CHAPTER XXII

OPPOSITION ONCE MORE

Though much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. TENNYSON: _Ulysses_.

[Sidenote: 1892 ÆT. 43]

The variations of English politics are continual, and at times so swift that those who influence them and are in turn influenced by them are hardly conscious of the pace they are travelling. As the general situation alters, the relations of its principal characters insensibly change. The doubtful or indifferent acquaintance of one year is the trusted comrade of the next. Combinations impossible in January are inevitable in June. Mortal offences are forgotten, if they are not forgiven; and as the ship moves forward into newer waters only a fading streak of froth lingers on the surface of the sea.

Lord Randolph Churchill returned from South Africa early in 1892, to find, so far as he was concerned, a better temper and complexion in public affairs than at any time since his resignation. The life of the Government was ebbing away; the appeal to country could not be long delayed; and although the Parnell disclosures had immensely strengthened the Unionist position, there was little in the record or character of the Administration to excite popular enthusiasm. The drag of six years of office made its effect felt, and the Grand Old Man seemed still to enjoy the unconquerable splendour of his powers. That feeling of closing up the ranks, usually the prelude to a General Election, was abroad in the party; and its chiefs, though he did not at first realise it, looked in amity, not unmingled with anxiety, to the erstwhile leader of Tory Democracy, who had done such great things with the electors in the past and might, for all they knew, exert even a greater influence in the future. His reappearance in the House of Commons in the first days of February created a stir, which his silent and reserved demeanour did not speedily allay. Alike in the lobbies and the newspapers the question was debated, ‘What is he going to do?’ And it must be admitted that his answer to the resolution in which the South Paddington Conservative Association inquired whether he proposed to stand, and if so whether he would support the general policy of the Conservative party, did not altogether remove the uncertainty which existed.

‘I would be obliged to you,’ he wrote to the Secretary of the Association (February 4, 1892), ‘if you would inform the Committee that, as at present advised, it is my intention in the event of a dissolution of Parliament to offer myself to the constituency for re-election and that in taking that course I should hope that I might rely upon the renewed support of the body which the Committee represent. It would further be my intention, in the event of my being re-elected as member of Parliament for the borough, to give to the Tory party the same support which I have given to it since the year 1874, when I first entered Parliament. Of the usefulness of that support it is not for me to judge; it is sufficient for me to say that my action in the future in the House of Commons would be in accordance, and consistent, with my action in the past.’

To FitzGibbon he wrote with greater plainness.

Penn House, Amersham: January 13, 1892.

It was too pleasant to get a sight of your handwriting again. My travel through South Africa was as nice an experience as anyone could have, and though I am very glad to get back I really enjoyed every hour of my journey. I think I find H. M. G. in a very weak and tottering state; their feelings towards myself more bitter and hostile than ever. But I imagine that, willy nilly, they will have to shake off or subdue their prejudices, for great troubles are before them. My information is that a large, influential and to some extent independent section of Tories kick awfully against Irish Local Government and do not mean to vote for it. This comes from a very knowledgeable member of the Government outside the Cabinet. If the Government proceed with their project they will either split or seriously dishearten the party, and to do either on the verge of a General Election would be suicidal. This is what they ought to do: They ought to say this Irish Local Government is far too large a question to be dealt with by a moribund Parliament; they ought to confess that there is not sufficient agreement among their supporters as to the nature and extent of such a measure, such as would favour the chances of successful legislation, and that they have determined to reserve the matter for a new Parliament, when the mind of the country upon their Irish administration has been fully ascertained. But I would not stop there. What is the great feature of the political situation in Ireland now? The resurrection in great force of priestly domination in political matters. Now I would cool the ardour of these potentates for Mr. G. by at once offering them the largest concessions on education--primary, intermediate, and University--which justice and generosity could admit of. I would not give them everything before the General Election, but I would give a good lot, and keep a good lot for the new Parliament. I do not think they could resist the bribe; and the soothing effect of such a policy on the Irish vote and attitude would be marked. Of course the concession would have to be very large--almost as large as what the Bishops have ever asked for--but preserving always intact Trinity College. It would assume the material shape of a money subsidy. What do you think of this? What is the frame of mind of the Bishops? What form and scope would you give to such a measure or measures as I suggest?

H. M. G. have no imagination or originality. The keystone of their policy has been to play against the life of Mr. G. This (not very noble, but still human) policy should, once taken up, be pursued remorselessly. To carry on the policy, the life of the Parliament should be prolonged into ‘93. How to do this? Introduce a measure dealing largely with the registration laws.

‘One man one vote’--a trifle--could be conceded; twelve months’ residence in lieu of eighteen established; paid officials for preparing register appointed in all constituencies. The new register could not be ready before the early spring of next year, and the convenient time for the election would be the summer or autumn. Now, my dear FitzGibbon, imagine the consternation, fury and utter paralysis of the Gladstonians if the Government were to make this complete _volte-face_--this tremendous surprise (all so logical and defensible as it is), the relief and joy of the Tories at getting rid of Local Government and at getting another year of life! Do not show this to anyone, unless it be to David Plunket, if he is with you--the Government are too fond of appropriating my ideas without acknowledgment--but write me all you think about it. I could write pages in support of it, but your own wily and Ulysses kind of mind will suggest to you all the wonderful elaboration of which it is susceptible.

And again in April:--

Politics attract me less and less and I successfully resist all invitations to take part in them, whether in Parliament or in the country. I really sincerely do not think that an offer of office would cause me the slightest emotion or drag me from my freedom and carelessness. However, that speculation is not likely to be put to the test. I have now a nice position--well with my constituents, well with my party--and am inclined to let well alone. I anticipate with amiable malice a Unionist defeat, and speculate on the nature of their struggles to resume power after that defeat. Balfour is doing very well, and has been much benefited by the senseless outcry raised against him by the Opposition.... Did you see my beautiful Latin letter to the [Trinity] College authorities, corrected and revised by Welldon of Harrow! It ought to have been published.

As the dissolution approached, overtures were made to him to contest several constituencies and he was pressed on all sides for his assistance. He declined everything. ‘It is not my intention,’ he wrote to one ardent Tory Democrat,[75] ‘to make any political speeches at the present time. Formerly I made many; but the labour was thankless and fruitless. Besides, I have not the smallest idea what the programme of our party now is.... From 1880 to 1886 I advocated on my own account a generally liberal and progressive policy, with the result that when I came into office I found that none of my colleagues were prepared to give to this policy the smallest genuine support; and that, office having been reached, promises to the people were to be forgotten or evaded. This experience I will never recommence; and it is for this reason that I decline, and must continue to decline, all invitations to take part in the platform exercises which precede the General Election.’ In Parliament he remained silent. He admired Mr. Balfour’s early essays in leading the House. ‘At last,’ he said, ‘the Tory party have got a leader whom they like.’ To one who told him that if he sat below the gangway he could soon overthrow the Government, he answered, ‘No, no; Arthur Balfour is too often nearly right.’

The only interventions in outside politics which he allowed himself were a speech on Metropolitan affairs during the London County Council election and a letter to Mr. Arnold White, the Liberal-Unionist candidate for Tyneside. This letter, however, outlines so boldly the scope and direction of his views that it deserves to be quoted.

He wrote:--

The Labour community is carrying on at the present day a very significant and instructive struggle. It has emancipated itself very largely from the mere mechanism of party politics; it realises that it now possesses political power to such an extent as to make it independent of either party in the State; and the struggle which it is now carrying on is less against Capital, less one of wages or division of profits, but rather one for the practical utilisation in its own interest of the great political power which it has acquired. The Labour interest is now seeking to do itself what the landed interest and the manufacturing capitalist interest did for themselves when each in turn commanded the disposition of State policy. Our land laws were framed by the landed interest for the advantage of the landed interest, and foreign policy was directed by that interest to the same end. Political power passed very considerably from the landed interest to the manufacturing capitalist interest, and our whole fiscal system was shaped by this latter power to its own advantage, foreign policy being also made to coincide. We are now come, or are coming fast, to a time when Labour laws will be made by the Labour interest for the advantage of Labour. The regulation of all the conditions of labour by the State, controlled and guided by the Labour vote, appears to be the ideal aimed at; and I think it extremely probable that a foreign policy which sought to extend by tariff over our Colonies and even over other friendly States, the area of profitable barter of produce will strongly commend itself to the mind of the Labour interest. Personally I can discern no cause for alarm in this prospect and I believe that on this point you and I are in perfect agreement. Labour in this modern movement has against it the prejudices of property, the resources of capital, and all the numerous forces--social, professional, and journalist--which those prejudices and resources can influence. It is our business as Tory politicians to uphold the Constitution. If under the Constitution as it now exists, and as we wish to see it preserved, the Labour interest finds that it can obtain its objects and secure its own advantage, then that interest will be reconciled to the Constitution, will find faith in it and will maintain it. But if it should unfortunately occur that the Constitutional party, to which you and I belong, are deaf to hear and slow to meet the demands of Labour, are stubborn in opposition to those demands and are persistent in the habit of ranging themselves in unreasoning and short-sighted support of all the present rights of property and capital, the result may be that the Labour interest may identify what it will take to be defects in the Constitutional party with the Constitution itself, and in a moment of indiscriminate impulse may use its power to sweep both away. This view of affairs, I submit, is worthy of attention at a time when it is a matter of life or death to the Constitutional party to enlist in the support of the Parliamentary Union of the United Kingdom a majority of the votes of the masses of Labour.

You tell me that you find the designation ‘Tory’ a great difficulty to you. I cannot see any good reason for this. After all, since the Revolution the designation ‘Tory’ has always possessed an essentially popular flavour, in contradistinction to the designation ‘Whig.’ It has not only a popular but a grand historical origin; it denotes great historical struggles, in many of which the Tory party have been found on the popular side. Lord Beaconsfield--who, if he was anything, was a man of the people and understood the popular significance of names and words--invariably made use of the word ‘Tory’ to characterise his party; and whatever the Tory party may be deemed to be at particular moments, I have always held, from the commencement of my political life, that, rightly understood and explained, it ought to be, and was intended to be, the party of broad ideas and of a truly liberal policy.

His interest in Labour questions was, indeed, growing steadily. When the Eight Hours Bill for Miners was discussed that year in the Commons, he addressed a long private letter to Mr. Balfour praying for its considerate treatment. ‘I humbly advise, but pressingly; in the debate let Gorst have a little Labour fling. Keep your hand tight over Matthews and, if you can see your way to it, make one of those interesting and amicable speeches which you can do so well, not exactly saying that your mind is open, but, to use a Gladstonianism, that it is not altogether absolutely closed. You can realise,’ he added quaintly, ‘how much importance I attach to the question when I tell you that I am actually coming up from Lincoln and missing three important races in which our horses run, to vote for the Bill. I do not think I would do this for the Monarchy, the Church, the House of Lords or the Union.’

The General Election came at that period, July, dear to the hearts of Tory organisers, when democracy is supposed to be under the soothing influence of summer weather, and before villadom has departed on its holidays. Lord Randolph took little part in it. He stood for South Paddington as a Conservative and an opponent of Home Rule. He let it be understood that if he was not interfered with by the Liberal party he would not speak outside the limits of his own constituency. This bargain seeming sufficiently good, in view of the fact that the seat was impregnable, no opposition was offered him. The only speech he found it necessary to make, and his election address, dealt almost entirely with the maintenance of the Union, though the latter also contained the following paragraph:--

‘My views as to the reforms in the public service which public safety and economy alike urgently call for, are, I think, well known to you; they have undergone no change, save that I hold them more strongly than ever. You are also, I imagine, not unaware of my desire to meet with all legitimate sympathy and good-will the newly-formed but very articulate and well-defined demands of the labouring classes.’

To FitzGibbon he wrote:--

I cannot manage to get over for the Trinity College festivities. I have a great and increasing horror of anything in the nature of speeches and functions. We are all over here awaiting in suspense the result of the elections.... I have refused many invitations to speak. I do not think the time at all propitious for anything in the shape of a manifesto such as you suggest. Besides which, I have no contest in this constituency; and as the Radicals are not annoying me I do not want to provoke them. Nor do I feel called upon to take any action which may be of the slightest use to a Government and a party which for five years has boycotted and slandered me....

The Paddington election proceeded smoothly to an unopposed return. Parliament met only to change an Administration and separate for the holidays.

