Part 5

Outside the range of strictly English politics there was a question arising which threatened to make a new division in the Liberal party. This was the question of Home Rule for Ireland as it presented itself under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell. For years the subject of Home Rule had been the occasion, under the leadership of Mr. Butt, of nothing more formidable to the House of Commons than an annual debate and division. Once in every session Mr. Butt brought forward a motion calling for a measure of Home Rule for Ireland, and, after some eloquent speeches made in favor of the motion by Irish members, a few speeches were delivered on the other side by the opponents of Home Rule, Liberals as well as Tories, and then some leading member of the Government went through the form of explaining why the motion could not be accepted. A division was taken, and Mr. Butt's motion was found to have the support of the very small Irish Nationalist party, as it then was, and perhaps half a dozen English or Scotch Radicals; and the whole House of Commons, except for these, declared against Home Rule. About the time, however, of Mr. Chamberlain's entrance on the field of politics a great change had taken place in the conditions of the Home Rule question. Charles Stewart Parnell had become in fact, although not yet in name, the leader of the Irish National party, and Parnell's tactics were very different indeed from those of his nominal leader, Mr. Butt. Butt was a man who had great reverence for old constitutional forms and for the traditions and ways of the House of Commons, and he had faith in the power of mere argument to bring the House some time or other to see the justice of his cause. Parnell was convinced that there was only one way of compelling the House of Commons to pay any serious attention to the Irish demand, and that was by making it clear to the Government and the House that until they had turned their full attention to the Irish national claims, they should not be allowed to turn their attention to any other business whatever. Therefore he introduced that policy of obstruction which has since become historical, and which for a time literally convulsed the House of Commons. Now, I am not going again into the oft-told tale of Home Rule and the obstruction policy, and I touch upon the subject here only because of its direct connection with the career of Mr. Chamberlain. Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain supported Mr. Parnell in most of his assaults upon the Tory Government. It was Parnell's policy to bring forward some motion, during the discussion of the estimates for the army and navy or for the civil service, which should raise some great and important question of controversy connected only in a technical sense with the subject formally before the House, and thus to raise a prolonged debate which had the effect of postponing to an indefinite time the regular movement of business. Thus he succeeded in stopping all the regular work of the House until the particular motion in which he was concerned had been fully discussed and finally settled, one way or the other. It was by action of this kind that he succeeded in prevailing upon the House of Commons to condemn the barbarous system of flogging in the army and the navy, and finally to obtain its abolition. In this latter course he was warmly supported by Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke, and by many other Liberal members.

But it was not only in obstructive motions which concerned the common interests of the country that Parnell obtained the support of Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain. These two men boldly and vigorously maintained him in his policy of obstruction when it only professed to concern itself with Irish national questions. They identified themselves so thoroughly with his Irish policy that it became a familiar joke in the House of Commons to describe Dilke and Chamberlain as the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General of the Home Rule party. I was then a member of the House, and had been elected Vice-President of the Irish party, Parnell being, of course, the President. Naturally, I was brought closely into association with Mr. Chamberlain, and I had for many years been a personal friend of Sir Charles Dilke. Again and again I heard Mr. Chamberlain express his entire approval of the obstructive policy adopted by Parnell, and declare that that was the only way by which Parnell could compel the House of Commons to give a hearing to the Irish claims. Mr. Chamberlain, indeed, expressed, on more than one occasion, in speeches delivered during a debate in the House, just the same opinion as to Parnell's course which I had heard him utter in private conversation. In one of these speeches I remember well his generous declaration that he was sorry he had not had an opportunity of expressing that opinion to the House of Commons long before. Now, of course, I always thought, and still think, that all this was much to the credit of Mr. Chamberlain's political intelligence, courage, and manly feeling, and I regarded him as one of the truest English friends the Home Rule cause had ever made. I had the opportunity, on more than one occasion, of hearing Dilke and Chamberlain define their respective positions on the subject of Home Rule. Dilke regarded Home Rule as an essential part of a federal system, which he believed to be absolutely necessary to the safety, strength, and prosperity of the British Empire. He would have made it a Federal system, by virtue of which each member of the Imperial organization governed its own domestic affairs in its own way, while the common wishes and interests of the Empire were represented, discussed, and arranged in a central Imperial Parliament. Therefore, even if the Irish people had not been themselves awakened to the necessity for a Home Rule Legislature in Ireland, Dilke would have been in favor of urging on them the advantages of such an arrangement. This, in point of fact, is the system which has made the Canadian and the Australasian provinces what they are at this day, contented, loyal, and prosperous members of the Imperial system. Chamberlain was not so convinced an advocate of the general system of Home Rule as Dilke, but he was always emphatic in his declarations that, if the large majority of the Irish people desired Home Rule, their desire should be granted to them by the Imperial Parliament.

