and in respect of the Conservative party in Birmingham they are rewarded by an acrimonious attack from you and their leaders, by contumely and denunciation being poured upon men to whom they owe much and whose services they highly value; and, finally, in order that insult may be heaped upon injury, you allow the Liberal-Unionist Association, which is completely under your control, at a meeting over which you presided, to set forth in a formal and written resolution an assertion so questionable as to be almost ridiculous, to the effect that the recent election has shown ‘that the preponderance of political power in Central Birmingham is with the Liberal-Unionist party.’

I have entered into this controversy with you with much reluctance and have in no way sought it; but I owe too much to the Conservatives in Birmingham not to take up pen in their behalf when, as it appears to me, they are treated with unqualified injustice.

There the matter ends so far as this account is concerned; for it is not necessary to follow the longand vexatious discussions by which, after years had passed, the representation of the Edgbaston Division in lieu of the Central Division was ultimately conceded to the Conservative party. Lord Randolph’s decision has been exposed to various criticisms, but the explanation is not obscure. He looked back with pride to the great compact of 1886. He could not bear to take action which would be misrepresented as hostile to the fundamental basis of the Unionist alliance; and he knew well that the forces for influencing public opinion against him were strong enough, whatever the actual rights and wrongs of the Birmingham dispute, to create that impression. This reasoning may have been sufficient; but it does not cover the fact of his submitting his claims to the arbitrament of such a committee. Whatever the circumstances, he himself should have decided. The responsibility was his alone; and although it might be prudent to receive the counsels of Lord Hartington and of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and to hear Mr. Chamberlain’s opinion, he should have informed them, and not they him, of the decision that was finally taken.

It should be said that Lord Randolph Churchill never considered that Mr. Chamberlain had treated him with any want of candour in this affair. He did not think he had been generous in action or in victory. But he recognised that a natural divergence had opened between them and, this, although acute, was confined to political and public limits and did not extend to personal relations. To theend of his life he was accustomed to say that their only quarrel was over the Aston Riots; and they met, though less frequently, on courteous terms. The blow was a bitter one to Lord Randolph. His enforced desertion of his Birmingham friends cut him to the quick. As he came out of the Whips’ room, where he had given his answer to the deputation, a friend noticed upon his face the shadow of that drawn and ghastly look with which it was in a few years to be stamped.

So considerable an interval elapsed after the Suakin debates before Lord Randolph Churchill again addressed the House of Commons that he provoked a laugh by drolly asking ‘the indulgence usually accorded to a new member.’ The session of 1889 had almost reached its close without the question of making the necessary provision by Parliamentary grant for the children of the Prince of Wales having been debated. When he rose (July 26), in succession to Mr. Bradlaugh, from his accustomed seat immediately behind the Treasury Bench, the Conservative members seemed in some doubt as to his intention, and he was greeted by only a very faint cheer. But his first words made his position manifest: ‘I have always held an opinion, amounting to absolute conviction, as to the indisputable right of the Crown to apply to Parliament to make provision for the Royal Family and to rely upon the liberality of Parliament in respect of such applications.’ Then followed one of the most happy speeches he ever achieved. The argument, which was elaborate and precise, was concerned largely with figures andprecedents showing the small cost of the British Monarchy compared with other forms of Government, and the conduct of the reigning Sovereign with respect to claims upon Parliament in comparison with some of her later predecessors. The constitutional doctrine involved and the mode of presenting such a case to a popular assembly are worthy of the attention of politicians; but the whole was enlivened and adorned by a sustained sparkle of what in those days had come to be called ‘Randolphian humour,’ which kept the rapidly assembled House in continued laughter and applause. When, for instance, he referred to Mr. Mundella as having ‘addressed his constituents in Paradise—Square,’ with just the slightest pause after ‘Paradise,’ the whole House collapsed; and Mr. Gladstone, whose sense of humour was somewhat uneven, is said to have laughed more than at any other jest he had ever heard in Parliament.

The effect of this speech, which occupied more than an hour, was to produce for the moment a complete reconciliation between Lord Randolph and his party. All about him as he sat down was a stir of enthusiasm. The Treasury Bench turned a row of delighted faces towards him. Among his papers I find a bundle of letters, full of gratitude and praise, written from the House by Conservative members while the impression was strong in their minds. But Lord Randolph Churchill knew he had that to say two days later in the Midlands which would speedily dissipate such transient and uncourted approbation.

On successive evenings at Walsall and Birminghamhe outlined an extensive, yet not unpractical, programme of domestic legislation, dealing especially with land and housing, and with temperance. A single extract will show how far his mind had travelled from those serene pastures where the Government lambs were nourished:—

...The great obstacle to temperance reform undoubtedly is the wholesale manufacturers of alcoholic drink. Those manufacturers are small in number, but they are very wealthy. They exercise enormous influence. Every publican in the country almost, certainly nine-tenths of the publicans in the country, are their abject and tied slaves. Public-houses in nine cases out of ten are tied houses. There is absolutely no free-will, and these wholesale manufacturers of alcoholic drink have an enormously powerful political organisation, so powerful and so highly prepared that it is almost like a Prussian army: it can be mobilised at any moment and brought to bear on the point which is threatened. Up to now this great class has successfully intimidated a Government and successfully intimidated members of Parliament; in fact, they have directly overthrown two Governments, and I do not wonder, I do not blame Governments for being a little timid of meddling with them. But, in view of the awful misery which does arise from the practically unlimited and uncontrolled sale of alcoholic drinks in this country, I tell you my frank opinion—the time has already arrived when we must try our strength with that party.... Do imagine what a prodigious social reform, what a bound in advance we should have made if we could curb and control this destructive and devilish liquor traffic, if we could manage to remove from amongst us what I have called on former occasions the fatal facility of recourse to the beerhouse which besets every man and woman, and really one may almost say every child, of the working classes in England.

The next day he spoke at Birmingham. Ireland was his principal theme. For the first time on this subject since he resigned he unburdened his mind without restraint. He showed how much he hated the harsh and ill-tempered opinions then so powerful. He advocated two great measures by which the Conservative party might with wisdom and propriety assuage the bitter discontent of the Irish people—Local Government and land purchase. He even named the sum of money for which the credit of the United Kingdom might be pledged to create a peasant proprietary. ‘Something like one hundred millions,’ he said; and the audience gasped suspiciously. What folly to think the Conservative party would touch such measures! And yet they have passed them into law!