[Sidenote: 1893 ÆT. 44]

I am living [Lord Randolph wrote to FitzGibbon in November] a very quiet life in London, mainly occupied in reading books of one kind and another. I have two discourses to deliver, one at Macclesfield on the 30th inst. and one at Perth in December. Then _tacebo_. I hope John Morley will make a final adjustment of the grievances of those poor Christian Brothers. If I can usefully make any representations to him, instruct me. We have always been very good friends. Such Ministers as I have seen declare that they will soon be turned out; but I cannot see why this should be so. At any rate, beyond opposing their Home Rule Bill, I shall do nothing to bother them, as I very greatly prefer them to their predecessors.

This feeling of detachment was soon to be removed. The accession of Mr. Gladstone to power and the imminence of a Home Rule Bill was bound to unite in the most effective manner all sections of the Unionist party. Lord Randolph had, since his return from South Africa, accepted, though not without embarrassment, an invitation to dine with Lord Salisbury. ‘C’est le premier plat qui coûte,’ wrote Wolff, who highly approved of the proceeding. Now Chamberlain sent a very friendly letter, and this was soon followed by a long and agreeable conference. The meetings which Lord Randolph had consented to address at Perth and Macclesfield in the autumn must have made his antagonism to the new Government plain; and only the sudden death of his brother the Duke of Marlborough, in November, which was a great shock to him, caused those arrangements to fall through; so that Parliament met in January, 1893, without his having formally joined himself to the official leaders of the Opposition.

With the opening of the Session and the beginning of the fight came full and complete reconciliation. He was urged to take his place again upon the Front Bench. ‘If it had ever occurred to me,’ wrote Mr. Balfour (January 30, 1893), ‘that you could sit anywhere but on our bench, I would have spoken about it to you last night. _Everyone_ desires you should do so, and _most of all_ yours ever, A. J. B.’ At the meeting of the Conservative party in the Carlton Club to consider the resistance to the Home Rule Bill, he kept himself in the background at some distance from Lord Salisbury. But after all the worthies had spoken, the assembly still found the proceedings incomplete and loud cries were raised from all parts of the room for ‘Churchill.’ At first there was no response, but so continuous and insistent was the demand that Lord Randolph eventually came forward and in a few simple words, which evoked remarkable enthusiasm, declared his willingness to serve, to the best of his ability, in the House of Commons under his friend and political chief, Mr. Balfour. He was henceforward invited to attend the private meetings of the Unionist leaders which were held at Devonshire House during the passage of the Irish Bill, and he took his share in framing the amendments and deciding upon the policy of the Opposition.

But now, when a new prospect was opening to his view, when he had been welcomed by the mass of the party, when he had returned to its inmost councils and ranged himself once again with his old friends and colleagues in whole-hearted support of a cause which he had long defended, a dark hand intervened. The great strain to which he had subjected himself during the struggle against Mr. Gladstone, the vexations and disappointments of later years and finally the severe physical exertions and exposure of South Africa had produced in a neurotic temperament and delicate constitution a very rare and ghastly disease. During the winter of ‘92 symptoms of vertigo, palpitation, and numbness of the hands made themselves felt, and his condition was already a cause of the deepest anxiety to his friends. But it was not till he rose on the occasion of the introduction of the Home Rule Bill that the political world realised how great was the change. It happened that the debate was unexpectedly delayed by a question of privilege. The suspense proved a strain greater than he could bear with composure and when he rose his nervousness was extreme, and more to be looked for in some novice presuming for the first time than in a Parliamentarian of near twenty years’ standing. He no longer dared to trust his memory: while the notes of his speech on the first Home Rule Bill had been written on a single sheet of paper, he now required eighteen. The House, crowded in every part to hear him, was shocked by his strangely altered appearance. It seemed incredible that this bald and bearded man with shaking hands and a white face drawn with pain and deeply marked with the lines of care and illness, and with a voice whose tremulous tones already betrayed the fatal difficulty of articulation, could be that same brilliant audacious leader who in the flush of exultant youth had marched irresistibly to power through the stormy days of 1886.

Yet the quality of his speech showed no signs of intellectual failing. Avoiding the network of details in which so many speakers had stumbled, he presented a broad intelligible picture. Lucid and original expression, close and careful reasoning, wealth of knowledge, quaint Randolphian witticisms--all were there. Although much of the charm and force of his manner was gone, his statement was considered by good and impartial judges to have been, with the exception of Mr. Chamberlain’s, the best speech delivered against the Bill.

And he was destined to have one last flicker of success. Once again was he to encounter, not unequally, his majestic antagonist; once again those he had been so proud to lead, were to sustain him with triumphant acclamation. Exactly a week after his reappearance he was entrusted with the conclusion of the debate on the Welsh Church Suspensory Bill. The trying circumstances of his first effort were no longer present and the feeling that he had broken the ice comforted him. His whole condition varied sensibly from day to day. This was his good day. The House seemed friendly to him; his spirits responded to its mood, and for the moment he seemed to recover all, or nearly all, of his former power. Anyone who will take the trouble to read in Hansard the intricate and sustained argument and the ready rejoinders of the speech will see that the vigour of his mind was unimpaired. Triumph came at the end. Putting aside his notes, he began a fierce and sparkling attack on Mr. Gladstone. It is the last quotation I shall make:--

‘What motive has influenced the right honourable gentleman and his colleagues to propose this measure to the House? It is not, as the member for Hertford said, “plunder.” That is the local motive. The political motive is widely different. It is undoubtedly to secure votes for their Irish policy. On behalf of that Irish policy nothing must be spared--not even the Established Church in Wales. Votes! Votes! Votes! That is the cry of the right honourable gentleman, and that is the political morality which he preaches.

‘Hæc Janus summus ab imo Prodocet. Hæc recinunt juvenes dictata senesque.

Votes at any cost, votes at any price. Refrain from nothing that can get you votes; adhere to nothing that can prevent your getting votes--the votes which alone can accomplish the political salvation of the Liberal party. I see before me,’ he continued, backed by the clamorous growing support of the great party from whom he had been so long estranged, ‘many distinguished gentlemen, as able as any that this country can produce, in the administration of public departments. But do you call that a Government? Whom do you govern? One day the Government is at the mercy of the Irish party; another day it is at the mercy of the Welsh party; and on a third day yet to come it will be in the power of the Scotch party. The Government is absolutely in the power of any of the three sections of its majority. It must concede when any section makes a demand. An English Government has never yet been conducted on such principles--better suited to a Whitechapel auction than to the conduct of our State.’

This characteristic attack produced an electrical effect upon Mr. Gladstone, and the years seemed to fall from his shoulders as he rose at once to reply. ‘I accept,’ he cried, ‘the monosyllabic invocation of the noble lord and I say “Vote, Vote, Vote” for both Welsh Disestablishment and Home Rule.’ And in the course of a rejoinder which, though brief, was inferior to few, if any, of his later speeches, he cast back the reproaches of the Opposition and roused and rallied the enthusiasm of his followers amid a storm of cheers and counter-cheers. The First Reading passed by a majority of 56 in an angry and excited House, and the members hurried home, saying that the days of the ‘eighties’ were come back and that Randolph was himself again.

FitzGibbon, who was increasingly his correspondent, kept him supplied with an inexhaustible stream of fact and fancy upon the Irish Bill, and Lord Randolph’s replies to his old friend constitute a sufficient account of his Parliamentary doings and domestic affairs:--

Branksome Dene, Bournemouth: January 15, 1893.

Many thanks for your letter. I am happy to say Winston is going on well and making a good and on the whole rapid recovery. He had a miraculous escape from being smashed to pieces, as he fell thirty feet off a bridge over a chine, from which he tried to leap to the bough of a tree. What dreadfully foolhardy and reckless things boys do! We have a sharp return of the cold, and snow is all about. I keep thinking of my good time in Ireland, which was the best I have had for a long time.

50 Grosvenor Square, W.: February 18, 1893.

Just a line to thank you for your letter. I imagine the speech produced not unsatisfactory effects. I was awfully ‘jumpy.’ The damned Bill is out, and I should greatly like from you, if you had spare time, a _critique raisonnée_ of it. I shall have to make some speeches--probably one to a great meeting in Scotland at Easter time. The Second Reading is fixed for March 13, but this may be only a nominal date. I am very anxious about the result when it comes to a General Election. It is on England we must concentrate our efforts.

50 Grosvenor Square, W.: March 15, 1893.

It is most good of you taking so much trouble for me in respect of that measure, but I will try and make the best use of all you send me, and the ‘lawyer’s notes’ may develop into orations which may electrify the country. If one can trust the statements of the Unionist Press, the Bill has absolutely no prospects or chances of passing. All the heart, what little there ever was, has been taken out of the Repealers by the postponement of the Second Reading. I only hope the end may not come too quick. The Local Veto Bill has infuriated the liquor interest even more than the H. R. Bill has Ulster.

I do not think the G. O. M. has influenza, but it may be some time before we see him again in the House of Commons.

50 Grosvenor Square, W.: March 29, 1893.

You are really too good, and I am shocked to have added so much to your work. Your notes will be most valuable to me and I am looking forward to their arrival. You will see that I loosed off last night against Mr. G. and Morley. I think our party were very much pleased. The old man is pressing us very hard with his demands for the time of Parliament and his refusal to give decent holidays. I have counselled that we do not enter on a futile resistance in which we must be overborne. I am all for giving him rope; he is sure to get into a terrible mess sooner or later.

I have a busy Easter before me. Political discourses at Liverpool and Perth, and I shall not get back to London till April 14. I shall keep your notes, though more for Parliamentary purposes; they will be too good for public meetings. With many thanks and much gratitude.

Penshurst: April 30, 1893.

Well, we have had three important meetings at Devonshire House--D. of D., M. of S., Joe C., Arthur B., Goschen, Sir Henry J., Atkinson, and myself. With the general result I am much pleased. I contended hard for the principle that none of our amendments should be in any sense constructive, nothing that could give rise to an idea that we were drifting into anything like an alternative scheme. Joe C. was much for leading us in this way, but Devonshire and Salisbury were very firm and the mischief was averted. Then there was another great danger avoided. Joe C., A. B., and Goschen were rather strongly in favour of an amendment excluding Ulster from the Bill. Your powers of reflection and discernment will show you at once what a horrid and dangerous trap that would have let us into. However, thanks again to Salisbury and Devonshire, the idea was dropped.

No amendments will be moved by any of us, but some have been drawn and will be given to others. James’ amendments to the fifth clause are very ingenious. But I shall send you a paper of amendments marked after next Friday. We are to meet on Fridays when the H. R. Bill is in Committee. Government will not get their Committee Thursday: at the earliest not before Monday. I have not been very well lately, and the last three days have had a dreadful cough, which would quite have incapacitated me from speaking. I hope now it is yielding to treatment, and fortunately I have had no speeches to make. I am full of hope. There is much rumour that Mr. G. will go to the House of Lords. Harcourt is certainly very unwell. Belfast seems to have settled down. I have several speeches in the country before me in May. Write to me when you have time, but not in those horrid envelopes.

50 Grosvenor Square.

I have just delivered a twenty minutes’ speech in the House of Commons on the case of the Christian Brothers. We had a large majority against the Ulster Bill. You will find a passage in Morley’s speech in which he said that he still hoped for an arrangement, and that if he was a member of the Board [of National Education] he should expect to be able to discover a method. The Tories are, I expect, very cross with me.

I think you can now go to work again.

50 Grosvenor Square, W.: July 11, 1893.

I wish you had not written in so uncomplimentary a strain about Rosebery. I would have shown it him but for that. I have the very highest opinion of his work,[76] and always describe it as a literary diamond. Now please write me another letter, more complimentary. You can bring out all the views which have occurred to you without accusing him of absolute ignorance of Ireland. Remember, he was in a very awkward position, and Mr. Gladstone was very cold to him after the work appeared. After all, he made one of the most luminous expositions of the benefits of the Union and that covers every error. Do do what I ask, for I am very fond of Rosebery and very intimate with him, and I always look forward to being in a Government with him. He likes you very much, and knows on what intimate terms you and I are. Write me a review, not longer than your letter, fair and _raisonné_. It will not take you long, and it might do a great deal of good.