When I first entered the House of Commons, the Conservative party was in office. About a year after, the general election of 1880 came on, almost in the ordinary course of events, and the result of the appeal to the country was that the Liberals came back to power with a large majority. Mr. Gladstone was at the head of the Liberal party, and he became Prime Minister. Everybody assumed that two such prominent Radicals as Dilke and Chamberlain could not be overlooked by the new Prime Minister in his arrangements to form an administration. I think I am entitled to say, as a positive fact, that Dilke and Chamberlain entered into an understanding between themselves that unless one at least of them was offered a place in the Cabinet, neither would accept office of any kind. Of course when a new Government is in process of formation all these arrangements are matters of private discussion and negotiation with the men at the head of affairs; and the result of interchange of ideas in this instance was that Chamberlain became President of the Board of Trade, with a seat in the Cabinet, and Dilke accepted the office of Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, without a place in the inner Ministerial circle. This was done, not only with Dilke's cordial consent, but at his express wish, for it was his strong desire that the higher place in the administration should be given to his friend.

Now, at this time Mr. Gladstone was not a convinced Home Ruler. I know that the importance of the question was entering his mind and was absorbing much of his attention. I know that he was earnestly considering the subject, and that his mind was open to conviction; but I know also that he was not yet convinced. Chamberlain, therefore, would apparently have had nothing to gain if he merely desired to conciliate the favor of his leader by still putting himself forward as the friend and the ally of the Home Rule party. But he continued, when in office, to be just as openly our friend as he had been in the days when he was only an ordinary member of the House of Commons. There were times when, owing to the policy of coercion pursued in Ireland by the then Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, the relations between the Liberal Government and the Home Rule party were severely strained. We did battle many a time as fiercely against Mr. Gladstone's Government as ever we had done against the Government of his Tory predecessor. Yet Mr. Chamberlain always remained our friend and our adviser, always stood by us whenever he could fairly be expected to do so in public, and always received our confidences in private. When Mr. Parnell and other members of our party were thrown into Dublin prison, Mr. Chamberlain did his best to obtain justice and fair treatment for them and for the Home Rule cause and for the Irish people.

Many American readers will probably have a recollection of what was called the Kilmainham Treaty--the "Treaty" being an arrangement which it was thought might be honorably agreed upon between Mr. Gladstone and the leaders of the Irish party, and by virtue of which an improved system of land-tenure legislation was to be given to Ireland, on the one hand, and every effort was to be made to restore peace to Ireland on the other. I do not intend to go into this old story at any length, my only object being to record the fact that the whole arrangements were conducted between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Parnell, and that Chamberlain was still understood to be the friend of Ireland and of Home Rule. These negotiations led to the resignation of office by the late Mr. William Edward Forster, Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and then came the important question, Who was likely to be put in Mr. Forster's place? I believe that, as a matter of fact, the place was offered, in the first instance, to Sir Charles Dilke, but was declined by him on the ground that he was not also offered a seat in the Cabinet, and Dilke was convinced that unless he had a seat in the Cabinet he could have no chance of pressing successfully on the Government his policy of Home Rule for Ireland.

Mr. Chamberlain then had reason to believe that the office would be tendered to him, and he was willing to accept it and to do the best he could. I know that he believed that the place was likely to be offered to him and that he was ready to undertake its duties, for he took the very frank and straightforward course of holding a conference with certain Irish Nationalist members to whom he made known his views on the subject. The Irish members whom he consulted understood clearly from him that if he went to Ireland in the capacity of Chief Secretary he would go as a Home Ruler and would expect their co-operation and their assistance. There was no secret about this conference. It was held within the precincts of the House of Commons, and Mr. Chamberlain's action in suggesting and conducting it was entirely becoming and proper under the conditions. For some reason or other, which I at least have never heard satisfactorily explained, the office of Chief Secretary was given, after all, to the late Lord Frederick Cavendish. Then followed the terrible tragedy of the Phoenix Park, Dublin, when Lord Frederick and Mr. Thomas Burke, his official subordinate, were murdered in the open day by a gang of assassins. When the news of this appalling deed reached London, Mr. Parnell and I went at once, and as a matter of course, to consult with Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain as to the steps which ought to be taken in order to vindicate the Irish people from any charge of sympathy with so wanton and so atrocious a crime. We saw both Dilke and Chamberlain and consulted with them, and I can well remember being greatly impressed by the firmness with which Mr. Chamberlain declared that nothing which had happened would prevent him from accepting the office of Chief Secretary in Ireland if the opportunity were offered to him. I go into all this detail with the object of making it clear to the reader that, up to this time, Mr. Chamberlain had the full confidence of the Irish Nationalist party and was understood by them to be in thorough sympathy with them as to Ireland's demand for Home Rule.