Surely the reader will linger on the wit and wisdom of this concluding passage, remembering always how great a price in influence and personal fortunes the speaker willingly paid for the privilege of telling the truth:—

I dare say many of us have read, and a great many of you remember, a charming novel of Mr. Dickens, ‘Our Mutual Friend’; and it may be in your recollection that there was a certain character in that novel of great interest, the delineation of which, by Mr. Dickens, is a subject of great amusement to the reader. His name was Mr. Podsnap; and, if you recollect, Mr. Podsnap was a person in easy circumstances, who was very content with himself and was extremely surprised that all the world was not equally contented like him; and if anyone suggested to Mr. Podsnap that there were possible causes of discontent among thepeople Mr. Podsnap was very much annoyed. He declared that the person making such a suggestion was flying in the face of Providence. He declared that the subject was an unpleasant one; he would go so far as to say it was an odious one; and he refused to consider it, he refused to admit it, and with a wave of his arm, you recollect, he used to sweep it away and to remove it off the face of the earth.It would be a great mistake to suppose that Mr. Podsnap is a character of fiction. I know him well. I often meet Mr. Podsnap in London society. Mr. Podsnap hates me; he looks upon me as a person of most immoral and most evil tendency; but, with that morbid love of contemplating and prying into things essentially evil which is possessed, I think, by a great many good men, Mr. Podsnap cannot restrain himself sometimes from conversing with me, and this is the sort of remark Mr. Podsnap makes when he accosts me. He says, ‘Young man’—he always begins in that way, though I believe he is not very much older than myself—he says, ‘Are you not more and more impressed day by day with the constant proof and illustration of the hopeless and hereditary wickedness of the Irish people?’ I say ‘No;’ that I have had some experience of the Irish people, and I have lived amongst them for some years, and that I have always found them a very pleasant people and a very amiable people, and very easy to get on with if you take them the right way. And then Mr. Podsnap is painfully annoyed; he shows his indignation, he declares that the subject is an unpleasant one, and he will go so far as to say an odious one. He refuses to admit it, he refuses to consider it, and he removes it and sweeps it away from off the face of the earth. Well, sometimes I like, when I have nothing better to do, to try and draw Mr. Podsnap, and I go up to him and I ask him whether he does not think on the whole it might be a good thing after balancing everything—if we could find some dodge which might keep the Irish members out of prison. And then Mr. Podsnap is startled, and he is much annoyed, and he says, ‘Do you meanseriously to argue that the Irish members, if they had their deserts, ought not to be hanged, drawn and quartered in front of Westminster Hall?’ Then I reply that no doubt that is one way of dealing with the Irish members and one way of governing Ireland, but that it appears to me a somewhat singular way of maintaining the Parliamentary union between two countries; and then Mr. Podsnap is very wroth, and he sweeps me away and he removes me and the Irish members and Ireland from off the face of the earth. But Mr. Podsnap is not a bad fellow on the whole, so long as you do not pay the smallest attention to him. But undoubtedly, at the present moment, what Mr. Dickens calls Podsnappery is rampant and rife in London, and I think this Podsnappery we ought to make a great effort to put down.I am certain that intolerance and contempt of Irish opinion and prejudice, hopeless prejudice against Irish ideas, produce a corresponding rancour and hatred among the Irish people against us, and terribly envenom the feelings and the relations between the two countries. No, let us rather have recourse, and confident recourse, to justice, to liberality, to generosity and, above all, to sympathy in our Irish policy. You may be certain of this, that a free manifestation of those qualities in your Irish policy would work such a miracle in Ireland as you have no conception of. I hope most earnestly that I shall never live to see the day when there may be established in Ireland a separate Parliament and a separate Government; but I hope equally earnestly and equally strongly, that I may live to see the day, and that possibly it may be in my power somewhat to contribute to the advent of that time, and that that time may not be at any very distant or remote date, when the Irish shall not only be prosperous, but free—free in the full and proper sense of the word—free as the English, as the Scotch, and as the Welsh are free; and when a strong conviction of the benefits and a strong affection for the ties of union with Great Britain shall pervade and fill Irish hearts and minds, when the recollectionsof the former strife of nations shall be all forgotten, and when our children shall wonderingly inquire of us how it was that through so many weary years Ireland was a source of danger and of distress to the British Empire.

It would be a great mistake to suppose that Mr. Podsnap is a character of fiction. I know him well. I often meet Mr. Podsnap in London society. Mr. Podsnap hates me; he looks upon me as a person of most immoral and most evil tendency; but, with that morbid love of contemplating and prying into things essentially evil which is possessed, I think, by a great many good men, Mr. Podsnap cannot restrain himself sometimes from conversing with me, and this is the sort of remark Mr. Podsnap makes when he accosts me. He says, ‘Young man’—he always begins in that way, though I believe he is not very much older than myself—he says, ‘Are you not more and more impressed day by day with the constant proof and illustration of the hopeless and hereditary wickedness of the Irish people?’ I say ‘No;’ that I have had some experience of the Irish people, and I have lived amongst them for some years, and that I have always found them a very pleasant people and a very amiable people, and very easy to get on with if you take them the right way. And then Mr. Podsnap is painfully annoyed; he shows his indignation, he declares that the subject is an unpleasant one, and he will go so far as to say an odious one. He refuses to admit it, he refuses to consider it, and he removes it and sweeps it away from off the face of the earth. Well, sometimes I like, when I have nothing better to do, to try and draw Mr. Podsnap, and I go up to him and I ask him whether he does not think on the whole it might be a good thing after balancing everything—if we could find some dodge which might keep the Irish members out of prison. And then Mr. Podsnap is startled, and he is much annoyed, and he says, ‘Do you meanseriously to argue that the Irish members, if they had their deserts, ought not to be hanged, drawn and quartered in front of Westminster Hall?’ Then I reply that no doubt that is one way of dealing with the Irish members and one way of governing Ireland, but that it appears to me a somewhat singular way of maintaining the Parliamentary union between two countries; and then Mr. Podsnap is very wroth, and he sweeps me away and he removes me and the Irish members and Ireland from off the face of the earth. But Mr. Podsnap is not a bad fellow on the whole, so long as you do not pay the smallest attention to him. But undoubtedly, at the present moment, what Mr. Dickens calls Podsnappery is rampant and rife in London, and I think this Podsnappery we ought to make a great effort to put down.

I am certain that intolerance and contempt of Irish opinion and prejudice, hopeless prejudice against Irish ideas, produce a corresponding rancour and hatred among the Irish people against us, and terribly envenom the feelings and the relations between the two countries. No, let us rather have recourse, and confident recourse, to justice, to liberality, to generosity and, above all, to sympathy in our Irish policy. You may be certain of this, that a free manifestation of those qualities in your Irish policy would work such a miracle in Ireland as you have no conception of. I hope most earnestly that I shall never live to see the day when there may be established in Ireland a separate Parliament and a separate Government; but I hope equally earnestly and equally strongly, that I may live to see the day, and that possibly it may be in my power somewhat to contribute to the advent of that time, and that that time may not be at any very distant or remote date, when the Irish shall not only be prosperous, but free—free in the full and proper sense of the word—free as the English, as the Scotch, and as the Welsh are free; and when a strong conviction of the benefits and a strong affection for the ties of union with Great Britain shall pervade and fill Irish hearts and minds, when the recollectionsof the former strife of nations shall be all forgotten, and when our children shall wonderingly inquire of us how it was that through so many weary years Ireland was a source of danger and of distress to the British Empire.