This is not the place to describe the stormy and protracted Session of 1893. The ruthless persistency of the Government; the stubborn resistance of the Conservative party; the inch-by-inch struggle in Committee; Chamberlain’s keen and unceasing attack from below the gangway; the venerable figure of the Prime Minister, erect and unflinching, at the table; the mutilated procedure of Parliament; and the rising storm of partisanship on both sides contribute to an account which seems to approach by sure gradations a violent climax. Lord Randolph has left a record, in the form of a private letter to the Speaker, of the explosion:--

_Lord Randolph Churchill to the Speaker._[77]

50 Grosvenor Square: July 29, 1893.

I am desirous of submitting to you a true account of the disturbance and the real cause of the disorder which occurred in the House of Commons on Thursday night.

The cry of ‘Judas’ was the retort to Mr. Chamberlain’s expression ‘Herod.’ But Mr. Chamberlain has never taken any notice of it on previous occasions, nor did he on Thursday night, for I saw him smiling; and I do not consider that this exclamation was, except in a certain sense, the real cause of the turmoil. When Mr. Balfour left the House he told me that in the event of a division we were to vote with the Government against Mr. Clancy’s amendment, a course in which I thoroughly concurred. I did not know the tremendous passions which were raging behind me. The division had begun and I was already proceeding into the Lobby, when, turning round, I saw that scarcely a single member of the party had moved. I returned, and told them of Mr. Balfour’s wishes, and begged them to go into the ‘No’ Lobby. But I was met by cries that they would not divide, and I ascertained that Mr. Vicary Gibbs had been trying to raise a point of order on the question of the cry ‘Judas,’ and, because that had not been settled, this very considerable section of the Opposition would not on any account divide. I thought it obvious that a point of order could not be decided when a division had been called, for the reason that a number of members had left the House for the Lobby. I urged upon them that not leaving their seats to vote was the gravest violation of the rules of the House, but all to no purpose. I therefore proceeded myself into the Lobby, where there was a small muster of Liberals, three or four Ministers, but none, so far as I could see, of the Opposition.

We waited for about two minutes, when the sound of a great noise reached us. We returned to the House; the floor was crowded with members, all standing; there was much scuffling; and certainly the scene was the most appalling I ever witnessed. I made my way to the Front Opposition Bench again, and implored the occupants of the Opposition benches to come into the Lobby to record their votes. There was still time to take the division, if only they would have moved from their seats; but all my efforts were more useless than before.

When you took the Chair, Sir, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Balfour (neither of whom had seen all that passed) informed you that you had been sent for to decide a point of order as to the propriety of the cry ‘Judas.’ With all respect nothing could have been more inaccurate. I lay down confidently that the whole disorder arose from the Opposition members being determined not to take part in the division and from the Chairman seeming not to know that he could compel them to do so under pain of very severe penalties.

I must excuse myself for wearying you, Sir, with this long statement, but I would make two justifications: (1) I read there is a possibility of an inquiry into the cause of the disturbance, and I am anxious that my evidence should be before you; (2) that there has been so much disorder and defiance of the authority of the Chairman of Committees by individual members of all parties during the progress of the Government of Ireland Bill that if it is not checked by the high authority which resides in yourself, Sir, the House of Commons will go from bad to worse, and it is impossible to foresee to what extent it may change its character in a very short time.

Lord Randolph’s speech on the Welsh Church was his last Parliamentary success. Throughout the passage of the Home Rule Bill he held his place in the front rank of the Opposition and took a regular and not undistinguished part in the debates. In the Easter recess his speeches to large audiences at Liverpool and Perth commanded the attention of the country, and now, as in former years, he provided his party with an inexhaustible supply of catchwords and homely arguments. But the fire and force of his oratory were gone, never to return; and as the Session drew on, his difficulties of utterance and of memory increased, and the severe and unrelenting labour exhausted the remnants of his strength. Several times in the hot summer months he failed to hold the attention of the House and even sometimes to make himself understood. Once, indeed, the members grew impatient and the House was filled with restless murmurs. But his friends--some of them his most distinguished opponents--rallied to him, checked the interruptions, and tried perseveringly to make all look smooth and successful. And in these days it was observed that Mr. Gladstone would always be in his place to pay the greatest attention to his speeches and to reply elaborately to such arguments as he had advanced.

Lord Randolph Churchill was acutely conscious of his failing powers and the realisation roused him to immense exertions. A year before he had hardly cared for political affairs. Now he plunged desperately into the struggle. Others around him encountered the measures of a Liberal Administration. He faced a different foe. With the whole strength of his will he fought against the oncoming decay. He refused to accept defeat. He redoubled his labours. If five hours no longer sufficed for the preparation of a speech--he would take five days. If his memory played him false, it must be exercised the more. If the House of Commons was escaping from his grip, he would see whether the people would still hear him.

During the months of May and June he spoke at no fewer than ten important meetings--at Reading, Bolton, Macclesfield, Leicester, Carlisle, Pontefract, Boston and other big towns. Everywhere he was received by immense audiences and frequently he succeeded, as of old, in arousing their interest and enthusiasm. The fertility of his mind and the store of political knowledge and expression he had accumulated were astonishing. Almost every one of these speeches was reported verbatim in the _Times_ newspaper. All were confined to the single subject of the Home Rule Bill and the circumstances that attended its passage. No repetition of argument or phrase can be detected in the entire series of speeches.

It was at this time that he looked towards Bradford. That city had even before the General Election invited him to contest its central division. His eye for a political country was as good as ever. To persuade a great commercial centre to change its party allegiance, to be returned at the election with three solid seats won for the Unionist cause, to entrench himself in the heart of Yorkshire was a plan most attractive to his nature; and had he lived, these objects would certainly have been accomplished; for all divisions of Bradford returned Unionist members to the Parliament of 1895 and that condition continues to this day. On May 26 he addressed a large meeting in the St. George’s Hall. His candidature was adopted with enthusiasm by the local Conservatives. Meetings were held, the organisation was improved, the Unionist press was strengthened and supported, and a new impulse was imparted to the Conservative movement throughout the whole district.

For the autumn of 1893 he prepared a further extensive campaign all over the country, and he convinced himself that it was still in his power to raise a great wave of democratic excitement that would shake the Government and establish his position before the world. In order to collect all his strength for this effort he withdrew before the end of the Session to Kissingen and Gastein and submitted himself to the strictest discipline that the doctors could advise. The quiet peaceful life, with its simple routine of baths, walks and long drives, when the afternoon sun cast the shade of the forest and the hills over half the valley, seemed for a time to restore his health: and he hastened to write glowing accounts to his mother of the improvement. But these appearances were illusory and, underneath, the process of dissolution went remorselessly forward.

One incident--not unworthy of record--diversified the weeks at Kissingen and lighted up the autumn of 1893.

_To his Mother._

_August 7._--The sensation of yesterday was the visit of Prince Bismarck. We had left cards on him the day before, and I did not expect he would do more than return them. However, yesterday the weather was showery, and as Jennie was rather seedy we did not go our usual drive. I was reading the papers when a great big Chasseur appeared and informed me that the Fürst von Bismarck was in his carriage at the door and was asking for me. I hurried downstairs and met the Prince at his carriage. He came up to our rooms--which luckily are on the first floor--and sat down, and we began to converse. I had sent off a message to Jennie, who had gone to the Kurhaus to see a friend. So I had about a quarter of an hour in which to talk to the Prince. I will tell you of his appearance. He is seventy-eight--so he told me afterwards--but he looks so much younger than Mr. Gladstone that in fact you would hardly give him more than seventy-three or seventy-four years. He looked in good health, and came upstairs without the slightest difficulty. We discussed various subjects, which I will go through _seriatim_. We spoke in English; but whether it was for that reason, though he spoke very correctly, he struck me as being nervous. Perhaps it was meeting with a total stranger, because he had never seen me before. However, he was most gracious and seemed very anxious to please. You may imagine that I did my very best to please him, for I thought it a great honour for this old Prince to come and see us.

The conversation began on Kissingen--the baths, the waters, &c. He told me he had first come here in 1874, and had been here almost every year since. He gave up drinking the waters about eight years ago, but he continues to take baths, and thinks they do him good. After this I asked him why he never went now to Gastein. He said, laughing, ‘Oh, Gastein is a peculiar water to some people--sometimes dangerous’; that he knew two of his friends who died of apoplexy when taking the baths; and added that his doctor had told him that Gastein was the last resource; and he remarked, ‘And I am seventy-eight,’ and seemed quite pleased about it. Then he talked about the Emperor William on a question as to whether Gastein had not added some years to his life. He quite admitted it, and told me that for many years the Emperor used to go to Carlsbad, when he used to accompany him; and this reminiscence seemed very pleasing to him. In talking of the Emperor he always used the expression ‘my old master.’

Then I turned the conversation on to Siam, and asked him whether he did not think it was a satisfactory settlement. He appeared to agree and began speaking in this connection of M. Jules Ferry. He regretted his loss, and said that Jules Ferry was the best man that France had had for years, and joked a little about his appearance--long whiskers, &c. Then he went on to say that he thought, if Jules Ferry had remained in power, a very good arrangement and condition would have come about between the Germans and the French. He said that he had nearly concluded an agreement between himself and Jules Ferry that France should remain on friendly and peaceful terms with Germany, and that he (Prince B.) would support France in Tunis and Siam, and generally in her Eastern colonisation. Then I remarked about Siam that Rosebery had learned out of his book this principle--to ask for no more than he required, but to insist on getting what he required, and to treat with neglect what was not essential. He said that was so and he went on to praise Rosebery, and described him as a good combination of will and caution, and added that of all English statesmen he was the one who was most modest and quiet in his acts and attitude.

Of course, no conversation would be complete without a reference to Mr. Gladstone, to which I led him. He, of course, began by admitting that Mr. Gladstone was very eloquent; but that he had always been like an ungovernable horse whom no one could ride in any bridle, and was not to be controlled in any way. He used a German adjective to describe the horse, which I have forgotten; but seeing his drift, and in reply to his question what was the English expression for the German word, I said ‘ungovernable and unmanageable and hard to ride’ would express it, and I remarked that in England people often called such a horse a ‘rogue.’ On which he turned his face to me with a smile, but said nothing, though he clearly understood the allusion. He further in conversation said that he should be very alarmed and anxious if such a man as Mr. Gladstone governed ‘my country.’ Then Jennie arrived and he talked mainly to her for a few minutes, when he announced that his son Herbert and his recently married wife arrived that afternoon to stay a few days with him, and that he hoped we should see something of them.

Without doubt this Prince and statesman has a most powerful attraction. The whole of his career, from the time when he was First Minister of the King and fought the Parliament, to the time of the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles, seems to me more intelligible now, and at the same time a work that only this man could have carried out or even conceived the possibility of. I never took my eyes off his face while he was talking to me and kept trying to fix it in my memory. For all his quiet manner his qualities would be apparent to any observer of experience; you can trace the iron will in great emergencies which has so frequently borne him up, all the calm courage for which the North Germans are peculiarly distinguished, and yet with all that--in spite of the recollection of the great things he had done--no trace of pride, no sign of condescension, but perfectly gracious and polite, a true _Grand Seigneur_. He carried himself at his age as erect as a soldier, and for all his long black coat and his rather old black, soft, low-crowned wideawake hat he looks all over what he is--the combination, so rarely seen in this century, of statesman and General.

This friendly conversation, proving mutually agreeable, was followed by an invitation to dinner with the Bismarck family. ‘We dined,’ so runs the account, ‘in the hall of an old Bishop’s palace, on the first floor, which a friend of the Prince owns and lends him every year. It was of large and fine proportion. At one end we assembled before dinner; at the other end the table was laid. The dinner was a regular old-fashioned German dinner, a little _bourgeois_ (like the Berlin Court under the old Emperor), but everything was dignified as to the table--the food, the wine, the old servants--and, though very different to our ideas, had really _un air noble_. All this was greatly added to by the presence of the Prince, his impressive appearance, and the combination of respect and affection which all his family and those friends that were dining, showed him. His good spirits and excellent humour and his sustained support of the conversation--sometimes with Jennie, sometimes with me, sometimes with Herbert and his wife--can never be forgotten by anyone who saw it.’