Mr. Chamberlain did not, however, become Irish Secretary, but retained his position as President of the Board of Trade, and many foreign troubles began in Egypt and other parts of the world which diverted the attention of Parliament and the public for a while from questions of purely domestic policy. Mr. Gladstone, however, succeeded in carrying through Parliament a sort of new reform bill which reconstructed the constituencies, expanded the electorate, and, in fact, set up in the three countries something approaching nearly to the old Chartist idea of equal electoral division and universal suffrage. The foreign troubles, however, were very serious, the Government lost its popularity, and at last was defeated on one of its financial proposals and resigned office. The Tories came into power for a short time. Mr. Chamberlain stumped the country in his old familiar capacity as a Radical politician of the extreme school, and he started a scheme of policy which was commonly described afterwards as the unauthorized programme, in which he advocated, among other bold reforms, a peasant proprietary throughout the country by the compulsory purchase of land, the effect of which would be to endow every deserving peasant with at least three acres and a cow. The Tories were not able to do anything in office, owing to the combined attacks made upon them by the Radicals and the Irish Home Rulers, and in 1886 another dissolution of Parliament took place and a general election came on. The effect of the latest reform measure introduced by Mr. Gladstone now told irresistibly in Mr. Gladstone's favor, and the newly arranged constituencies sent him back into office and into power. Mr. Chamberlain once again joined Mr. Gladstone's Government, and became President of the Local Government Board.

Then comes a sudden change in the story. The extension of the suffrage gave, for the first time, a large voting power into the hands of the majority of the Irish people, for in Ireland up to that date the right to vote had been enjoyed only by the landlord class and the well-to-do middle class; and the result of the new franchise was that Ireland sent into Parliament an overwhelming number of Home Rule Representatives to follow the leadership of Parnell. Gladstone then became thoroughly satisfied that the vast majority of the Irish people were in favor of Home Rule, and he determined to introduce a measure which should give to Ireland a separate domestic Parliament. Thereupon Mr. Chamberlain suddenly announced that he could not support such a measure of Home Rule, and it presently came out that he could not support any measure of Home Rule. He resigned his place in Mr. Gladstone's Government, and he became from that time not only an opponent of Home Rule but a proclaimed Conservative and anti-Radical. When a Tory Government was formed, after the defeat of Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule measure, Mr. Chamberlain became a member of the Tory Government, and he is one of the leading members of a Tory Government at this day.

Now, it is for this reason, I suppose, that the unfriendly critic, of whom I have already spoken more than once, thought himself justified in describing Mr. Chamberlain as the Rabagas of English political life. It is, indeed, hard for any of us to understand the meaning of Mr. Chamberlain's sudden change. At the opening of 1886 he was, what he had been during all his previous political life, a flaming democrat and Radical. In the early months of 1886 he was a flaming Tory and anti-Radical. During several years of frequent association with him in the House of Commons I had always known him as an advocate of Home Rule for Ireland, and all of a sudden he exhibited himself as an uncompromising opponent of Home Rule. Many English Liberal members objected to some of the provisions of Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill, but when these objections were removed in Mr. Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill they returned at once to their places under his leadership. But Mr. Chamberlain would have nothing to do with any manner of Home Rule measure, and when he visited the province of Ulster in the north of Ireland he delighted all the Ulster Orangemen by the fervor of his speeches against Home Rule. Moreover, it may fairly be asked why an English Radical and democrat of extreme views must needs become an advocate of Toryism all along the line simply because he has ceased to be in favor of Home Rule for Ireland. These are questions which I, at least, cannot pretend to answer.