These two speeches in the Midlands, especially the first, at Walsall, were a terrible rock of offence. The landlords, the brewers and the opponents of land purchase were incensed and alarmed. ‘They are all up in arms against you,’ wrote Jennings sadly from the House of Commons. ‘The speech on the Royal Grants did you so much good with the party, and now ... the Conservatives say you are nothing better than a Socialist, and the Radicals are, for a wonder, equally hostile. They are all agreed in denouncing you. The wind is due east, I must admit, and very keen and biting.’

‘I am sorry to have to tell you,’ wrote a Conservative member who had been pressing Lord Randolph to visit his constituency, ‘that the local Fathers in * * * think that in the interests of the party it would be undesirable to hold a meeting there, and that you would not meet with a good reception from our own people. All of them expressed the opinion that they could not afford to offend the brewers and publicans, who have done so much for us in the past, and that any scheme proposing a loan of money to Ireland to buy out Irish landlords was most unpopular and regarded as Gladstonianism pure and simple.’

In Birmingham especially a bad impression was created, and Lord Randolph’s influence, already terribly injured by his refusal to stand, was furtherweakened. It need scarcely be said that Mr. Chamberlain was much shocked by the open profession of doctrines so advanced in constituencies which bordered on his own, and on the first convenient occasion he felt it his duty to administer a suitable rebuke:—

I observed the other day [he said] that a most distinguished nobleman, Lord Randolph Churchill, addressed various speeches to audiences in Birmingham and the neighbourhood, and that he declared himself to be a Tory. I can only say his programme is a programme which, I am perfectly certain, will be absolutely repudiated by Lord Salisbury and Mr. Balfour. I dare say you have often seen at a bazaar or elsewhere a patchwork quilt brought out for sale, which is made up of scraps from old dresses and from left-off garments which the maker has been able to borrow for the purpose. I am told that in America they call a thing of this kind a ‘crazy quilt.’ I think that the fancy programme which Lord Randolph Churchill put before you the other day may well be described as a ‘crazy quilt.’ He borrowed from the cast-off policy of all the extreme men of all the different sections. He took his Socialism from Mr. Burns and Mr. Hyndman; he took his Local Option from Sir Wilfrid Lawson; he took his Egyptian policy from Mr. Illingworth; he took his metropolitan reform from Mr. Stuart; and he took his Irish policy from Mr. John Morley. Is this Toryism?

All this was especially edifying, pronounced as it was within four years of the ‘Unauthorised Programme.’ But Lord Randolph was not, as some who wrote to him seemed to suppose, trying to ingratiate himself with the House of Commons Tories, or seeking to win re-entry to the Cabinet. ‘I decline,’ he said sardonically, ‘to enter into competition with Mr. Chamberlain for the smiles ofHatfield.’ He understood perfectly what reception the ruling class in the Conservative party would accord to his democratic ideas. The worthy Conservative gentlemen who had pressed their congratulations upon him after his speech on the Royal Grants could hardly restrain their indignation now. Finding themselves at one time in complete agreement with him, and at another in vehement dissent, they assumed, not unnaturally, that he was unbalanced and insincere. Yet these speeches, variously greeted as they were, arose from the same logical and coherent system of political thought to which, rightly or wrongly, he had always adhered through good and evil fortune. The principal speeches which he made in 1889 almost covered, and were designed to cover, the whole field of ‘Tory Democracy.’ In justifying the Royal Grants he had affirmed that loyalty to the Crown which every true Tory Democrat must be prepared to practise and sustain. At Walsall and Birmingham he urged that energetic sympathy with practical social reform and indifference to selfish class instincts which alone can convince democracy that time-honoured institutions are not merely safeguards, but may be made effective instruments of progress. In Wales during the autumn he championed the Established Church. In Scotland later in the year he defended the Union. Something was, however, still wanting to complete his political faith. It remained to assert the sanctity of those constitutional barriers by which liberty and justice are secured. That omission the near future was to repair.

"Iam non ad culmina rerumInjustos crevisse queror: tolluntur in altumUt lapsu graviore ruant."Claudian.

ITis no part of my task to examine the proceedings of the Special Commission, nor to supply a narrative of that long-drawn and embittered controversy known as ‘Parnellism and Crime.’ Those are matters of history, and even such allusion to their course and character as might have been required for the coherency of this story seems unnecessary in view of an account recently given to the world by Mr. Morley,[68]combining the vivid and picturesque character which only an eye-witness can command, with that brevity in regard to general questions indispensable to biography. I am concerned only to pick out Lord Randolph Churchill’s part and to trace the steps which led him to an utter breach with the Government and quarrel with the Conservative party; and this can be done mainly in his own words.

The letter involving Mr. Parnell in complicity with the Phoenix Park murders was printed infacsimile in theTimesof April 18, 1887, and was doubtless intended to be a spur to the Unionist party on the day of the introduction of the Coercion Bill. That same night Mr. Parnell declared it to be a forgery. His denial was received with incredulity by the Ministerialists and he was at once asked why he did not take action for libel. His reasons for not doing so were apparently that he and his advisers had no confidence that their case would be considered without prejudice by a Middlesex jury, and that if a favourable verdict were obtained in Ireland similar English suspicions would deprive it of moral effect. No action being taken by Mr. Parnell, a motion was made by a private member for a Select Committee of Inquiry. This was debated on May 5, and the Select Committee was refused by the Government. Lord Randolph, who on this occasion, as on various other questions of privilege, was consulted by Mr. Smith, supported the Government decision, and warmly defended the Leader of the House from attacks which were made upon him. Although the murder charges against Mr. Parnell were repeated in various forms at partisan meetings, and even received countenance from several of the Conservative Ministers, the whole matter lapsed so far as Parliament was concerned, and would never have been resuscitated but for the perversity of chance.

An action for libel against theTimeswas instituted in November 1887 by an Irishman who had sat in the late Parliament as a follower of Mr. Parnell and who felt himself damaged by the variousallegations contained in the series of letters headed ‘Parnellism and Crime.’ This suit was tried before Lord Coleridge in July 1888. TheTimeshappened to be defended by Sir Richard Webster, the principal law officer of the Crown—acting, however, as he explained, to his own satisfaction, purely professionally and not as a member of the Government. In the course of the trial the Attorney-General repeated during three days the general charges and allegations of theTimesarticles, and produced a further batch of incriminating letters alleged to be signed by the Irish leader. On this the Parliamentary case was reopened, and Parnell himself demanded a Select Committee of Inquiry. The Government, as before, refused the Committee, but—to general astonishment—they now proceeded to offer, and finally to insist upon, a Commission of three judges with statutory power to inquire not merely into the specific matter of the letters, but rovingly into the whole of the charges and allegations of theTimes, whether against members of Parliament or ‘other persons.’ The necessary Bill was introduced on July 16.

Lord Randolph Churchill was dismayed by this unexpected departure. He felt it his duty to protest from the very beginning against such procedure. Yet he did not wish to embarrass the Government or to hamper them in their Irish policy. Instead of speaking in the debates upon the Bill, he drew up on the day of its introduction a memorandum which he sent to Mr. Smith, and which is at once a convenient narrative of the case and perhaps the most powerfulstatement he ever penned. If it were necessary to base his reputation for political wisdom upon a single document, I should select this.

