Part 15

The House of Commons well knows that it would lose one of its most valuable instructors if Bryce were no longer to occupy a place on its benches or were to condemn himself to habitual inactivity and silence. When the Conservative Government under Lord Salisbury came into power, and more especially after the late general election which brought them back with added strength, many of the Liberal leaders seemed to have grown weary of the political struggle. Something worse than mere apathy appeared to have set in, something more than mere despondency and disheartenment. Men on whom the Liberals of England had long been wont to rely suddenly showed an apparent loss of faith in all the proclaimed principles of the party, and either relapsed into utter silence or spoke in language which suggested an inclination to cross over to the enemy's camp. The two principal impulses to this mood of mind were the South African war and the Irish Home Rule question. The majority in the constituencies had become inflamed with the spirit of Jingoism, and could think of nothing but the war and the Imperial glory of annexing new territory. Feeble-hearted and weak-kneed Liberals began to think that the party could never hope for a return to power unless it too could blow the Imperial trumpet. Other Liberals made it manifest that they were becoming alarmed by the unpopularity of the Home Rule question, and were repenting the enthusiasm which had carried them too far along the path marked out by the genius and the patriotic resolve of Gladstone. A species of dry-rot appeared to have broken out in Liberalism. Before long a new section of Liberalism was formed, the principle of which appeared to be that its members should call themselves Imperial Liberals, and at the same time should support the Tories on the only important questions then under discussion--the policy of the South African campaign and the Irish National claim for Home Rule. Some of the men who had held high office when Gladstone was in power, who had made themselves conspicuous by the ardor and the eloquence with which they supported his policy of peace abroad and justice to Ireland, now openly avowed their renunciation of his great principles. There were others among the foremost Liberals in the House of Commons who, if they did not thus openly take the renegade part, kept themselves quietly out of the active political field and allowed the movement of reaction to go on without a word of protest. Three at least among the Liberal leaders took a very different course. Three of them, at least, not merely nailed their colors to the mast, but stood resolutely in fighting attitude beneath the colors and proved themselves determined to maintain the struggle. These three men were Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, John Morley, and James Bryce. There were others, too, it must be said, who stood up manfully with these three in defense of that losing cause of Liberalism which they could never be brought to regard as a lost cause. But the dauntless three whom I have just mentioned were the most prominent and the most influential who went forth against that great array of Toryism and Jingoism. Bryce was in his place as regularly as ever during the whole of that depressing time, and he never failed to raise his voice when the occasion demanded his intervention on behalf of the true principles and practices of Liberalism. During that long, dreary, and disheartening season when despondent men were often disposed to ask whether there was any longer a Liberal party, Bryce made some of the ablest speeches he has ever delivered in arraignment of the Jingo policy, of the War Office maladministration, and the rule of renewed coercion in Ireland. The Liberal cause in England owes a debt that never can be forgotten to the three men whom I have named, for their unflinching resolve and activity in the House of Commons; and of the three none did better service than that which was rendered by James Bryce.