Lord Randolph sat next to Prince Bismarck and was so occupied in observing him and the scene generally that he took but little part in the conversation. The picture was complete--the Princess, feeble and broken in health; Count Herbert and his wife; the famous black wolf-hounds which once upon a time frightened Gortschakoff so much; Bismarck himself, ‘speaking English very carefully and slowly, frequently pausing to get the right word, but always producing it, or something like it, in the end’; drinking a mixture of very old hock poured into a needle-glass of champagne--‘“the last bottle [of hock], a present from ----,” a Grand Duke whose name I cannot remember’--at length arriving at his great pipe, prepared all ready for him by a venerable retainer, ‘stem two feet in length, curved mouthpiece, bowl long and large in china and standing up square with the stem, lighted by broad wooden safety-matches to prevent him burning his fingers; and all the time running on in talk brisk and light, always courtly and genial, never quite serious.’

‘I did not dare,’ declares Lord Randolph, ‘to drink this old hock, and only sipped it. The Prince, who was joking, said to Jennie that he was very sorry I had not drunk my share, as it would cause him to drink too much and he would be “half over the seas.”’ Presently he wanted to know about Mr. Gladstone. He would be useful in putting to rights the disorders of German finance. Would the English people exchange him for General Caprivi? ‘I told him,’ writes Lord Randolph shamelessly, ‘that the English people would cheerfully give him Mr. Gladstone for nothing, but that he would find him an expensive present!’ So with chaff and good temper the evening passed away--pleasant, memorable, one of the last he was to know.

[Sidenote: 1894 ÆT. 45]

Lord Randolph returned from Germany none the better for his rest and plunged forthwith into an exhausting campaign. What experience can be more painful than for a man who enjoys the fullest intellectual vigour, and whose blood is quite unchilled by age, to feel the whole apparatus of expression slipping sensibly from him? He struggled against his fate desperately, and at first with intervals of profound depression. But, as the malady progressed, the inscrutable workings of Nature provided a mysterious anodyne. By a queer contradiction it is ordained that an all-embracing optimism should be one of the symptoms of this fell disease. The victim becomes continually less able to realise his condition. In the midst of failure he is cheered by an artificial consciousness of victory. While the days are swiftly ebbing, he builds large plans for the future; and a rosy glow of sunset conceals the approach of night. Therefore as Lord Randolph’s faculties were steadily impaired, his determination to persevere was inversely strengthened; and in spite of the advice and appeals of his family, by which he was deeply wounded, he carried out in its entirety the whole programme of speeches he had arranged. Huddersfield, Stalybridge, Bedford, Yarmouth, Dundee, Glasgow, Bradford and Camborne followed each other in quick succession in October and November. But the crowds who were drawn by the old glamour of his name, departed sorrowful and shuddering at the spectacle of a dying man, and those who loved him were consumed with embarrassment and grief. It is needless to dwell longer upon this.

[Sidenote: 1895 ÆT. 46]

He spent Christmas at Howth. The old circle of friends were gathered once more, and they saw with sadness that their hopes of his return to power, cherished for so many years, would never be fulfilled. When he came back to England for the beginning of the Session, the hounds were hard upon his track. But it was not till June that he consented to yield. The doctors ordered complete rest. ‘They told me,’ he wrote to his mother, ‘that I was to give up political life for a year. I did not agree directly, but said I would think it over. I returned next day and explained to them my plan [of a journey round the world]. Of this they fully approved.’ And now followed only a few dinners of farewell to good friends--who knew they would never see him again--and busy preparations for a long journey. He sailed, with his wife, for America on June 27 under a sentence of death, operative within twelve months; and he realised perfectly that his time was very short. But now Nature began mercifully to apply increasing doses of her own anæsthetics, and for the space there was yet to travel he suffered less than those who watched him. Indeed, in an odd way he was positively happy in these last few months; for the changing scenes kept him from sombre reflections, and the increasing attention which he paid to details of all kinds occupied his mind. Nothing was too small to command his interest, and neither in America nor in Japan was ever seen so methodical a tourist. The light faded steadily. At intervals small blood-vessels would break in the brain, producing temporary coma, and leaving always a little less memory or faculty behind. His physical strength held out till he reached Burma, ‘which I annexed,’ and which he had earnestly desired to see. But when it failed, the change was sudden and complete. The journey was curtailed, and in the last days of 1894 he reached England as weak and helpless in mind and body as a little child. For a month, at his mother’s house, he lingered pitifully, until very early in the morning of January 24 the numbing fingers of paralysis laid that weary brain to rest.

The illness of Lord Randolph Churchill had been followed with attention throughout the country, and the tragic termination of his career evoked greater manifestations of sympathy than are accorded to many who have played a longer part in the world’s affairs. Politicians of all ranks and parties attended the service in Westminster Abbey. Large crowds assembled in the streets through which the funeral procession passed. The journey lay, by a strange coincidence, from Paddington to Woodstock. The London terminus was thronged with representatives of the Metropolitan constituency. Woodstock gathered around the churchyard at Bladon. Thither, too, came deputations of the Birmingham Tories and Irish friends. Over the landscape, brilliant with sunshine, snow had spread a glittering pall. He lies close by the tower of the village church, and the plain granite cross which marks the spot, can almost be discerned, across a mile of lawn and meadow, from the great house which was his childhood’s home, and whose sinister motto his varied fortunes had not ill-sustained. A statue is erected to his memory in Blenheim Chapel; and a bust by the same hand was set up in the House of Commons by private subscription among the members, and unveiled with a few simple and well-chosen words by his oldest and truest political comrade, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.

* * * * *

The story of Lord Randolph Churchill’s life is complete in itself and needs no comment from the teller. That he was a great elemental force in British politics, that he was broken irrecoverably at the moment of maturity, should be evident from these pages. It is idle to speculate upon what his work and fortunes might have been, had he continued to lead the House of Commons and influence against its inclinations the Conservative party. It is certain only that the course of domestic policy in Finance, in Temperance and other social questions would have been widely deflected from that which has been in fact pursued. Most of all, perhaps, was Ireland a loser by his downfall; for more than any other Unionist of authority he understood the Irish people--their pride, their wants, their failings, their true inspiration. What would have happened to him, aye, and to others had he lived the ordinary span of men--after all, he was but forty-six--are questionings even more shadowy and unreal. How would he have regarded a naval and military expenditure of seventy millions in time of peace? What would he have thought of the later developments of those Imperialistic ideas, the rise of which he had powerfully, yet almost unconsciously, aided? What action would have been wrung from him by the stresses of the South African war? Would he, under the many riddles the future had reserved for such as he, have snapped the tie of sentiment that bound him to his party, resolved at last to ‘shake the yoke of inauspicious stars’; or would he by combining its Protectionist appetites with the gathering forces of labour have endeavoured to repeat as a Tory-Socialist in the new century the triumphs of the Tory-Democrat in the old?

For all its sense of incompleteness, of tragic interruption, his life presents a harmony and unity of purpose and view. Verbal consistency is of small value. Yet even his verbal consistency was not especially open to challenge. But the ‘climate of opinion’ in which he lived, the mood and intention with which he faced the swiftly changing problems of a stormy period, were never sensibly or erratically altered. The principles and convictions which he developed in the Parliament of 1874, and professed during the Parliament of 1880, were those, which guided him to the end. That the period was brief in which he swayed and almost dominated the Conservative party is not wonderful. The marvel is that he should ever have won to power in it at all. Only the peculiar conditions of the Parliament of 1880, in the House of Commons and out of doors, made his career, as I have described it, a possibility, and enabled him to attack a Liberal Government for oppression and war and to appeal to a Conservative party in the name of Peace, Retrenchment and Reform. Tory Democracy was necessarily a compromise (perilously near a paradox in the eye of a partisan) between widely different forces and ideas: ancient permanent institutions becoming the instruments of far-reaching social reforms: order conjoined with liberty; stability and yet progress; the Tory party and daring legislation! Yet narrow as was the path along which he moved, multitudes began to follow. Illogical and unsymmetrical as the idea might seem--an idea not even novel--it grew vital and true at his touch. At a time when Liberal formulas and Tory inertia seemed alike chill and comfortless, he warmed the heart of England and strangely stirred the imagination of her people.

He contained in his nature and in his policy all the elements necessary to ruin and success. If the principles he championed from 1880 to 1885 were the cause of his rise, they were also the cause of his fall. All his pledges he faithfully fulfilled. The Government changed. The vast preponderance of power in the State passed from one great party to the other. Lord Randolph Churchill remained exactly the same. He thought and said the same sort of things about foreign and domestic policy, about armaments and expenditure, about Ireland, about Egypt, while he was a Minister as he had done before. He continued to repeat them after he had left office for ever. The hopes he had raised among the people, the promises he had made, the great support and honour he had received from them, seemed to require of him strenuous exertions. And when all exertions had failed, he paid cheerfully the fullest and the only forfeit in his power.

Lord Randolph Churchill’s name will not be recorded upon the bead-roll of either party. The Conservatives, whose forces he so greatly strengthened, the Liberals, some of whose finest principles he notably sustained, must equally regard his life and work with mingled feelings. A politician’s character and position are measured in his day by party standards. When he is dead all that he achieved in the name of party, is at an end. The eulogies and censures of partisans are powerless to affect his ultimate reputation. The scales wherein he was weighed are broken. The years to come bring weights and measures of their own.

There is an England which stretches far beyond the well-drilled masses who are assembled by party machinery to salute with appropriate acclamation the utterances of their recognised fuglemen; an England of wise men who gaze without self-deception at the failings and follies of both political parties; of brave and earnest men who find in neither faction fair scope for the effort that is in them; of ‘poor men’ who increasingly doubt the sincerity of party philanthropy. It was to that England that Lord Randolph Churchill appealed; it was that England he so nearly won; it is by that England he will be justly judged.

APPENDICES

V

_TWO ELECTION ADDRESSES_

1886.

_To the Electors of South Paddington._

Gentlemen,--A ‘people’s dissolution’ has come upon us. Such is the title given by Mr. Gladstone to the most wanton political convulsion which has, in our time, afflicted our country. The caprice of an individual is elevated to the dignity of an act of the people by the boundless egoism of the Prime Minister. The United Kingdom is to be disunited for the purpose of securing in office, if only for a little while, by the aid of a disloyal faction subsisting on foreign gold, a Government deserted by all who could confer upon it character or reputation.

Mr. Gladstone has reserved for his closing days a conspiracy against the honour of Britain and the welfare of Ireland more startlingly base and nefarious than any of those other numerous designs and plots which, during the last quarter of a century, have occupied his imagination. Nor are the results of the repeal of the Union, whatever they may be, a matter of moment to him. No practical responsibility for those results will fall upon his shoulders. He regards with the utmost unconcern, or with inconceivable frivolity, the fact that upon those who come after him will devolve the impossible labour of rebuilding a shattered empire, of re-uniting a divided kingdom. Let a credulous electorate give him, for the third time, a Parliamentary majority by the aid of which another Irish revolution may be consummated, and this most moderate of Ministers will be satisfied, will complacently retire to that repose for which he tells us ‘nature cries aloud.’ Nature, to whose cries he has for so long turned a stone-deaf ear.

This design for the separation of Ireland from Britain, this insane recurrence to heptarchical arrangements, this trafficking with treason, this condonation of crime, this exaltation of the disloyal, this abasement of the loyal, this desertion of our Protestant co-religionists, this monstrous mixture of imbecility, extravagance and political hysterics, better known as ‘the Bill for the future Government of Ireland,’ is furnished by its author with the most splendid attributes and clothed in the loftiest language. (1) Under its operation a nation of slaves paying tribute is to be filled with exuberant love for Britain which it now hates, but with which it is now on a footing of perfect political equality. (2) Persons who have subsisted and flourished on the effects of crime and outrage are to be immediately transformed into governors wise, moral and humane. (3) A peasantry which has for years exhibited a marked disinclination to pay contract rents to many landlords will instantly commence and for the next fifty years continue with cheerful alacrity and fidelity to pay rent to one single landlord; that landlord, moreover, assuming the garb of a foreign and alien Government. (4) A people without manufactures, longing for protection by which to create and foster manufactures, are to become in a moment ardent converts to the blessings of free trade. (5) A Parliament, in which any and every legislative project or deliberative proceeding or executive act, may be vetoed for three years, is to abound in rapid legislation, and to surpass our ancient historic Parliament in efficiency of procedure. (6) A financial system, under which by no possibility can revenue be adequate to expenditure, is to perform prodigies of economy and ‘to scatter plenty o’er a smiling land.’ (7) A pauper population is to roll in riches. (8) Law and order and rights of property are immediately to take their place as the most sacred and cherished institutions of a country a great portion of whose people hitherto, from time immemorial, have regarded them only to deride them and violate them, &c. &c.