Memorandum.It may be assumed that the Tory party are under an imperative obligation to avoid seeking escape from political difficulties by extra-constitutional methods. The above is a general rule. The exception to it can scarcely be conceived.The case of ‘Parnellism and Crime’ is essentially a political and Parliamentary difficulty of a minor kind. A newspaper has made against a group of members of the House of Commons accusations of complicity in assassination, crime and outrage. In the commencement the parties accused do not feel themselves specially aggrieved. They take no action; the Government responsible for the guidance of the House of Commons does not feel called upon to act in the matter. A member of Parliament, acting on his own responsibility, brings the matter before the House of Commons as a matter of privilege and a Select Committee is moved for to inquire into the allegations.The Government take up an unexceptionable and perfectly constitutional position. They refuse the Select Committee on the ground marked out by Sir Erskine May, that matters which may or ought to come within the cognisance of the Courts of Law are not fit for inquiry by Select Committee.The Government press upon the accused parties their duty, should they feel themselves aggrieved, to proceed against the newspaper legally and, with a generosity hardly open to condemnation, offer to make the prosecution of the newspaper, so far as expense is concerned, a Government prosecution. The offer is not accepted, the view of duty is disagreed from by the accused persons, the motion for a Select Committee is negatived and the matter drops, the balance of disadvantage remaining with the accused persons.Owing to an abortive and obscurely originated action for libel, the whole matter revives. The original charges are reiterated in a court of law by the Attorney-General, but owing to the course of the suit no evidence is called to sustain the allegations. A fresh demand is made by the accused persons for a Select Committee and is refused by the Government on the same grounds as before and, as before, with a preponderating assent of public opinion. So far all is satisfactory, except to the accused parties and their sympathisers.For reasons not known, the Government take a new departure of a most serious kind. They offer to constitute by statute a tribunal with exceptional powers, to be composed mainly of judges of the Supreme Court, to inquire into the truth of the allegations. To this course the following objections are obvious and unanswerable:1. The offer, to a large extent, recognises the wisdom and justice of the conduct of the accused persons in avoiding recurrence to the ordinary tribunals.2. It is absolutely without precedent. The Sheffield case, the Metropolitan Board of Works case, are by no means analogous. Into those two cases not a spark of political feeling entered. The case of ‘Parnellism and Crime’ in so far as it is not criminal is entirely political. In any event the political character of the case would predominate over the criminal.3. It is submitted that it is in the highest degree unwise and, indeed, unlawful to take the judges of the land out of their proper sphere of duty, and to mix them up in political conflict. In this ease, whichever way they decide, they will be the object of political criticism and animadversion. Whatever their decision, speaking roughly, half the country will applaud, the other half condemn, their action; their conduct during the trial in its minutest particulars, every ruling as to evidence, every chance expression, every question put by them, will be keenly watched, canvassed, criticised, censured or praised. Were judges in England ever placedin such a position before? Will any judge emerge from this inquiry the same for all judicial purposes, moral weight and influence as he went into it? Have you a right to expose your judges, and in all probability your best judges, to such an ordeal?4. The tribunal will conduct its proceedings by methods different to a court of law. The examination will mainly be conducted by the tribunal itself; a witness cannot refuse to reply on the ground that the answer would criminate himself. Evidence in this way will be extracted which might be made the basis of a criminal prosecution against other persons. Indemnities might be given to persons actually guilty of very grave crime, and persons much less guilty of direct participation in grave crime might, under such protected evidence, be made liable to a prosecution.The whole course of proceeding, if the character of the allegations is remembered, will, when carefully considered, be found to be utterly repugnant to our English ideas of legal justice, and wholly unconstitutional. It is hardly exaggerating to describe the Commission contemplated as ‘a revolutionary tribunal’ for the trial of political offenders, If there is any truth in the above or colour for such a statement, can a Tory Government safely or honourably suggest and carry through such a proposal?I would suggest that the constitutional legality of this proposed tribunal be submitted to the judges for their opinion.It is not for the Government, in matters of this kind, to initiate extra-constitutional proceedings and methods. One can imagine an excited Parliament or inflamed public opinion forcing such proceedings on a Government. In this case there is no such pressure. The first duty of a Government would be to resist being driven outside the lines of the Constitution. In no case, except when public safety is involved, can they be justified in taking the lead. They are the chief guardians of the Constitution. The Constitution is violated or strained in this country whenaction is taken for which there is no reasonably analogous precedent. Considerations of this kind ought to influence powerfully the present Government.It is said that the honour of the House of Commons is concerned. This is an empty phrase. The tribunal, whatever its decision, will not prevent the Irish constituencies from returning as representatives the parties implicated. In such an event the honour of the House of Commons could only be vindicated by repeated expulsion, followed by disfranchisement. Does any reasonable person contemplate such a course?The proceedings of the tribunal cannot be final. In the event of a decision to the effect that the charges are not established, proceedings for libel against the newspaper might be resorted to, the newspaper being placed under a most grossly unjust disadvantage. In the event of a decision to the contrary effect, a criminal prosecution would seem to be imperative. Regarded from the high ground of State policy in Ireland such a prosecution would probably be replete with danger and disaster.These reflections have been sketched out concisely. If submitted to a statesman, or to anyone of great legal learning and attainments, many more and much graver reflections would probably be suggested.I do not examine the party aspects of the matter; I only remark that the fate of the Union may be determined by the abnormal proceedings of an abnormal tribunal. Prudent politicians would hesitate to go out of their way to play such high stakes as these.—R. H. S. C.July 17, 1888.

Memorandum.

It may be assumed that the Tory party are under an imperative obligation to avoid seeking escape from political difficulties by extra-constitutional methods. The above is a general rule. The exception to it can scarcely be conceived.

The case of ‘Parnellism and Crime’ is essentially a political and Parliamentary difficulty of a minor kind. A newspaper has made against a group of members of the House of Commons accusations of complicity in assassination, crime and outrage. In the commencement the parties accused do not feel themselves specially aggrieved. They take no action; the Government responsible for the guidance of the House of Commons does not feel called upon to act in the matter. A member of Parliament, acting on his own responsibility, brings the matter before the House of Commons as a matter of privilege and a Select Committee is moved for to inquire into the allegations.

The Government take up an unexceptionable and perfectly constitutional position. They refuse the Select Committee on the ground marked out by Sir Erskine May, that matters which may or ought to come within the cognisance of the Courts of Law are not fit for inquiry by Select Committee.

The Government press upon the accused parties their duty, should they feel themselves aggrieved, to proceed against the newspaper legally and, with a generosity hardly open to condemnation, offer to make the prosecution of the newspaper, so far as expense is concerned, a Government prosecution. The offer is not accepted, the view of duty is disagreed from by the accused persons, the motion for a Select Committee is negatived and the matter drops, the balance of disadvantage remaining with the accused persons.

Owing to an abortive and obscurely originated action for libel, the whole matter revives. The original charges are reiterated in a court of law by the Attorney-General, but owing to the course of the suit no evidence is called to sustain the allegations. A fresh demand is made by the accused persons for a Select Committee and is refused by the Government on the same grounds as before and, as before, with a preponderating assent of public opinion. So far all is satisfactory, except to the accused parties and their sympathisers.