Bryce has, in face and form, the characteristics of a stalwart fighter. His forehead is high and broad, with strongly marked eyebrows, straightly drawn over deep and penetrating eyes. The features are all finely modeled, the nose is straight and statuesque, the hair is becoming somewhat thinner and more gray than it was when I first knew Mr. Bryce, but the mustache and beard, although they too show some fading in color, are still thick and strong as in that past day. The face does not look Irish; its expression is perhaps somewhat too sedate and resolute; but on the other hand, it does not seem quite Scotch, for there is at moments a suggestion of dreaminess about it which we do not usually associate with the shrewd North Briton. Bryce is a man of the most genial temperament, thoroughly companionable, and capable of enjoying every influence that helps to brighten existence. Always a student of books and of men, he is never a recluse, and I do not know of any one who seems to get more out of life than does this philosophic historian. Bryce's London home is noted for its hospitality, and his dinner parties and evening parties give much delight to his large circle of friends. Mr. and Mrs. Bryce are not lion-hunters, and do not rate their friends according to the degree of celebrity each may have obtained. But they have no need to engage in a hunt after lions, for the celebrities seek them out as a matter of course, and I know of no London house where one is more certain to meet distinguished men and women from all parts of the civilized world. Bryce's travels have made him acquainted with interesting and eminent persons everywhere, and an admission to his circle is naturally sought by strangers who visit London. Representatives of literature, science, and art, of scholarly research, of political movement, and of traveled experience are sure to be met with in the home of the Bryces. I had the good fortune to meet there, for the first time, many distinguished men and women whose acquaintance it was a high and memorable privilege to make. Among Bryce's especial recreations is mountain-climbing, and he was at one time President of the Alpine Club. He can converse upon all subjects, can give to every topic some illustration from his own ideas and his own experiences, and the intelligent listener always finds that he carries away something new and worthy of remembrance from any talk with him. Although his strong opinions and his earnest desire to maintain what he believes to be the right side of every great controversy have naturally brought him into frequent antagonism with the representatives of many an important case, I do not know of any public man who has made fewer enemies or who is more generally spoken of with respect and admiration. A man must have very high conceit indeed of his own knowledge and his own judgment who does not feel that he has a great deal to learn from conversation with a master of so many subjects. Yet Bryce never oppresses a listener, as some intellectual leaders are apt to do, with a sense of the listener's inferiority, and the least gifted among us is encouraged to express himself with frankness and freedom while discoursing with Bryce on any question which happens to come up. I think that among his many remarkable qualities is that sincere belief which was characteristic of Mr. Gladstone, and for which Gladstone did not always get due credit--the belief that every man, however moderate his intellectual qualifications, has something to tell which the wisest would be the better for knowing. We must all of us have met scholars and thinkers and political leaders whose inborn sense of their own capacity had an overbearing and even oppressive effect on the ordinary mortal, and made him shy of expressing himself fully lest he should only be displaying his ineptitude or his ignorance in such a presence. But there is nothing of this to be observed in the genial ways of James Bryce, and the listener finds himself unconsciously brought for the time to the level of the master and emboldened to give free utterance to his own ideas and opinions.

Bryce has been made a member of most of the great intellectual and educational institutions of the world, has held degrees and honors of various kinds from the universities of Europe and the United States, and could hardly travel anywhere abroad or at home without finding himself in recognized association with some school of learning in every place where he makes a stay. The freemasonry of intellect and education all over the world gives him rank among its members, and receives him with a welcome recognition wherever he goes. I presume that in the political sphere of action he is henceforward likely to find his congenial career, but he must always have the knowledge that, if for any reason he should give up his political occupation, he can at any moment return to some pursuit in which he has already won an established fame. There are not many political leaders of our time about whom the same could fairly be said. For myself I may frankly say that I hope James Bryce will henceforward devote himself especially to that political career in which he has accomplished such great things. English public life cannot well afford to lose his services just now or for some time to come. A man who can bring to political work such resources of thought and of experience, who can look beneath the surface and above the mere phrases and catchwords of political parties, who can see that Liberalism in its true sense must mean progress, and who can at the same time see clearly for himself what progress really means, and in what direction and by what methods it is to be made--such a man could ill be spared by the Liberalism of our generation. The historical work he has already done is, in its way, complete and imperishable. But the Liberal party has yet to recover its place and to regain the leadership of England's political life. Every effort the Conservatives in office have lately been making to hold their full mastery over the country has shown more and more clearly that they have not kept up with the movements of thought and are not able to understand the true requirements of the time. On the other hand, the limp and shattered condition of the existing Liberal party only shows the absolute necessity for the recognized leadership of men who understand the difference between the work of guiding the country and the ignoble function of competing for power by imitation and by compromise. In the new effort now so sorely needed to create once more a true Liberal party, the country requires, above all things else, the constant service of such men as James Bryce.

HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman has but lately come to hold that position in the House of Commons and in the political world which those who knew him well always believed him destined to attain. He is now not merely the nominal leader of the Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons, but he is universally regarded as one of the very small number of men who could possibly be chosen for the place. Sir William Harcourt and Mr. John Morley are the only Liberal members of the House who could compare with Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman for influence with the Liberal party, the House of Commons, and the general public. Yet the time is not far distant when he was commonly regarded in the House as a somewhat heavy, not to say stolid, man, one of whom nothing better could be said than that he would probably be capable of quiet, steady work in some subordinate department. I remember well that when Campbell-Bannerman was appointed Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1884, a witty Irish member explained the appointment by the suggestion that Gladstone had made use of Campbell-Bannerman on the principle illustrated by the employment of a sand-bag as part of the defenses of a military fort. Campbell-Bannerman has, in fact, none of the temperament which makes a man anxious to display himself in debate, and whenever, during his earlier years of Parliamentary life, he delivered a speech in the House of Commons, his desire seemed to be to get through the task as quickly as possible and be done with it. He appears to be a man of a naturally reserved habit, with indeed something of shyness about him, and a decided capacity for silence wherever there is no pressing occasion for speech, whether in public or in private.