The united and concentrated genius of Bedlam and Colney Hatch would strive in vain to produce a more striking tissue of absurdities.

Yet this is the policy, the last specific for Ireland, which is gravely recommended by senile vanity to the favourable consideration of a people renowned for common sense, the possessors of an Empire erected and preserved by the constant flow of common sense and, I doubt not, the progenitors of a posterity equally powerful, equally courageous and equally wise.

For the sake of this fifth message of peace to Ireland, this farrago of superlative nonsense, the vexatious and costly machinery of a general election is to be put in motion, all business other than what may be connected with political agitation, is to be impeded and suspended; trade and commercial enterprise, now suffering sadly from protracted bad times, and which political stability can alone re-invigorate, are to be further harassed and handicapped; all useful and desired reforms are to be indefinitely postponed, the British Constitution is to be torn up, the Liberal party shivered into fragments.

And why? For this reason and no other: To gratify the ambition of an old man in a hurry.

How long, gentlemen, will you and your brother electors tolerate this one-man power?

Since 1868, when this one-man power began to show itself in an acute form, have you enjoyed domestic security or foreign credit?

From that time to the present day, Ireland has been a struggling victim in Mr. Gladstone’s hands. The Irish Church, a great agency for moral, social, and religious order, has been swept away; two special confiscations of landed property were confidently recommended to, and accepted by, Parliament as certain to produce peace; six coercion Acts of the most stringent character Mr. Gladstone has obtained; and all to no purpose. Confusion has become worse confounded; the fabric of Government in Ireland has been shattered; lawlessness and disorder have been triumphant and supreme; the present state of Ireland is one of ‘grave disease,’ says Mr. John Morley; and the blame is cast by Mr. Gladstone on the system, on the Constitution, on the Union.

It would be as reasonable to cast the blame upon the Equator.

The blame for this disgrace cannot be cast upon the system or upon the Constitution or upon the Union.

The blame must be borne by the man who has been Minister and who is Minister now.

Under the baneful insecurity which is inseparably connected with his name, your trade has gone from bad to worse, your Parliament has become demoralised, your foreign credit shaken, your colonies alienated, your Indian Empire imperilled.

Naturally enough, Ireland has suffered most of all, for Ireland, of all the Queen’s dominions, was least able to stand a strain.

What frightful and irreparable Imperial catastrophe is necessary to tear the British people from the influence of this fetish, this idol, this superstition, which has brought upon them and upon the Irish unnumbered woes?

The negotiator of the ‘Alabama’ arbitration, the hero of the Transvaal surrender, the perpetrator of the bombardment of Alexandria, the decimator of the struggling Soudan tribes, the betrayer of Khartoum, the person guilty of the death of Gordon, the patentee of the Penjdeh shame, now stands before the country all alone, rejected by a democratic House of Commons.

No longer can he conceal his personality under the shelter of the Liberal party. One hundred members of that party in Parliament, representing thousands of electors, refused, in spite of all manner of blandishments, deceits and menaces, to support his Irish measure. All his colleagues have abandoned him. From the Duke of Argyll to Mr. Bright, from Lord Hartington to Mr. Chamberlain, one by one he has shed them all; none is near him of his former colleagues save certain placemen unworthy of notice. Last, but not least, the leading lights of Nonconformity, such as Dr. Dale and Mr. Spurgeon, hitherto the pillars of the Liberal party, stand aloof in utter dismay.

Known to the country under various ‘aliases’--‘the People’s William,’ ‘the Grand Old Man,’ ‘the old Parliamentary hand,’ now, in the part of ‘the Grand electioneering agent,’ he demands a vote of confidence from the constituencies.

Confidence in what?

In the Liberal party? No! The Liberal party, as we knew it, exists no longer. In his Irish project? No! It is dead; to be resuscitated or not, either wholly or in part, just as may suit the personal convenience of the author. In his Government? No! They are a mere collection of ‘items,’ whom he does not condescend to consult. In himself? Yes!

This is the latest and most perilous innovation into our constitutional practices. A pure unadulterated personal _plébiscite_, that is the demand; a political expedient borrowed from the last and worst days of the Second Empire.

Gentlemen, it is time that some one should speak out. I have written to you plainly, some may think strongly; but whatever the English vocabulary may contain of plainness and strength is inadequate to describe truly and to paint realistically the present political situation.

At this moment, so critical, we have not got to deal with a Government, or a party, or a policy. We have to deal with a man; with a man who makes the most unparalleled claim for dictatorial power which can be conceived by free men. It is for that reason that I deliberately addressed myself to the personal aspects of the question, and that I have drawn the character of the claimant from recent history, and from facts well within the recollection of all.

Mr. Gladstone in his speech in Edinburgh on Friday recommended himself to the country in the name of Almighty God.

Others cannot and will not emulate such audacious profanity; but I do dare, in soliciting a renewal of your confidence, to recommend the policy of the Unionist party to you in the name of our common country, our great Empire, upon whose unity and effective maintenance so largely depend the freedom, the happiness and the progress of mankind.

I am, Gentlemen, yours obediently, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

Committee Room, 26 London Street, Paddington, June 19, 1886.

1892.

_To the Electors of South Paddington._

Gentlemen,--A General Election is immediately before us. I desire again to solicit the honour of representing South Paddington in the House of Commons. It is pleasant to me to record my strong appreciation of, and my abiding gratitude for, the kindness and indulgence which you have consistently shown me and for the large measure of confidence which during six years you have accorded me. I most earnestly trust that as long as I have the good fortune to take part in public life the connection between us may remain as close and strong as it has ever been at any former time.

My opinions on the policy of Home Rule for Ireland are unaltered and unalterable. The impracticability and futility of such a policy become more apparent and glaring as discussion and argument proceed. The insanity of a scheme to create an independent Parliament in an island inhabited by two races controlled by two religious creeds separated from each other by an impassable abyss; the insoluble problem raised by such a scheme as to the representation or non-representation of Ireland in the British Parliament; the impossibility of guaranteeing effectually, under any such scheme, justice to the Protestant minority, mainly residing in Ulster; the endless and bitter conflicts which must arise again, as they arose before, between the Irish and British Parliaments, in addition to those which must surely arise between Irish and British Administrations; the constitutional impossibility of establishing any tribunal to pronounce authoritatively on the validity of laws passed by either Parliament; the certain divergence of commercial and financial policy to be followed by Ireland and Great Britain respectively; all this Himalayan range of obstacles appears more utterly insuperable the closer it is looked at, the more attentively it is studied. A conclusive proof of the truth of these propositions is afforded by the impenetrable reserve maintained by Mr. Gladstone and by all his colleagues even as to the general form and outline of their Home Rule legislative project. The formula which I have more than once expressed, that it is impossible to put Home Rule into a Bill, is more rooted than ever in my mind; and even if the Party of Repeal were to be furnished with ever so great a majority at the coming General Election, that party is, I am convinced, condemned to political impotence and sterility so long as they continue to exhaust their energies in solving the insoluble, in accomplishing the impossible.

After six years of trial and labour the Unionist Party return to the country with a record of work and action cleaner and less open to serious attack than any other political party which I have known or read of in modern times. Ireland, on which country the last General Election turned, which was pronounced by our opponents to be ungovernable by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, is now simply and easily governed. Ireland was agitated in 1886; it is calm in 1892. Ireland was distressed in 1886; it is prosperous in 1892. No real grievance now oppresses and irritates the Irish peasant, nor can persons possessing reason and experience doubt that the energies and sense of a new Parliament, if this Parliament is swayed by a Unionist majority, will be employed in constructing a scheme of Local Government for the Irish people so broad and generous that the last vestiges of difference, inequality, inferiority (if such there still be), between Ireland and Great Britain will be swept away.

Facts like these, written so largely on the history of the past six years, cannot fail to strike and to arouse the common sense of the British people as a whole; they must serve to dissipate the factious fury of baffled opponents, to neutralise the allurements of innumerable reckless and irredeemable promises. British electors at the present moment are in duty bound to draw largely on their memories and to make a very practical use of their experience. They cannot afford to forget or to neglect the lessons they learnt from the anxious and even terrible times which Ireland passed through during Mr. Gladstone’s former administration. Remembering how gloomy and hopeless was the outlook, how frantic were the popular rage and passion which during all those years distracted and paralysed Ireland, how impotent were the measures of Mr. Gladstone’s Government either to pacify or control; looking at Ireland now, tranquil, materially prosperous, crime (ordinary and extraordinary) reduced to an unprecedented minimum, the British electors must be compelled to realise that an invaluable period, rarely in history brighter, more full of justified hope and confidence, has at length, after infinite difficulty, been attained, and that even to run the risk of recurrence to former evils and perils would be an act of national folly difficult to characterise, ominous of Imperial ruin. I do not doubt but that South Paddington, in common with all other constituencies where knowledge and political study extensively prevail, will pronounce without hesitation in favour of the wisdom of the Unionist policy, of the continuance in power of the Unionist Party.

My views as to the reforms in the public service which public safety and economy alike urgently call for, are, I think, well known to you; they have undergone no change, save that I hold them more strongly than ever. You are also, I imagine, not unaware of my desire to meet with all legitimate sympathy and good-will the newly-formed but very articulate and well-defined demands of the labouring classes.

Thus recording my political faith, I trust that you may be willing and satisfied to dispose of your political confidence as you have done in former years since South Paddington became a separate borough, and that I may be enabled again to serve in Parliament our constituency and the country.

I have the honour to be Your obedient servant, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

2 Connaught Place, W.: June 21, 1892.

VI

_PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE_

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL’S LETTER TO MR. SPEAKER AND HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. GLADSTONE IN 1886.

_Lord Randolph Churchill to the Speaker._

Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, S.W.: Nov. 30, 1886.

Dear Mr. Speaker,--I venture to submit to you for your information and consideration, the result of the deliberations of the Committee of the Cabinet on the question of Parliamentary Procedure.

It would be of the greatest possible advantage to me if I could have the honour of an interview with you, in order to examine and explain more fully than I could do by letter the effect and object of the various rules proposed. In case you should be coming to town before the 22nd or 23rd December and would make an appointment with me, I would be happy to wait upon you at any time or place which would be most convenient to you.

Two of the proposed new provisions especially concern the Chair:

1. The Closure of debate. (Rule No. 1.)

2. Motions for adjournment of the House at question time. (Rule No. 6.)

On the first these have been my views: The length of debate is essentially a question of ‘order.’ The Chair is the only judge of ‘order.’ By the present rule an unfair responsibility is thrown upon the Chair, in that the initiative with regard to Closure is thrown upon it, which initiative has to undergo the ordeal of a vote of the House. It is difficult and almost impracticable for the Chair to possess the information with regard to the proper time for the exercise of the initiative, without which action in the direction of Closure would be unsafe.

The Government propose to give the initiative of any Closure motion to the House, and a veto to the Chair with respect to receiving and putting such a motion. The Chair, under this provision, is not only the protector of fair and orderly debate (its chief function), but also guards against abuse of the Closure rule from motives of frivolity, obstruction, haste or tyranny. Nor can the decisions of the Chair be questioned or overruled, for no question is put to the House unless with the permission of the Chair.

Further, in the event of the House agreeing to the proposal, the association of the Chair with the exercise of the closing power will have been, for a second time, deliberately affirmed. This is a far better and more durable protection for minorities than any arrangement of numbers. An extreme and violent Government in office, supported by a powerful majority, would very soon make short work of any protective arrangement of proportionate majorities which might prove embarrassing to them. It would be a much more difficult matter to dissociate and exclude the Chair from all connection with, or control over, the Closure after that Parliament had on two occasions laid down a contrary principle.

Speaking generally, this Closure (as per enclosed) is aimed at persistent, deliberate, wilful obstruction. The Speaker can at any time permit an appeal to the House by a member, or a Minister, as to whether such obstruction is or is not being resorted to. This Closure is also designed to facilitate and render possible earlier hours of session and prevent unnecessary, stupid and perverse ‘talking out.’