For reasons not known, the Government take a new departure of a most serious kind. They offer to constitute by statute a tribunal with exceptional powers, to be composed mainly of judges of the Supreme Court, to inquire into the truth of the allegations. To this course the following objections are obvious and unanswerable:

1. The offer, to a large extent, recognises the wisdom and justice of the conduct of the accused persons in avoiding recurrence to the ordinary tribunals.

2. It is absolutely without precedent. The Sheffield case, the Metropolitan Board of Works case, are by no means analogous. Into those two cases not a spark of political feeling entered. The case of ‘Parnellism and Crime’ in so far as it is not criminal is entirely political. In any event the political character of the case would predominate over the criminal.

3. It is submitted that it is in the highest degree unwise and, indeed, unlawful to take the judges of the land out of their proper sphere of duty, and to mix them up in political conflict. In this ease, whichever way they decide, they will be the object of political criticism and animadversion. Whatever their decision, speaking roughly, half the country will applaud, the other half condemn, their action; their conduct during the trial in its minutest particulars, every ruling as to evidence, every chance expression, every question put by them, will be keenly watched, canvassed, criticised, censured or praised. Were judges in England ever placedin such a position before? Will any judge emerge from this inquiry the same for all judicial purposes, moral weight and influence as he went into it? Have you a right to expose your judges, and in all probability your best judges, to such an ordeal?

4. The tribunal will conduct its proceedings by methods different to a court of law. The examination will mainly be conducted by the tribunal itself; a witness cannot refuse to reply on the ground that the answer would criminate himself. Evidence in this way will be extracted which might be made the basis of a criminal prosecution against other persons. Indemnities might be given to persons actually guilty of very grave crime, and persons much less guilty of direct participation in grave crime might, under such protected evidence, be made liable to a prosecution.

The whole course of proceeding, if the character of the allegations is remembered, will, when carefully considered, be found to be utterly repugnant to our English ideas of legal justice, and wholly unconstitutional. It is hardly exaggerating to describe the Commission contemplated as ‘a revolutionary tribunal’ for the trial of political offenders, If there is any truth in the above or colour for such a statement, can a Tory Government safely or honourably suggest and carry through such a proposal?

I would suggest that the constitutional legality of this proposed tribunal be submitted to the judges for their opinion.

It is not for the Government, in matters of this kind, to initiate extra-constitutional proceedings and methods. One can imagine an excited Parliament or inflamed public opinion forcing such proceedings on a Government. In this case there is no such pressure. The first duty of a Government would be to resist being driven outside the lines of the Constitution. In no case, except when public safety is involved, can they be justified in taking the lead. They are the chief guardians of the Constitution. The Constitution is violated or strained in this country whenaction is taken for which there is no reasonably analogous precedent. Considerations of this kind ought to influence powerfully the present Government.

It is said that the honour of the House of Commons is concerned. This is an empty phrase. The tribunal, whatever its decision, will not prevent the Irish constituencies from returning as representatives the parties implicated. In such an event the honour of the House of Commons could only be vindicated by repeated expulsion, followed by disfranchisement. Does any reasonable person contemplate such a course?

The proceedings of the tribunal cannot be final. In the event of a decision to the effect that the charges are not established, proceedings for libel against the newspaper might be resorted to, the newspaper being placed under a most grossly unjust disadvantage. In the event of a decision to the contrary effect, a criminal prosecution would seem to be imperative. Regarded from the high ground of State policy in Ireland such a prosecution would probably be replete with danger and disaster.

These reflections have been sketched out concisely. If submitted to a statesman, or to anyone of great legal learning and attainments, many more and much graver reflections would probably be suggested.

I do not examine the party aspects of the matter; I only remark that the fate of the Union may be determined by the abnormal proceedings of an abnormal tribunal. Prudent politicians would hesitate to go out of their way to play such high stakes as these.—R. H. S. C.

July 17, 1888.

1890Æt.41

Nearly two years had passed since these words were written. During all that time Lord Randolph Churchill kept silence. The Government persevered in their courses. The Bill for the Special Commission was driven swiftly through the House ofCommons by guillotine closure. The Judges slowly unravelled the vast tangle of evidence and ethics which had been thrust upon them. Not until the fiftieth sitting of the court was the letter reached which was the reason for the whole proceeding. Then there was an acceleration. In two days a wretched man was proved a forger. In five days he was dead. The only charge that gave birth to the Commission perished by the pistol-shot that destroyed Pigott. The other allegations, melancholy and voluminous as they were, useful as they may have been for political controversy, revealed only the bitterness of the national and racial struggle; and expressed in the language of the victorious party a condemnation of methods of political warfare, more or less lawless, certainly deplorable, but essentially characteristic of revolutionary movements, open or veiled.

The report of the Commission came before the House of Commons on March 3, 1890. In spite of every effort to broaden the issue and to escape from narrow and definite charges of murder, which had been disproved, to general charges of lawlessness and disloyalty which required no proof, the impression produced in the country was adverse to the Government. The party orator dilated on the heinous conduct of the Irish members. The plain man stopped short at Pigott. Ministers had stained the cause of the Union by unconstitutional action and had allowed others to stain it by felony. Lord Randolph’s private letters reveal from time to time the abhorrence with which he regarded the wholetransaction. The by-elections attested the opinion of the public. There was too much truth in Parnell’s savage accusation:[69]‘You wanted to use this question of the forged letters as a political engine. You did not care whether they were forged or not. You saw that it was impossible for us under the circumstances, or for anybody under the circumstances, to prove that they were forgeries. It was a very good question for you to win elections with.... It was also a suitable engine to enable you to obtain an inquiry into a much wider field and very different matters, an inquiry which you never would have got apart from these infamous productions.’

The feeling that some reparation was due to men against whom a charge of complicity in murder had been falsely preferred and who had been pursued by such unwonted means, was by no means confined to the Opposition. But the Government were resolved to brazen it out; and the party machine, local and national, held firm. The speech of the Conservative leader was grudging and unsympathetic; and Mr. Gladstone’s condemnation and appeal rang through a responsive House. The debate on his amendment ebbed and flowed through four Parliamentary days, and from the division by which it was terminated fourteen Unionists, including Lord Randolph, abstained. Meanwhile, on March 7, Mr. Jennings—with the concurrence, as was generally known, of Lord Randolph Churchill—had given notice of the following amendment: ‘And, further, this House deems it to beits duty to record its condemnation of the conduct of those who are responsible for the accusations of complicity in murder brought against members of this House, discovered to be based mainly on forged letters, and declared by the Special Commission to be false.’ Such a notice, coming from the Unionist benches and believed to have the support of Lord Randolph Churchill, of course attracted general attention. He himself was, however, in the greatest perplexity. Party feeling ran high. It is when the attack is grave and damaging, when there is fullest justification for censure, when manifestly Ministers are wrong, that those who adhere to them through thick and thin, are most impatient of reproach. He knew well that by speaking he would greatly injure himself in the eyes of his party. And yet could he honourably keep silent? He regretted that he had encouraged Jennings to put his amendment down. He asked him to withdraw it. But Mr. Jennings refused. It was not until Mr. Gladstone’s amendment had been disposed of on the fourth day of the discussion that he made up his mind to speak, when the House should meet at the next sitting (March 11). By custom, though not by rule, the Speaker would have called upon the movers of other amendments, once that stage of debate has begun. But Lord Randolph, after much consideration, decided that he had better say what he had to say upon the main question, neither interfering with, nor being limited by, Mr. Jennings’s amendment or others that stood before it; andtechnically he was within his right, if the Speaker should call on him.