Many whom I knew were at one time inclined to regard Campbell-Bannerman as a typical specimen of his Scottish compatriots, who are facetiously said to joke with difficulty. As a matter of fact, Campbell-Bannerman has a keen and delightful sense of humor, and can illustrate the weakness of an opponent's case, better than some recognized wits could do, by a few happy touches of sarcasm. He is in every sense of the word a strong man, and, like some other strong men, only seems to know his own strength and to be capable of putting it into action when hard fortune has brought him into political difficulties through which it appears well-nigh impossible that he can make his way. Schiller's hero declares that it must be night before his star can shine, and although Campbell-Bannerman is not quite so poetic and picturesque a figure as Wallenstein, yet I think he might fairly comfort himself by some such encouraging reflection. He had gone through a long and hard-working career in the House of Commons before the world came to know anything of his strength, his judgment, and his courage. He got his education at the University of Glasgow and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge, and he obtained a seat in the House of Commons for a Scottish constituency as a Liberal when he was still but a young man. He has held various offices in Liberal administrations. He was Secretary to the Admiralty in 1882, and was Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland for a short time a little later. There is not much to be said about his Irish administration. He governed the country about as well as any English Minister could have done under such conditions, for this was before Gladstone and the Liberal party had been converted to the principle of Home Rule for Ireland; and, at all events, he made himself agreeable to those Irishmen with whom he came into contact by his unaffected manners and his quiet good humor. When Gladstone took office in 1886, Campbell-Bannerman became Secretary for War, and he held the same important position in Gladstone's Ministry of 1892.

The story of that administration tells of a most important epoch in the career of Gladstone and the fortunes of the Liberal party. In 1893 Gladstone brought in his second Home Rule measure for Ireland. His first measure of Home Rule was introduced in 1886, and was defeated in the House of Commons by means of a coalition between the Liberal secessionists and the Conservative Opposition. The Liberal secessionists in the House of Commons, as most of my readers will remember, were led by Joseph Chamberlain. Then there came an interval of Conservative government, and when Gladstone returned to power in 1892 he introduced before long his second measure of Home Rule. The second measure was in many ways a distinct improvement on the first, and in the meantime some of the Liberal secessionists, including Sir George Trevelyan, whose opposition was directed only against certain parts of the first measure, had returned to their allegiance and were ready to give Gladstone all the support in their power for his second attempt. The Home Rule measure was carried through the House of Commons by what we call a substantial although not a great majority, and then it had to go to the House of Lords. Everybody knew in advance what its fate must be in the hereditary chamber. Every great measure of genuine political reform is certain to be rejected in the first instance by the House of Lords. This is the old story, and is repeated again and again with monotonous iteration. The House of Lords always gives way in the end, when the pressure of public opinion from without makes it perilous for the hereditary legislators to maintain their opposition. Therefore the Liberals in general were not much disconcerted by the defeat of the Home Rule measure in the House of Lords. Home Rule for Ireland had been sanctioned by the decisive vote of the House of Commons, and the general impression was that it would only have to be brought in again and perhaps again, according to the usual process with all reform measures, until the opposition of the Lords had been completely borne down. But before the introduction of the second Home Rule measure, some events had taken place which made a great change in the condition of Irish political affairs and put fresh difficulties in the way of Gladstone's new administration.