In respect of Rule 6 (adjournment of House at question time): After much anxious consideration I see no alternative to total abolition of the power of moving such adjournment, except the method proposed in the paper--of making the Chair the judge whether the subject to be discussed on adjournment motion is of such cardinal importance as to justify the postponement of the regular assigned business of the day. I imagine that the expression ‘urgent matter of definite public importance’ would receive, under the new arrangement, a strict and proper interpretation, and regard this matter, as the former one, as primarily a question of ‘order.’

Please excuse this lengthy letter, and Believe me to remain Yours respectfully and faithfully, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

The Right Hon. the Speaker.

_Lord Randolph Churchill to Mr. Gladstone._

_Confidential._

Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, S.W.: December 17, 1886.

Dear Sir,--By the desire of the First Lord of the Treasury I have the honour to submit to you, for your information and convenience, the draft of the alterations in the procedure of the House of Commons which it is the intention of Her Majesty’s Government to recommend to the consideration of the House next session.

I express the feelings of the Government when I assure you that in the event of its being within your power, and in accordance with your wishes, to offer any criticism or comment or suggestion on these draft proposals prior to the meeting of Parliament, such would be received and considered by the Government with every respect and attention.

I may add that in the opinion of the Government the House of Commons would do well to arrive at conclusions as to the reforms of procedure before commencing the regular business of the session; that it is with that object that Parliament has been summoned so early in the year; and that the Government, as at present advised, will press this course upon the House of Commons.

I have the honour to be Your faithful servant, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.

_Mr. Gladstone to Lord Randolph Churchill._

_Confidential._

Hawarden Castle, Chester: December 18, ‘86.

My dear Lord,--I have to thank you for your courtesy in apprising me at this early date of the particulars in which the Government propose to amend the procedure of the House of Commons and of their intention to give precedence to the subject.

In the last stages of this important matter, that of the present year, I had but a minor concern, and I will therefore at once communicate with Sir W. Harcourt, who represented principally the late Administration on the Committee. The matter will remain strictly confidential, and will not go beyond those of my late colleagues who were specially concerned. In the meantime I do not trouble you with any observations, but I thank you for your obliging readiness to consider any suggestion which I may tender to you.

I remain Faithfully yours, W. E. GLADSTONE.

Right Hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

VII

_POLITICAL LETTERS OF LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL_

1884-1893.

_Freedom of Contract._

_Mr. Moore Bayley to Lord Randolph Churchill._

57 Colmore Row, Birmingham: March 22, 1884.

My Lord,--I am a Conservative and an elector of the borough of Birmingham, and as such hope at no distant period to render your lordship, as a Conservative candidate for this borough, whatever political service lies in my power.

But before committing myself further in the compact that arose when you were accepted as such Conservative candidate I should like to know, as would a considerable number of political friends, how much further your lordship’s views on the rights of contract proceed in the direction expressed in your speech in the House of Commons when you supported the second reading of Mr. Broadhurst’s Leaseholders (Facilities of Purchase of Fee Simple) Bill.

The enactments of the present Government have in many particulars so violated the rights of contract between subject and subject that I am sure your lordship will not consider my request for information unreasonable as to the extent you are willing to commit your supporters in the furtherance of such like principles.

I remain Yours obediently, J. MOORE BAYLEY.

_Lord Randolph Churchill to Mr. Moore Bayley._

2 Connaught Place, W.: March 24, 1884.

Dear Sir,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 22nd inst. In answer to your question as to my views on the rights of contract I beg to inform you that where it can be clearly shown that genuine freedom of contract exists I am quite averse to State interference, so long as the contract in question may be either moral or legal. I will never, however, be a party to wrong and injustice, however much the banner of freedom of contract may be waved for the purpose of scaring those who may wish to bring relief. The good of the State, in my opinion, stands far above freedom of contract; and when these two forces clash, the latter will have to submit. If you will study the course of legislation during the last fifty years, you will find that the Tory party have interfered with and restricted quite as largely freedom of contract as the Liberals have done. With respect to the two leading instances of interference with freedom of contract during the present Parliament, viz. the Irish Land Act and the Agricultural Holdings Act, the Duke of Richmond’s Agricultural Commission and the House of Lords must divide the responsibility for this legislation with Mr. Gladstone’s Government. The latter had it in their power to reject this legislation, and did not do so; the former laid down the principles on which it was founded.

In comparison with legislation of that kind the compulsory conversion of long leaseholds into freeholds in towns, full and ample compensation being paid to the freeholder, is, as I called it in my speech in the House of Commons, ‘a trifling matter.’

You will find the principle of this measure advocated in the _British Quarterly Review_ five years ago (a very orthodox organ of Tory doctrine). You will find the principle again contained in the 65th section of the Conveyancing Law and Properties Act, passed by Lord Cairns in 1881. I may also add that Lord Cairns dealt a very severe blow at the rights of owners of freehold property when he gave to the courts of law power to protect leaseholders from forfeiture for breaches of covenant.

Under all these circumstances I am inclined to think that you will agree with me that all this outcry against the supporters of Mr. Broadhurst’s Bill--this gabble about Socialism, Communism, and Mr. George, &c.--is highly inconsistent and ridiculous, and betrays a prevalence of very deplorable and shocking ignorance as to the extent to which the rights of property can be tolerated, and the relation of the State thereto.

I remain Yours faithfully, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

_Lord Randolph Churchill on Temperance._

_Private._

2 Connaught Place, W.: November 29, 1888.

My dear Sir,--I am extremely obliged to you for your interesting letter, with a great deal of the contents of which I am disposed to concur.

I think it would not be difficult to find a good many Conservatives willing to make a considerable step towards a restrictive regulation of the sale of alcoholic liquor.

The party with which you are connected ought, however, in my opinion, to consider practically the question of compensation in some form or other to the retail trader. I exclude compensation to the brewers and distillers as an impracticable and impossible demand. The retail trader stands on a very different footing, and any glaring injustice towards him would alienate many who would otherwise join the Temperance movement.

One good result of buying up retail liquor interests by charges on the rates would be to give a permanence to any local decision in favour of largely diminishing the number of or even abolishing public-houses.

The community would be most indisposed, by any reversal of its Temperance policy, to run the risk of having again to face fresh compensation liabilities.

Caprice in popular decisions is a danger to be guarded against.

I shall continue from time to time to urge the importance of strong dealing with the Licensing Question. I only trust that your party will not take up the position of ‘everything or nothing,’ but, if good proposals are made, will accept them--reserving to themselves, of course, the right to continue their agitation for more.

We shall, however, not effect much against the publicans unless we act vigorously in the direction of better houses for the poor. As long as we allow such an immense portion of our population to live in pigsties, the warmth and false cheerfulness of the public-house will be largely sought after.

The two questions appear to me to be inseparable.

I shall always be very glad to talk over these matters with you should you feel disposed for conference.

I am Yours very faithfully, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

James Whyte, Esq., United Kingdom Alliance.

_Lord Randolph Churchill on Home Rule._

2 Connaught Place, W.: February 10, 1891.

Dear Sir,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 4th inst.

I am not at all surprised to learn that you, in common with, I expect, the overwhelming majority of members of the English Home Rule party, find yourself puzzled, embarrassed and anxious in consequence of the recent very interesting disturbance of the harmony of the Irish Home Rule party.

I have always been of opinion that, however attractive Home Rule for Ireland might be in theory, it was an absolute impossibility to put Home Rule into a Bill. You might just as well try to square the circle.

The dispute between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell as to what took place at what you call ‘the notorious interview at Hawarden’ brings out this fact with exceeding clearness; and if you, and those who agree with you politically, insist upon shutting your eyes rather than contemplate a disagreeable truth, it will, I fear, be the sad fate of your party to waste years of time and strength in fruitless efforts to arrive at a solution of the hopeless problem ‘How to put Home Rule into a Bill.’

You ask me, in conclusion, for my opinion as to what would be the best policy for Ireland.

In reply I would refer you to several speeches which I have delivered and letters which I have written in recent years, in which I have declared my conviction that in a large, liberal, generous and courageous development of Local Government in Ireland on lines similar to those which have been so successfully followed in this country and in Scotland, will be found the best and the only prospect of political tranquillity for the Irish people.

I am Yours faithfully, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

John Ogilvy, Esq.

50 Grosvenor Square, W.: March 19, 1893.

My dear Sir,--In accordance with your wishes I write a few lines to you for the County Longford Meeting which is to be held to-morrow.

It is a pleasure to me to offer my congratulations to the Unionists of Longford on the energy and courage which they display in publicly demonstrating, among a population apparently hostile, their firm and tried attachment to the Parliamentary Union between Ireland and Great Britain and their determination to resist all efforts to sever that Union.

I used in the foregoing sentence the word ‘apparently’ for indeed I do not believe that the bulk of the farmers and peasant farmers of Ireland are by any means confident as to the blessings which are to flow from Home Rule. I hear from many quarters, some of them of great authority, that there is arising and spreading in the minds of the Irish agricultural population an anxious doubt as to what will be their position under an Irish Parliament and whether the taxes which that Parliament will be forced to levy on income or on land, will not be far more onerous and exhausting than the rents they formerly paid to the landlords.

They will remember and reflect that under an Irish Parliament not only will they be absolutely cut off, in times of difficulty and of depression and of failure of crops, from all the sources of relief which from the Imperial Parliament they can now confidently draw upon and be assisted by; but they will be in the hands of a Government which, from sheer financial exigencies, will be compelled to treat the Irish taxpayer with the utmost rigour and harshness, to lay upon him imposts heavier than he can bear, and to exact relentlessly the payment of those imposts to the last farthing and on the earliest day that they become due.

I think you may well impress upon the farmers and peasant farmers the perfect security of property which they now enjoy under the protection of the Imperial Parliament; the perfect freedom which they possess from oppression of any kind, either from heavy taxation or from the unjust exactions of a pauper Government and Parliament; the great advantages in respect of their rentals secured to them by the Imperial Parliament and the great facilities afforded for the easy purchase of their freeholds by its liberality, which opportunities under the Home Rule Parliament will, from the squalid poverty of its resources, become illusory and insecure and in time absorbed by the hopeless insolvency of the Irish Government.

These are the great truths and facts which the loyal minority in Irish counties can urge upon the farmers and the peasantry. The Irish people, in respect of their material interests, have always been bright and quick-witted; they will, with their ready imagination, quickly discern that though it may be pleasant and profitable to be represented in the Imperial Parliament by an independent and numerically powerful party who can extract from the British Exchequer and legislature no inconsiderable concessions to Irish wants, necessities and demands, it will be a widely different state of things when they (the Irish agricultural population) are handed over, body and soul, tied and bound and without appeal, to the uncontrolled domination of that ‘separate and independent’ party who--untrained in the art of just and economical government, eager to enjoy at any cost, and even only for a brief period, the profits of office and the delights of a reckless exercise of patronage and power--will have given over to their insatiable appetites the lives and properties of those who now exist and flourish, in tolerable prosperity and in perfect safety, by the cultivation of the Irish soil.

I have always been opposed to what is called ‘Home Rule’ more upon the grounds that to the Irish people themselves it must bring distress, poverty, misery and ruin, than on account of the dangers it will entail upon the British Empire, though those dangers are exceedingly great.

I trust that you may be able to continue with ardour and success the patriotic and excellent work among the Irish people which you inaugurate to-morrow; you may be sure that the full sympathy and genuine support of a vast majority of the English people will attend you in the struggle and you may be confident that the dark and menacing thunder-cloud that now impends over your country, almost turning Irish day into night, will soon be dissipated by the brightness of a recurring dawn of a new era of peace and prosperity for Ireland under the enlightened rule of a United Imperial Parliament.

Believe me to be Most faithfully yours, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

J. M. Wilson, Esq.

VIII

_MR. JENNINGS’ ACCOUNT OF HIS QUARREL WITH LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL_

MARCH, 1890.