He was heard by the House in a strained unusual silence, which seemed to react upon him; for he spoke with strange slowness, deliberation and absence of passion—like a judge deciding on a point of law, and without any of the lightness and humour of old Opposition days. He examined the question frigidly and with severity—how the Government had discarded the ordinary tribunals of the land; how they had instituted a special tribunal wherein the functions of judge and jury were cumulated upon three individuals; how the persons implicated had had no voice in the constitution of that tribunal; how they were in part the political opponents of the Government of the day; and how one result had been to levy upon both parties to the action a heavy pecuniary fine. All these things were described in the same even, passionless voice, and heard by the House with undiminished attention and by the Ministerial supporters with growing resentment. Presently came a pause. He asked those about him for a glass of water. Not a man moved. Fancying he had not been heard, he asked again: and so bitter was party passion that even this small courtesy was refused. At length, seeing how the matter stood, Mr. Baumann, a young Conservative member from below the Gangway, went out for some. As he returned, the Irish—always so quick to perceive a small personal incident—greeted him with a half-sympathetic, half-ironical cheer, and Lord Randolph, taking the glassfrom his hand, said solemnly and elaborately in a penetrating undertone: ‘I hope this will not compromise you with your party.’

At length he began to speak louder. ‘The procedure which we are called upon to stamp with our approval to-night is a procedure which would undoubtedly have been gladly resorted to by the Tudors and their judges. It is procedure of an arbitrary and tyrannical character, used against individuals who are political opponents of the Government of the day—procedure such as Parliament has for generations and centuries struggled against and resisted—procedure such as we had hoped, in these happy days, Parliament had triumphantly overcome. It is procedure such as would have startled even Lord Eldon; it is procedure such as Lords Lyndhurst and Brougham would have protested against; it is procedure which, if that great lawyer Earl Cairns had been alive, the Tory party would never have carried. But a Nemesis awaits a Government that adopts unconstitutional methods. What,’ he asked, ‘has been the result of this uprootal of constitutional practice? What has been the one result?’ Then in a fierce whisper, hissing through the House, ‘Pigott!’—then in an outburst of uncontrollable passion and disgust—‘a man, a thing, a reptile, a monster—Pigott!’—and then again, with a phrase at which the House shuddered,[70]‘Pigott! Pigott! Pigott!’

Let us return to Hansard. ‘Why do I bring these things before the House? [An honourable member laughed derisively.] Ah! yes; I know there are lots of high-minded and generous members, who not long ago were my friends, who are ready to impute—and much more likely to impute than openly assert—that I am animated by every evil motive. I bring these matters before the House of Commons because I apprehend the time—which I trust may be remote, but which I sometimes fear may be nigh—when the party which vaunts itself as the constitutional party may, by the vicissitudes of fortune, find itself in a position of inferiority similar to that which it occupied in 1832—when the rights of the minority may be trampled upon and overridden, when the views of the minority may be stifled, and when individual political opponents may be proceeded against as you have proceeded against your political opponents.’

He then explained how that these were no new views of his, that they had not been formed in consequence of the results of the trial—‘as those who are always ready to form a most unfavourable opinion of me have said’—but that two years before, when the Bill for the Special Commission was before Parliament, he had embodied them in a document which he had ‘respectfully laid before the First Lord of the Treasury.’ ‘There was a time,’ he said at the end, ‘not very long ago, when my words had some weight with honourable gentlemen on this side of the House; and in recalling that time I will add—I cannot refrain from the remark—that the prospects of theparty were brighter than they are now. When I had the honour, the memorable honour, of counselling them, the Unionist majority was more than a hundred. It has now fallen to about seventy. If there are any lingering memories on these benches of those days—when, I think, our fortunes were better—it is by those memories I would appeal to the Conservative party to give a fair and impartial and unprejudiced consideration to the counsels which I now lay before them. But if my words are to fall on deaf ears—if the counsels I most honestly submit are to be spurned and scorned, then I declare that I look forward to the day when a future Parliament shall expunge from the Journals of this House the record of this melancholy proceeding; and in taking such action—inspired, I trust, not by party passion, party vindictiveness or party rancour, but acting on constitutional grounds, and on those alone—it will administer to its predecessor a deserved and wholesome rebuke for having outraged and violated constitutional liberty and will establish a signpost full of warning and guidance to Parliaments yet unborn.’

He sat down very much exhausted—for his health was already weakening—by the strain to which he had been put. He had never spoken with more consciousness of right, never with less regard to his own interests and scarcely ever with greater effect. Deep down in the heart of the old-fashioned Tory, however unreflecting, there lurks a wholesome respect for the ancient forms and safeguards of the English Constitution and a recognition of the fact that someday they may be found of great consequence and use. Moreover, the case was black and overwhelming. But a formidable champion was at hand to succour and shield the Ministry; and it was Chamberlain who rose from the Front Opposition Bench to reply on behalf of the Government. His speech was couched in a friendly and respectful tone—not unmindful, perhaps, of an old compact as to the asperities of political warfare—but in every part it made clear the breach which now existed between these former allies, and the bonds which were steadily strengthening between this Radical leader and his Conservative friends.

To all this Mr. Jennings had listened with impatience and resentment. His amendment had not, it seemed, been merely deserted by Lord Randolph Churchill; it had been compromised. The opportunity for moving it was irretrievably spoiled. The consequence that had attached to it, was gone. The crowded house was melting. No man about to address a critical assembly on a matter which he considers important, resolved to do his very best by his argument and braced against the expected disapprobation of his own friends, can be free from nervous tension; and the better the speaker, the greater the strain. At such a moment small things do not always appear small and grave decisions are not always taken on serious grounds. Mr. Jennings had been several times disappointed in Lord Randolph. He had failed to carry him forward into a Fair Trade campaign. He had been bitterly discouraged by theBirmingham surrender. He had watched with mortification the decline of Lord Randolph’s popularity. He had disapproved of the Radicalism of the later speeches. And now, on the top of all the rest, came this sharp collision. He took it as an act of mortal treachery and insult. In that flood of anger the comradeship of four stormy years was swept away as if it had been a feather. While Mr. Chamberlain was replying he leaned over the bench and told Lord Randolph shortly that after such a speech he would not move his amendment, and would tell the House why. Lord Randolph, who had been absorbed by his own struggle, was amazed at his fierce manner, and realised for the first time that he had caused deep offence. He wished at once to put it right. But Jennings would not answer. He had made up his mind. Two pencil notes, written on slips torn from the order paper, were put into his hands. He read them, folded them, put them carefully away, and they have drifted here, like the wreckage tossed up on the shore long after a ship has foundered. ‘I hope you will reflect before making any public attack upon me. It would be a thousand pities to set all the malicious tongues wagging, when later you will understand what my position was.’ And again—probably after Jennings had spoken—‘How can you so wilfully misunderstand my action and so foolishly give way to temper in dealing with grave political matters?’