The Parnell divorce case came on, and led to a serious division in the ranks of the Irish National party and in Irish public opinion. The great majority of Parnell's followers refused to regard him as their leader any longer, and those who determined to support him and to follow him through thick and thin were but a very small minority. Gladstone was firmly convinced, as were the majority of the Irish Nationalist members, that Parnell ought to retire, for a time at least, from the leadership of his party, if not indeed from public life, and keep aloof from active politics until the scandal of the divorce court should have been atoned for by him and should have passed to some extent from public memory. Gladstone was convinced that if Parnell remained the leader of the Irish party it would be almost impossible to arouse in the British constituencies any enthusiasm in the cause of Home Rule strong enough to bring back the Liberals to power and to carry a Home Rule measure. This was a reasonable and practical view of the question, but Parnell and his followers resented it as a positive insult, and Parnell issued a manifesto denouncing Gladstone, the immediate result of which was that break-up of the Home Rule party I have already mentioned. Not very long after came Parnell's early death. It may well be supposed that such events as these must have made a deep and discouraging impression on Gladstone's hopes for the success of the second Home Rule measure. The Irish National party had been broken up for the time, and some even of Gladstone's colleagues in office had allowed themselves to be mastered by the old familiar idea that as Irishmen could not be brought to agree for long on any plan of action, it was futile for English Liberals to put themselves to any inconvenience for the sake of an Irish National cause. Such men might have found it difficult to point out any great measure of political reform in England concerning which the English people had always been in absolute agreement and about which there was no conflict of angry emotion in any section of English representatives. But the fact remained all the same that the dispute in the Irish party had brought a chill to the zeal of many influential English Liberals for the Home Rule cause, and we have had in much more recent days abundant evidence that the chilling influence is with them still.

Among Gladstone's official colleagues there were some who held that the time had come when an appeal ought to be made to the country by means of a dissolution and a general election against the domination of the House of Lords. This appears to have been the opinion of Gladstone himself. Others of his colleagues, however, held back from such an issue, and contended that the moment did not seem favorable for an appeal to the country on the distinct question of Irish Home Rule. The general impression on the public mind was that the decision of the Cabinet was certain to be in favor of an appeal to the country on the one issue or the other, and much surprise was felt when it began to be more and more evident that the Government intended to go on with the ordinary business of the State, as if nothing had happened. The outer world has as yet had no means of knowing what the reasons or the influences were which induced Gladstone and his colleagues to come to this determination. The whole truth will probably never be known until John Morley's "Life of Gladstone" shall make its appearance. We may safely assume in the meantime that Gladstone had the best of reasons for taking the course which he adopted, and that he would have made an appeal to the country against the decision of the House of Lords if he had believed the conditions were favorable for such a challenge just then. Probably Gladstone knew only too well that even among his own colleagues there were some who were turning cold upon the question of Home Rule, who had never accepted his views on that subject with whole-hearted willingness, and could not have been relied upon as steadfast adherents in the struggle. I think I shall be fully justified by any revelations which history or biography has yet to make, when I say that Campbell-Bannerman was among those who would have faithfully followed the great leader to the very last in whatever struggle he had made up his mind to engage. There were, of course, many others of Gladstone's colleagues--men like Sir William Harcourt and John Morley and James Bryce--on whom their leader could have safely reckoned for the same unswerving fidelity and courage. But, whatever were the reasons, there was no appeal made to the country, and the administration went on with its ordinary work in a dull, mechanical fashion. The effect upon the Liberal party was most depressing. Men could not understand why nothing decisive had been done, and at the same time were haunted by a foreboding that some great change was impending over the Liberal party.

The foreboding soon came to be justified. On the 1st of March, 1894, Gladstone delivered his last speech in the House of Commons. The speech dealt with the action of the House of Lords on a subject of comparatively slight importance. The Lords had rejected a measure dealing with the constitution of parish councils, which had been passed by the House of Commons. Gladstone spoke with severity in condemnation of the course taken by the House of Lords. Towards the close of his speech he said: "My duty terminates with calling the attention of this House to a fact which it is really impossible to set aside, that we are considering a part--an essential and inseparable part--of a question enormously large, a question which has become profoundly a truth, a question that will demand a settlement, and must at an early date receive that settlement, from the highest authority." No one who was present in the House when this declaration was made is ever likely to lose the memory of the scene, although not all or even most of those then present quite realized the full significance of Gladstone's words. There were many in the House who did not at once understand that in the words I have quoted the greatest Parliamentary leader of modern times was speaking his farewell to public life. I remember well that a few moments after Gladstone had finished his speech I met John Morley in one of the lobbies, and I asked him if this was really to be taken as the close of Gladstone's career, and he told me, with as much composure as he could command, that in that speech we had heard the last of Gladstone's Parliamentary utterances. That was indeed a memorable day in the history of England, and a day at least equally memorable in the history of Ireland.