_Mr. Jennings’ Memorandum._

On Friday, the 7th of March, I called upon Lord Randolph Churchill, to tell him my opinions with regard to the Resolution proposed by the Government on the Report of the Special Commission. I told him I thought some express reference should be made in the Resolution to the emphatic acquittal of Mr. Parnell and his colleagues on what I called the ‘murder charges,’ and gave him my reasons. With these reasons he seemed to be much impressed, and after talking the matter over he urged me _not_ to speak upon the main question, as I intended, but to embody my ideas in an Amendment, for then the Speaker could call upon me and I should have a recognised place in the debate. Otherwise I might not be called upon at all, and have no chance of speaking. I said that if any Amendment were drawn up, it should be in the most moderate terms, so that it might avoid the faults and disadvantages of Mr. Gladstone’s on the same subject. He then went to his table and drew up the Amendment, saying, when he handed it to me, ‘I think no one can object to this--there is not a single adjective in it.’ We considered it well, and at one o’clock or so I left him, asking him to turn the subject well over in his mind before we met at the House and to let me know whether he was still in favour of the Amendment. At a little after three we met in the lobby, and he assured me that he was confident the Amendment was the right thing, and that he did not see how any reasonable objection could be made to it. I then went into the House, and after Questions gave notice of the Amendment.

On Saturday night I dined with Lord R. and a party at the Junior Carlton Club, but we did not have much conversation on the subject until the end of the evening, when Lord Justice FitzGibbon came up to us and condemned the Amendment. Lord R. then asked me to go to his house the next morning, and talk the matter over with ‘Fitz.’ I said that it was rather too late to ‘talk it over’ on the line taken up by FitzGibbon, for I was committed to the Amendment and intended to move it; that I should be very busy the next day, and would rather be excused going to his house. But Lord R. pressed me very earnestly to go and accordingly I did so.

On entering his room (Sunday, the 9th), FitzGibbon having been with him some time before, Lord R. said: ‘I am sorry you put that Amendment down; it is a mistake; can’t be defended.’ I was astounded. ‘But,’ I said, ‘it is your own Amendment.’ ‘Yes,’ he said coolly: ‘but I have changed my mind.’ I was silent a minute or two, and then asked him to tell me why he had changed his mind. ‘FitzGibbon has been talking it over with me,’ he said, ‘and I am sure he is right.’ ‘Then,’ I said, ‘I am sorry Lord Justice FitzGibbon was not here last Friday morning.’ I listened to what FitzGibbon had to say--it had all been in the papers before--and as soon as I could, I left. I felt, however, much disheartened at hearing the author of the Amendment which I had been induced to move, denounce it as ‘all a mistake.’

The next evening (Monday) Lord Randolph’s brother-in-law (Lord Curzon) came to me as I was sitting in the House and said he had something important to say to me about the Amendment. We went outside into the corridor by the library, and there he told me that ‘Randolph had made up his mind to stand altogether aloof from the Amendment; he thought it would be best not to support it; he did not see his way clear to have anything to do with it’--with more to the same effect. I said: ‘What will people think of him? He has himself told one of the newspaper correspondents that he intends to speak and vote for the Amendment.’ ‘Yes,’ replied Lord Curzon, ‘that is the nuisance of his talking to those correspondents.’ I said: ‘I know what _I_ shall think of his behaviour--first Birmingham, and now _this_. You cannot doubt what my opinion will be.’

I should have mentioned that earlier in the day Lord R. C. had called me to his side in the smoking-room and said: ‘I shall probably say something to-day on the main question, if I get a chance.’ I did not quite see what he meant, and when afterwards he went away (at dinner-time) without speaking I thought he had meant nothing. Afterwards came Lord Curzon’s message, just referred to. On the Tuesday, when the Amendment was to be moved, just as I was going into the House, Lord Curzon again came to me, and said, ‘Randolph will not take any part in the debate unless you are attacked.’ He added: ‘I cannot support you.’ I said but little, and went into the House, quite determined to go on.

The House was crowded, and just before Questions were over R. C. leaned back to me and said: ‘I am going to speak on the main question.’ I asked him ‘When?’ ‘Now,’ he said. ‘How can you, after one Amendment has been voted on?’ ‘It is all right,’ he said; ‘I have arranged it with the Speaker.’ There was no time for explanation or remonstrance. He was evidently quite determined, and in a few moments the Speaker called upon him.

He then delivered a violent diatribe against the Government, accusing them, in effect, of having called the forger Pigott into existence--‘the bloody, rotten, ghastly fœtus, Pigott, Pigott, Pigott’--pointing with his finger at the Ministry each time he mentioned the name. He suggested the possibility of a Pigott being employed against himself. While he was speaking several friends who had intended to support me came to me and whispered that they could not be identified with so outrageous an attack upon the Ministry. ‘You will be linked with it,’ said several of them. ‘Everybody will believe that the entire programme to-night was arranged between you.’

Smarting under the deliberate and treacherous manner in which I had been thrown over, and at the utter want of consideration shown by a leader for a follower placed _by_ that leader in a very responsible and difficult position, I determined not to move the Amendment, and to tell the House why I adopted that course. When R. C. sat down I informed him that I should do this, and he made several attempts to dissuade me. I was quite resolved, however, and am glad that I was not induced to waver, although to throw up the Amendment was the sorest disappointment I have ever had; and--for the time, at any rate--the whole transaction has sickened me of political life.

L. J. J.

[I think it right to add to this memorandum the following note by Lord Justice FitzGibbon.--W. S. C.]

‘Mr. Jennings’ memorandum seems to me to give an unduly unfavourable impression of Lord Randolph’s action. Lord Randolph told me that when Mr. Jennings first showed him the draft of the amendment he stated plainly that he wished to take the whole responsibility for it, and intended to move it whether Lord Randolph supported it or not. Afterwards, at Connaught Place, on the day before the debate, the whole subject was fully discussed by Lord Randolph, Jennings and myself, and the conversation ended in a distinct statement by Lord Randolph to Mr. Jennings that, on fuller consideration, he thought the amendment a mistake, and that although he would not vote against it, he could not speak in favour of it, but would speak upon the main question if he spoke at all. His speech was, in substance, an examination of the constitutional position which he had adopted, and a vindication of his action in warning the Unionist leaders, two years before, of the dangers and difficulties into which the Special Commission must lead them. When I read the report of his speech in the _Times_, it seemed to me that, but for the sudden loss of self-control indicated in the text, which, as much by manner as by actual words, made it appear to be a bitter attack upon the Government, it was conceived in a moderate tone. But, after what had happened on the previous morning, I cannot understand how Jennings could have imagined that there was a breach of faith with him.’

IX

_LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL’S MEMORANDUM ON ARMY AND NAVY ADMINISTRATION_

_Included in the Report of Lord Hartington’s Commission, March 21, 1890._

The Royal Commission desires, I apprehend, to recommend to her Majesty’s Ministers a system of government and management for the Army and the Navy which shall appear to secure the _maximum_ of efficiency which can be reasonably expected from normal expenditure on those services. By the consent of all, under present arrangements, this _maximum_ has not been attained.

The present system of administration of the services may be said to date, for the Army, from 1855, and for the Navy from some twenty-five years earlier. A Prime Minister forming a government allots to the different offices members of Parliament of prominence and supposed capacity. Thus it invariably happens that gentlemen are appointed to exercise supreme control over the Army and Navy who possess no experience or knowledge of the military or naval service and profession. They are expected to decide general and technical questions of naval and military policy, they are supposed to be held responsible for the consequences of their decisions, and after a tenure of office, sometimes of several months, sometimes of a few years, they are succeeded by other gentlemen who take their places, provided with a similar lack of experience and knowledge. The duties which these two Ministers are expected to discharge involve scientific and economical provision for the defensive and offensive power of an Empire whose possessions are scattered all over the world and whose subjects number over three hundred million souls.

It can hardly be a matter for surprise that such a system has not altogether approximated to a satisfactory standard of combined efficiency and economy. Governments and Parliaments have been untiring in their pursuit after reform, but have as yet only succeeded in progressively increasing public dissatisfaction and, simultaneously, burdens on the taxpayer. The question seems to present itself whether the time has not arrived for considering seriously and without prejudice the expediency of a very radical change in our system of naval and military administration. The object aimed at is the _maximum_ of efficiency consistent with the amount of expenditure which the taxpayer or his representatives will tolerate. Can any practical amount of efficiency of administration be obtained without professional training and knowledge? Can it be obtained without direct personal responsibility? Can direct personal responsibility be reasonably expected without professional control? The answer to these questions, I submit, is obviously in the negative. Professional reputation to a soldier or a sailor is everything next to life itself and the loss of it equals professional ruin, entailing pecuniary and social loss of a heavy character. To the ordinary politician under our political system administrative miscarriage brings little or no evil consequences. His fate, if unfortunate or unskilful, is in the vast majority of cases to be transferred to some other office--to a foreign embassy, to a colonial governorship or, at the worst, to the House of Lords. Neither pecuniary nor social loss necessarily or ordinarily follows the unskilful and possibly the disastrous administration of our Ministers for the Army and Navy. More than this, the professional persons who advise respectively the Secretary of State for War and the first Lord of the Admiralty escape all risk of public censure, sheltered as they are by the fictitious responsibility of the civilian Minister. History and theory will be found to coincide, in support of the recital set forth above.

Parliament is made the scapegoat for defective administration. The control of Parliament, the interference of Parliament, the jealousy of Parliament for its rights and privileges, these are the stock arguments in favour of an adherence to the main lines of our present system of naval and military administration.

Personally, and speaking with some experience of the House of Commons and after several years’ close study of the House of Commons, I put aside arguments of that kind. I have arrived at the conclusion that, eliminating great party issues, the House of Commons, with respect to the transaction of ordinary public affairs, is an assembly mainly composed of businesslike and reasonable individuals who, having to find certain funds for certain purposes, desire, in the main, that the pecuniary demands of Government should not be obviously excessive and that fair guarantees should be given for economical expenditure of the funds provided.

With these views I advocate, as an improvement on present arrangements, that the administration of the Navy and the Army should be entrusted respectively to members of those professions. That naval training, naval experience and naval eminence should be the qualifications of our Minister of Marine. That military training, military experience and military eminence should be the qualifications for our Minister for the Army. Superficially, at any rate, this suggestion would seem to be reasonable and not out of accord with ordinary common sense. It may, however, be met with the objection that it is unsuited to our constitutional arrangements and incompatible with Parliamentary control. I doubt whether this objection will sustain vigorous examination. Parliament has to provide annually a certain number of millions sterling for the purposes of Imperial defence, and while Parliament is always willing and anxious, sometimes even over-anxious, to recognise and reward the public service of an individual, if at the same time under my proposed reform Parliament is enabled, without much difficulty, to do what it cannot do now and what it never has been able to do--namely, to detect and punish the maladministration of an individual--Parliament would probably be satisfied.

To this end I suggest that the offices actually in existence of Secretary of State for War and of the Board of Admiralty be abolished. In their place I propose that there should be created three new offices--

I. A Commander-in-Chief or Lord High Admiral of the Navy, having, subject to the Government, supreme control over and responsibility for naval administration. Naval training, naval experience and naval eminence being the qualification for this office.

II. A Commander-in-Chief or Captain-General of the Army, having, subject to the Government, supreme control over and responsibility for the administration of the Army. Military training, military experience and military eminence being the qualification for this office.

For the purpose of securing continuity of administration, and also of providing from time to time for fresh administrative energy, I propose that these two offices should be appointments tenable for five years; also for the purpose of gaining for the Cabinet military and naval opinion at first hand, I recommend that the holders of these offices should be created privy councillors and should be summoned to all Cabinet Councils when military and naval questions are under consideration, with, while those naval and military questions are under consideration, an equal position with the other Cabinet Ministers. But in order to keep the administration of the services free from party politics I suggest that these two Ministers should take no part in the discussion or decision of any questions other than those connected with naval and military affairs.

[A close parallel with the suggestion set forth above may be found in the position on the Council of the Indian Viceroy of the Indian Commander-in-Chief.]

For the purpose of bringing these Ministers into immediate contact with Parliament and at the same time of keeping them free from being involved in daily party debates and divisions, I advocate that they should be created members of the House of Lords.

[The feasibility of this suggestion is, I think, to a large extent illustrated by the positions now held in the House of Lords by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Wolseley. Possibly also in former days similar positions were to some extent maintained, without inconvenience, by the Duke of Wellington and Lord Hardinge.]

These two Ministers would each of them be assisted by (among other officers) (1) a chief of the staff whose duties will be sketched below, and (2) a financial secretary, with a seat in the House of Commons, whose duty it would be to explain and, if necessary, to defend in that assembly naval or military administration in detail.