As soon as Mr. Chamberlain had finished, Mr. Jennings rose, and struck as hard as he could. ‘Hehad not been prepared for the tone and manner of the speech of his noble friend.’ The delivery of a speech so hostile ‘to the Government’ had considerably embarrassed him. ‘It is said,’ he proceeded in his cold, measured way, ‘that I derive my opinions from my noble friend, but occasionally, and at intervals, I am capable of forming opinions of my own, and such an interval has occurred now.’ ‘The noble lord has a genius for surprises: sometimes he surprises his opponents; sometimes he takes his best friends unawares.’ Finally, he declined to move his amendment, as a means of dissociating himself from any attempt ‘to stab his party in the back.’ During this speech the occupants of the Treasury Bench took, as may be imagined, no pains to conceal their satisfaction. In a very brief personal explanation Lord Randolph Churchill declared that his own speech had been made without reference to any of the amendments on the paper, solely because it was pertinent to the main question rather than to any amendment. Mr. Caine, who was then on the verge of returning to the Liberal party, moved the dropped amendment without comment. Almost alone among Conservative members, Lord Randolph supported it, as he had promised and always intended, in the division lobby, and it was rejected by a majority of sixty-two.

The outcry raised against Lord Randolph Churchill for his speech and vote was immediate and astonishing. The entire Conservative press denounced him as a traitor, and he was delugedwith abuse. TheStandarddeclared that he had no further right to be regarded as a member of the Unionist party. ‘The utter failure of his career points a moral of peculiar significance. Seldom has it been possible to give a more convincing proof of the fact that the man who is ready to sacrifice principle to personal ambition will not only lose the esteem of the worthiest among his fellow-countrymen, but will even fail in the object to which he is willing to surrender his convictions.’ But more important even than such pronouncements was the feeling in the country. The meeting which he was to have addressed at Colchester was cancelled ‘owing to the illness of Lord Brooke.’ The Chairman of his Association in Paddington resigned; the various clubs in the borough passed strong resolutions in condemnation of their member, and a meeting of the Council was convened for the 17th to consider his conduct. Opinion in Birmingham was very hostile. Even the Midland Conservative Club met together to pass a vote of censure.

Lord Randolph Churchill met these manifestations with composure not unmingled with scorn. To the resolution of the Paddington Council he replied in a letter described by the much-shockedTimesas ‘characteristically pert and saucy,’ and dated from the Jockey Club Rooms at Newmarket. ‘I have no reason to suppose,’ he wrote, ‘that the Council are in error in committing themselves to the opinion that my action is "entirely out of harmony" with the views of the Conservative electors of the division; but Iremark with satisfaction that the Council, with a prudence which I cannot too highly or respectfully commend, have abstained from expressing any opinion as to whether my action was right or wrong.’ If they wished him to take the opinion of the electors on the question they knew the steps which were necessary, but meanwhile he reminded them that the Council was not the Association and still less the constituency of South Paddington.

On the same morning of this meeting in Paddington Lord Randolph published in theMorning Post—which almost alone among Metropolitan newspapers remained well disposed towards him—the memorandum which he had written nearly two years before. The memorandum, he explained, had been intended to be ‘a strong but friendly protest against the measure.’ The speech of the previous Tuesday was intended, so far as lay in his power, to prevent such a measure being ever proposed by a Government again. This document had a marked and decided effect upon public opinion. Seldom had a political prophet been so completely vindicated by the event. It was now proved that two years before the exposure of Pigott he had warned the Government of the discredit in which the Special Commission would involve them and had described beforehand in exact detail many of the evil consequences by which they were now overtaken.

All of a sudden party indignation began to subside, and that keen sense of justice never far removed from the English mind reasserted itself. Thejournalists and the wirepullers had laboured to excess and the inevitable reaction followed. Numbers of plain people began to write to the newspapers to protest against the attacks made upon one who had been so greatly concerned with famous Conservative victories. At Birmingham the Old Guard—Rowlands, Sawyer, and Moore-Bayley—contrived to parry the vote of censure by a simple resolution of confidence in the Government, which the rest, when it came to the point, were content to accept. Mr. Fardell resumed the Chairmanship of the Paddington Council, and that body received their member’s reply without further comment or action. So that Lord Randolph was enabled, without more hindrance, to pursue his own path in his own way.

But while he cared little for the displeasure of political associates and nothing at all for the party outburst, there was one breach which caused him regret. Louis Jennings had been for the past four years an intimate friend and a close and valuable ally. He had become a friend at a time when others were falling away and after Lord Randolph had given up the power to help and reward good service. He had adhered to his leader with constancy, through much unpopularity and ridicule, and at the cost of his own political future—such as it might have been. Whatever cause he may have had for complaint, he had certainly repaid the injury to the utmost of his power. Nothing could be more disparaging to Lord Randolph Churchill personally or more prejudicial to the opinions he had expressedthan that he and they should be publicly repudiated by the one man who of all others had stood by him until now. The political world found it difficult to believe that the tone of a speech apart from its tenor, a dispute about an amendment, or the accident of debate, could in themselves be a complete explanation of a sudden severance between such close political associates. Jennings volunteered no further information on the subject; and Lord Randolph Churchill to persistent inquiries merely replied: ‘I was not aware, and could not be aware, that my speech would cause Mr. Jennings to withdraw his amendment, and I am altogether unable to understand his reasons for this action. I had told him that I would vote for his amendment and speak in favour of it, and, as a matter of fact, I did so. Mr. Jennings has acquired the reputation of being a man of reason, ability and sense, and his actions are presumably guided by those qualities. That being so, any further examination of his action against me last Tuesday does not particularly attract me.’

Mr. Jennings left, however, among his private papers a statement carefully prepared while the episode was fresh in his mind. I am content to place this upon record exactly as it was written.[71]

The breach was never repaired. Lord Randolph Churchill would gladly have made friends, and took pains to let the fact be known to Mr. Jennings. But no communication, written or spoken, ever passed between them again. Whether from an enduringsense of wrong, or from vain regrets at such a miserable ending to four years of loyalty and labour, Mr. Jennings continued in antagonism, and from time to time employed his dexterous pen in sharp and sarcastic attack. There is an air of musty tragedy about old letters. Week after week, in packet after packet, since 1886, Jennings’s neat handwriting recurs. Suddenly his letters stop, just as the Gorst letters had stopped five years before. He passes out of this story—was soon, indeed, to pass out of all stories men can tell. On that exciting night in March Lord Randolph Churchill had only five years to live. But Mr. Jennings had less than three. He took little further part in politics. He was returned for Stockport again at the General Election; but almost at once he declared that he must retire from public life. An internal malady had afflicted him, and he died somewhat suddenly on February 9, 1893, aged fifty-six years. The circumstances of his quarrel with Lord Randolph Churchill, no matter whether his anger was deserved or not, or on which side the balance of misunderstanding may have lain, cannot exclude from this account a full acknowledgment of his loyal, industrious and fearless comradeship. He suffered the vexations and disappointments which must always harass those who fight for lost causes and falling men.