Of course we have in history many instances of conversions as sudden and as complete, about the absolute sincerity of which even the worldly and cynical critic has never ventured a doubt. There was the conversion of Constantine the Great, and there was the sudden change brought about in the feelings and the life of Ignatius of Loyola. But then somehow Mr. Chamberlain does not seem to have impressed on his contemporaries, either before or after his great change, the idea that he was a man cast exactly in the mold of a Constantine or an Ignatius. Only of late years has he been dubbed with the familiar nickname of "Pushful Joe," but he was always set down as a man of personal ambition, determined to make his way well on in the world. We had all made up our minds, somehow, that he would be content to push his fortunes on that side of the political field to which, up to that time, he had proclaimed himself to belong, and it never occurred to us to think of him as the associate of Tory dukes, as a leading member of a Tory Government, and as the champion of Tory principles. Men have in all ages changed their political faith without exciting the world's wonder. Mr. Gladstone began as a Tory, and grew by slow degrees into a Radical. Two or three public men in our own days who began as moderate Liberals have gradually turned into moderate Tories. But Mr. Chamberlain's conversion was not like any of these. It was accomplished with a suddenness that seemed to belong to the days when miracles were yet worked upon the earth. Mr. Chamberlain may well feel proud in the consciousness that the close attention of the political world will follow with eager curiosity his further career.

HENRY LABOUCHERE

Henry Labouchere is the most amusing speaker in the House of Commons. Eclipse is first and there is no second--to adopt the words once used by Lord Macaulay--at least, if there be a second, I do not feel myself qualified for the task of designating him. It is hardly necessary to say that whenever Labouchere rises in the House of Commons--and he rises very often in the course of a session--he is sure of an immediate hearing. He seldom addresses himself to any subject with the outward appearance of seriousness. He always puts his argument in jesting form; sends a shower of sparkling words over the most solemn controversy; puts on the manner of one who has plunged into the debate only for the mere fun of the thing; and brings his display to an end just at the time when the House hopes that he is only beginning to exert himself for its amusement. I do not know that he has ever made what could be called a long speech, and I think I may fairly assume that he has never made a speech which his audience would not have wished to be a little longer.

Now, I must say at once that it would be the most complete misappreciation of Henry Labouchere's character and purpose to regard him as a mere jester, or even a mere humorist endowed with the faculty of uttering spontaneous witticisms. Labouchere is very much in earnest even when he makes a joke, and his sharpest cynicism is inspired by a love of justice and a desire to champion the cause of what he believes to be the right. I heard him once make a speech in the House of Commons on behalf of some suffering class or cause, and when coming to a close he suddenly said: "I may be told that this is a sentimental view of the case; but, Mr. Speaker, I am a man of sentiment." The House broke into a perfect chorus of laughter at the idea thus presented of Labouchere as a man of sentiment. Probably many, or most, of his listeners thought it was only Labouchere's fun, and merely another illustration of his love for droll paradox. I have no doubt that Labouchere knew very well in advance what sort of reception was likely to be given to his description of himself, and that he heartily enjoyed the effect it produced. But, all the same, there was a good deal of truth in the description. I have always regarded Labouchere as a man of intensely strong opinions, whose peculiar humor it is to maintain these opinions by sarcasm and witticism and seeming paradox.

Certainly no public man in England has given clearer evidence of his sincerity and disinterestedness in any cause that he advocates than Labouchere has done again and again. I remember hearing it said many years ago in New York of my old friend Horace Greeley that whereas some other editors of great newspapers backed up their money with their opinions, Greeley backed up his opinions with his money. The meaning, of course, was that while some editors shaped their opinions in order to make their journals profitable, Horace Greeley was ready to sacrifice his money for the sake of maintaining the newspaper which expressed his sincere convictions. Something of the same kind might fairly be said of Henry Labouchere. He is the proprietor and editor of the weekly newspaper "Truth," in which he expresses his own opinions without the slightest regard for the commercial interests of the paper, or, indeed, for the political interests of the party which he usually supports in the House of Commons. I believe that, as a matter of fact, "Truth" is a most successful enterprise, even as a commercial speculation, for everybody wants to know what it is likely to say on this or that new and exciting question, and nobody can tell in advance what view Labouchere's organ may be likely to take. Labouchere has, however, given proof many times that he keeps up his newspaper as the organ of his individual opinions, and not merely as a means of making money or sustaining the interests of a political party. He has again and again hunted out and hunted down evil systems of various kinds, shams and quacks of many orders, abuses affecting large masses of the poor and the lowly, and has rendered himself liable to all manner of legal actions for the recovery of damages. If, because of some technical or other failure in his defense to one of those legal actions, Labouchere is cast in heavy damages, he pays the amount, makes a jest or two about it, and goes to work at the collection of better evidence and at the hunting out of other shams with as cheery a countenance as if nothing particular had happened. Fortunately for himself, and, I think, also very fortunately for the public in general, Labouchere is personally a rich man, and is able to meet without inconvenience any loss which may be brought upon him now and then by his resolute endeavors to expose shams.