III. For the purpose of (1) preserving and insuring the financial control of Parliament and of the Government, of (2) supplying the much-needed link between the two services, so that one great object--viz., Imperial defence--should be more completely attained, I propose that there should be created the office of Secretary of State and Treasurer for the Sea and Land Forces of the Crown.

This Minister would, according to my view, settle with the responsible heads of the services the amount of annual expenditure to be submitted to the Cabinet; he would be charged with the duty of auditing the accounts of the Admiralty and the War Office, with presenting to and defending in Parliament those estimates and that expenditure. He would be charged, further, with a third great duty--viz., with the control, management of, and responsibility for, the Ordnance Department, and with the making of the great contracts for the Army and the Navy. He would, as it were, set up and carry on a great shop from which the military and naval heads would procure most of the supplies which they needed.

The main outlines of expenditure having been agreed upon by the two professional Ministers in conjunction with the proposed Secretary of State, this latter would not interfere nor necessarily be held responsible for the administration of the services, excepting in so far as he might have undertaken to provide those services with ordnance and other supplies and in so far as his duty lay in auditing the accounts and in testing the stores in hand.

The Secretary of State as proposed would be assisted by (1) a Permanent Under-Secretary of State, (2) a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, (3) an Accountant and Auditor-General, (4) a Controller of Ordnance and Supplies, under whom would be (_a_) the Head of the Ordnance Factories, (_b_) the Director of Contracts.

The control and interference now exercised by the Treasury over Army and Navy expenditure would, under the proposed scheme, cease and determine. So also would the audit of the Controller or Auditor-General. I suggest that the Secretary of State, or his Accountant and Auditor-General would personally explain to Parliament and to the Committee of Public Account, Army and Navy Expenditure.

The relations between the proposed Ministers for the Army and Navy on one hand, and the Government on the other, would be closely analogous to the well-understood relations which now exist between the Home Government and the Viceroy of India or the Ambassador at a Foreign Court or a Colonial Governor. The Ministers for the Army and Navy might be dismissed by a new Government coming into office, but such a dismissal would be a grave Ministerial action requiring defence and explanation in Parliament.

The relations between the Ministers for the Army and Navy and the Secretary of State for the Sea and Land Forces of the Crown would be those of perfect equality and constant communication. The heads of the Army and Navy would bring to the Secretary of State in very authoritative form the views of their respective professions. The Secretary of State would bring to the heads of the Army and Navy the views of the Government and the House of Commons on the political circumstances of the time. The three would examine in concert the general requirements of Imperial defence from a point of view embracing and balancing one against another all the exigencies or supposed exigencies of the services. Where the claims or the views of the Army and Navy might conflict, the Secretary of State would probably be found an authoritative and acceptable arbitrator. In the event of the Ministers for the Army and Navy disagreeing, either singly or jointly, with the Secretary of State, recourse would be had to the Cabinet. In the event of the Cabinet supporting the Secretary of State against the Ministers of the Army and Navy, either singly or jointly, those Ministers would have to consider whether their professional responsibility or reputation would admit of their continuing to hold office. In the event of the resignation of either or of both, Parliamentary discussion must ensue, and a Parliamentary decision must be taken. In the event of the administration of the heads of the Army and Navy being questioned by Parliament, the Secretary of State first, and the Government as a whole next, would have to consider whether they could or could not support in Parliament the administrative action arraigned. In either case, Parliamentary discussion and decision follow. Under the arrangements suggested above in almost every conceivable circumstance, I submit that not only in a very large measure (possibly as great as is practicable) is direct personal responsibility actually established, but also that the control of Parliament, far from being diminished, is considerably increased and made much more effective. The suggestions set forth above are, while probably open to much objection and criticism, also probably capable of much improvement and development, and in arriving at a judgment upon them, the Commissioners should bear in mind that the evidence before us discloses in many particulars a state of things more seriously unsatisfactory and possibly more pregnant with danger than Parliament or the public imagine; and the admitted defects of the present system of administration ought to be balanced by the Commissioners against the suggested defects of proposals for reform.

INDEX

Abergavenny, Marquess of, i. 315, 320

Admiralty expenditure, attack on, ii. 316

Affirmation Bill Speech, i. 252; _Punch_ cartoon, 255

Afghanistan, Policy in, ii. 362

Alcester, Lord, i. 262

Alfred Churchill, Lord, i. 19, 52

Algiers, Italy, &c., Journey to, ii. 287, 289

Althorp, Lord, ii. 125

Arabi Pasha, i. 226, 261, 289

Argyll, Duke of, i. 224

Ashbourne, Lord, i. 128, 213, 214, 220, 393, 408, 409, 445; ii. 34, 78, 290

Ashley, Mr. Evelyn, i. 232

Ashmead-Bartlett, Mr., i. 311

Aston Riots, i. 361, 365

Balfour, Mr. A. J., i. 134, 141, 149, 211, 219, 265, 304, 339, 343, 425, 433, 466, 471; ii. 29, 153, 195, 222, 301, 335, 350, 373, 391, 451, 452, 458, 460, 463, 470, 472

Barnaby, Sir N., ii. 318

Barnett, Mr. H., i. 52

Bartley, Mr., i. 318, 353

Baumann, Mr., ii. 415

Bayley, Mr. M., ii. 504, 505

Beach, Sir M. Hicks-, i. 76, 85, 307, 320, 347, 349, 350, 356, 359, 360, 368, 384, 385, 387, 398, 400, 403, 417, 418, 432, 438, 448, 515; ii. 21, 34, 39, 45, 101, 109, 110, 116, 124, 125, 128, 145, 149, 207, 219, 224, 250, 285, 335, 337, 343, 371, 387, 392, 395, 431

Beaconsfield, Earl of, i. 30, 64, 68, 84, 98, 112, 114, 120, 154, 157, 177, 197, 222, 334; ii. 300, 362, 460

Beaconsfield statue, unveiling of, i. 240

Beale, Mr. P., ii. 390

Beckett, Mr. E., ii. 307, 388

Belfast visit, ii. 59

Berlin, ii. 368

Birmingham: contests, i. 285, 466, 532, 544; ii. 382 meeting at Aston Park, i. 361, 365 speeches, i. 287, 296, 365; ii. 399

Bismarck, Prince von, ii. 360, 368, 477

Blackpool speech, i. 290

Blandford, Marquess of, i. 3, 19, 43, 165, 267

Blenheim Harriers, i. 25, 33, 267

Blunt, Mr. Wilfrid, i. 261

Borthwick, Sir A., i. 258; ii. 431

Bradford speeches, ii. 175, 177

Bradlaugh, Mr. C., i. 122, 124, 129, 209, 276, 333, 350; ii. 321, 428

Breteuil, M. de, i. 72; ii. 435

Bright, Mr. John, i. 59, 225, 275, 285, 286, 287, 289, 292, 378; ii. 53, 94, 109, 113, 116, 300, 384

Bright, Mr. J. A., ii. 390, 392, 393

Brodrick, Mr., i. 343, 428, 440

Bryce, Mr., i. 251

Budget: amendment (1885), i. 398, 405 draft (1887-8), ii. 187

Bulgaria, ii. 154, 155, 165, 364

Buller, Sir R., ii. 138, 142, 143, 337

Burke, Mr., i. 207, 211

Burke, Sir J. Bernard, i. 95

Burma, i. 517; ii. 43, 484

Burnaby, Col., i. 258, 285, 320, 361, 378

Butt, Mr., i. 58, 82, 175

Cadogan, Lord, i. 160

Caine, Mr., ii. 78, 421

Cairns, Earl, i. 227, 242

Cambridge University Carlton: speech, i. 295 undergraduates’ deputation, i. 328

Cardwell, Lord, i. 65

Carnarvon, Lord, i. 251, 432, 440, 444, 460; ii. 20, 22, 28, 30, 57, 111

Cavendish, Lord F., i. 124, 144, 207, 211

Central Committee, i. 305, 308, 356

Chamberlain, Mr. J., i. 58, 62, 170, 211, 222, 281, 286, 287, 349, 365, 370, 422, 428, 452, 462, 467; ii. 48, 52, 53, 57, 58, 73, 74, 75, 80, 82, 85, 94, 96, 100, 108, 113, 118, 119, 120, 125, 133, 143, 153, 164, 195, 216, 221, 243, 250, 252, 254, 262, 267, 284, 285, 286, 288, 336, 344, 345, 348, 349, 350, 351, 375, 382, 384, 386, 388, 392, 395, 403, 419, 420, 428, 463, 470, 472

Chancellor of the Exchequer, ii. 126, 179 budget of 1887-8, ii. 187 economies and reforms effected, ii. 184 resignation, ii. 213, 234, 240, 255, 268, 270, 282

Channel Tunnel Bill, ii. 381

Chaplin, Mr., i. 108, 245, 311, 313, 323, 355, 367; ii. 126, 175, 286, 287, 328

Chenery, Mr., i. 160, 167, 241, 248, 276

Childers, Mr., ii. 205

Civil Servants’ petitioning powers--speech, i. 260

Clarke, Mr., i. 311

Closure, i. 212, 214, 219, 220; ii. 175, 176, 219

Coalition with Whigs, proposals for, ii. 6, 8

Cobden, Mr., i. 289, 292

Collings, Mr. Jesse, i. 251; ii. 45, 164, 176

Compensation for Disturbance Bill, i. 179

Connaught, Duke of, and the Bombay Command, i. 503

Conservative Party: Irish policy--letter, ii. 3 leadership, question of dual control, i. 227, 229, 242, 246, 251, 405 Parliamentary Reform, attitude towards, i. 336

Cook, Mr., ii. 119, 133

Corrupt and Illegal Practices Suppression Bill, i. 264

Cotter, Mr., i. 320

County Government Bill, i. 106

Cowper, Lord, i. 185, 207; ii. 90

Cranborne, Lord, i. 234

Cranbrook, Lord, ii. 35, 36, 40

Creighton, Dr., i. 24, 34, 36, 37, 255

Cromer, Lord, ii. 377

Cross, Sir R., i. 342, 378

Curzon, Lady, i. 430

Curzon, Lord, i. 428; ii. 307

Curzon, Viscount, ii. 287, 290, 292, 295

Damer, Rev. L. Dawson, i. 22, 23

Darling, Sir C., i. 364

Dartford speech, ii. 163, 175, 176

D’Aunay, Count, ii. 172

Davitt, Mr. M., i. 175, 176

De Worms, Baron, i. 166

Derby, Lord, i. 105, 227; ii. 49, 361

Dilke, Sir C., i. 70, 100-104, 276, 346, 347, 417

Dillwyn, Mr., i. 126

Disraeli. _See_ Beaconsfield

Dixon Hartland, Mr., i. 258

Dodson, Mr., i. 143

Dolben, Mackworth, i. 7

Douglas, Mr. Akers-, ii. 264, 268, 388, 389

Duffield, Tom, i. 28

Dunraven, Lord, ii. 274, 432

Durham, Earl of, i. 281

Eastern Question, i. 98, 100-104; ii. 154. _See also_ Bulgaria

Edinburgh speeches, i. 273, 278-281

Education, i. 3, 8, 21, 24, 38

Egypt and the Soudan: Arabi Pasha, i. 226, 261, 289 condition of, i. 225, 278, 334 Gordon, Gen., i. 349, 351, 376 policy, ii. 172, 365, 375 Soudan, evacuation of, i. 380, 382, 386, 387 Suleiman Sami, case of, i. 263 Tewfik, Khedive, i. 261

Egypt, visit to, ii. 437

Egyptian Loan Bill, i. 378

Elcho, Lord, i. 339, 343

‘Elijah’s Mantle,’ i. 248

Employers’ Liability Bill, i. 136

Escott, Mr. T. H. S., i. 15

Established Church, Defence of--speech, i. 296

Eton, i. 8

Expenditure, criticisms on, i. 143, 232

Fair Trade Movement, i. 290, 472; ii. 327

Ferry, M. Jules, ii. 478

FitzGibbon, Lord Justice, i. 77, 79, 395, 434, 435, 459, 471, 525; ii. 59, 89, 96, 124, 132, 263, 307, 351, 353, 386, 455, 462, 468, 513, 515

Forster, Mr., i. 63, 100, 174, 181, 185, 199, 201, 203, 207, 224, 349;