The strange and memorable episode of the Parnell Commission lies at the present in a twilight. It has drifted out of the fierce and uncertain glare of political controversy. It is not yet illumined by the calm lamp of the historian. Those whose influenceinitiated or sustained the policy seem abundantly vindicated by events. Their action was ratified by Parliament and never seriously impugned by the nation. Whatever injury resulted at the time to the cause of the Union—and no doubt the injury was grave—was more than healed by the unexpected proceedings in the Divorce Courts at the end of the year. If it be true, as some may think, that the conduct of Irish affairs by the Conservative Cabinet of ‘86 enabled Mr. Gladstone to advance the flag of Home Rule again at the head of a Parliamentary majority, it is also true that this second onslaught encountered a not less stubborn resistance and ended in an even more decisive and lasting success. Those who were responsible have no apparent cause to regret the course they took. Those who, on the other hand, opposed it, from whatever motive, were brushed aside, and could never persuade the public of their case. And yet such a strange place is England that there is scarcely anyone, from the Ministers who bear the burden, to theTimesnewspaper—left, through the policy of the Government it supported, loyal and indignant, with a quarter of a million to pay—who will not to-day confess, and even declare, that these proceedings were a grand and cardinal blunder from beginning to end; that an Executive has no business to thrust itself into disputes which the parties concerned may settle in the courts, and no right to erect special machinery for the examination of charges perfectly within the knowledge and scope of the law. So that if these things are affirmedwhile the light is dim, while even the dust of conflict has not altogether subsided, we may be hopeful of the judgment which history will pronounce.

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In these later years Lord Randolph Churchill was drawn increasingly towards a Collectivist view of domestic politics. Almost every speech which he made from 1889 to 1891 gives evidence of the steady development of his opinions. His interest in the problems of the labouring classes grew warmer and keener as time passed. He spoke his mind without the smallest regard to the susceptibilities of his party, or to his own influence and position; and he favoured or accepted doctrines and tendencies before which Liberals recoiled and even the most stalwart Radicals paused embarrassed. He urged the House of Commons to examine the demand for a general eight hours’ day ‘with a total absence of anything like dogmatism.’ He replied with some asperity to Mr. Bradlaugh, whose outspoken condemnation of the State regulation of the hours of adult labour had evoked delighted cheers from the Conservative party. He often wondered, he said, whether Mr. Bradlaugh or Mr. Chamberlain would be the first to take a seat on the Treasury Bench. He was sceptical, in the face of Income Tax and Revenue Returns, about ‘the narrow margin of profit’ remaining to capital. His answer to a deputation of miners who waited in succession on him and Mr. Gladstone to urge the enforcement of an eight hours’ day in the coal trade was acceptedby them as far more favourable to their desires than anything that fell from the Liberal leader. He voted for the principle of the payment of members of Parliament. He took a leading part in the movement to provide North-West London with a polytechnic institution—‘a university for labour,’ as he described it. ‘An Englishman,’ he said, ‘possesses over Europeans one immeasurable and inestimable advantage. Out of the life of every German, every Frenchman, every Italian, every Austrian, every Russian, the respective Governments of those countries take three years for compulsory military service. If you estimate those three years at eight hours per day for six days a week, you will find that out of the life of every European in those nations no fewer than 7,500 hours are taken by the Governments of those countries for compulsory military service, during which time the individual so deprived is, for the purposes of contributing to the wealth of the community as a whole by his labour, as idle and useless and unprofitable as if he had never been born. But in our free and happy country, where the freedom of existence has practically no reasonable limits and where only a very minute portion of the population voluntarily embraces a military career, every man who lives to the age of twenty-three or twenty-four, possesses as an advantage over the inhabitants of foreign countries an extra capital of at least 7,500 hours. That immeasurable superiority, if properly taken advantage of by the provision of adequate educational institutions, is what should enable us to put aside alarm as to foreign competition.’ His Licensing Bill, which he introduced on April 29, 1890, in the last great speech he ever made to the House of Commons, while it affirmed the justice of compensation, asserted for the first time in Parliament the principle of popular control over the issue of licences.

All these questions trench too closely upon current politics to be conveniently examined here. But it is not difficult to understand why his opinions did not win Lord Randolph Churchill the support of every section of the Conservative party. And yet all the while, in spite of his public declarations—obstinately repeated—there continued in the Tory ranks a steady and at times a powerful pressure to bring him back to the Government. Session after session had been scrambled through in dispiriting fashion. The mismanagement of Parliamentary business, the failure of important legislative projects, the abiding discredit of the Pigott forgery, the lack of any life or fire or inspiration in the conduct of affairs, sank the Conservative party and the Unionist alliance lower and lower in public estimation.

By June 1890 Lord Salisbury’s Administration was in the utmost peril. The Government majority upon a decisive division fell to four.[72]Their licensing proposals were ignominiously withdrawn. Their attempt to carry business over to an autumn session failed. And in these hard times many Conservatives who disagreed altogether with Lord Randolph Churchill’s views felt that his return to a commanding place was anecessary condition, if the waning fortunes of their party were to be retrieved. Ministers of importance approached Lord Salisbury. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach urged him not to allow the object of excluding Lord Randolph Churchill to prejudice the interests of the Unionist cause. Tory papers wrote favourable articles. Tory worthies met together in the Conservative Club under the presidency of Sir Algernon Borthwick, to entertain the ‘prodigal son.’ ‘Randolph must return’ was everywhere the whisper and the word. But Lord Salisbury was firm. Nothing would induce him to divide his authority again. And having regard to all the circumstances which have been related, he was, from his own point of view, unquestionably right. He knew well that Lord Randolph Churchill had altered no whit, had retracted nothing; and that, if he rejoined the Ministry, he would labour as of old, without stint or pause, with riper gifts of knowledge and experience and under conditions more favourable perhaps than in 1886, to guide and to deflect the policy of a Conservative Government into democratic and progressive paths. Better a party or a personal defeat; better a Parliamentary collapse; better even an Imperial disaster!

Fortune favours the brave. The courage and tenacity of the Prime Minister received an unexpected relief. The downfall of Parnell was at hand. Her Majesty’s Government regained in the Divorce Court the credit they had lost before the Special Commission. The ranks of the English Home Ruleparty, lately so exultant, were broken in dismay; and Nationalist Ireland, hitherto united under one controlling hand, was distracted by enduring and ferocious feuds. This peculiar episode may have settled decisively the fate of the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland. It also terminated for ever, without hope or expectation of renewal, the protracted conflict between the New Tories and the Old.

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