Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography Part 12

In this year--1883--Gladstone's Government had regained some portion of the popularity and success which they had lost; but when the year ran out, their success was palpably on the wane, and their popularity of course waned with it. The endless contradictions and perplexities, crimes and follies, of our Egyptian policy became too obvious to be concealed or palliated, and at the beginning of 1884 the Government resolved on their crowning and fatal blunder. On the 18th of January, Lord Hartington (Secretary of State for War), Lord Granville, Lord Northbrook, and Sir Charles Dilke had an interview with General Gordon, and determined that he should be sent to evacuate the Soudan. Gladstone a.s.sented, and Gordon started that evening on his ill-starred errand. In view of subsequent events, it is worth recording that there were some Liberals who, from the moment they heard of it, condemned the undertaking. The dithyrambics of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ drew from William Cory[38] the following protest:

"January 21, 1884.

"It's really ludicrous--the P. M. G. professing a clearly suprarational faith in an elderly Engineer, saying that he will cook the goose if no one interferes with him ... as if he could go to Suakim, 'summon' a barbarous potentate, make him supply his escort to Khartoum, and, when at Khartoum, issue edicts right and left; as if he could act without subaltern officers, money, stores, gold, etc.; as if he were an _homme drapeau_, and had an old army out there ready to troop round him, as the French veterans round Bonaparte at Frejus."

In Parliament, the princ.i.p.al work of 1884 was to extend the Parliamentary Franchise to the Agricultural Labourer. A Tory Member said in debate that the labourers were no more fit to have the franchise than the beasts they tended; and Lord Goschen, who had remained outside the Cabinet of 1880 sooner than be party to giving them the vote, used to say to the end of his life that, if the Union were ever destroyed, it would be by the agricultural labourers. I, however, who had lived among them all my life and knew that they were at least as fit for political responsibility as the artisans, threw myself with ardour into the advocacy of their cause. (By the way, my speech of the Second Reading of the Franchise Bill was answered by the present Speaker[39] in his maiden speech.) All through the summer the battle raged. The Lords did not refuse to pa.s.s the Bill, but said that, before they pa.s.sed it, they must see the accompanying scheme of Redistribution. It was not a very unreasonable demand, but Gladstone denounced it as an unheard-of usurpation. We all took our cue from him, and vowed that we would smash the House of Lords into atoms before we consented to this insolent claim. Throughout the Parliamentary recess, the voices of protest resounded from every Liberal platform, and even so lethargic a politician as Lord Hartington harangued a huge gathering in the Park at Chatsworth. Everything wore the appearance of a const.i.tutional crisis.

Queen Victoria, as we now know, was seriously perturbed, and did her utmost to avert a rupture between Lords and Commons. But still we persisted in our outcry. The Lords must pa.s.s the Franchise Bill without conditions, and when it was law, we would discuss Redistribution. A new Session began on 23rd of October. The Franchise Bill was brought in again, pa.s.sed, and sent up to the Lords. At first the Lords seemed resolved to insist on their terms; then they wavered; and then again they hardened their hearts. Lord Salisbury reported that they would not let the Franchise Bill through till they got the Redistribution Bill from the Commons. Meanwhile, all sorts of mysterious negotiations were going on between the "moderate" men on both sides; and it was known that Gladstone dared not dissolve on the old franchise, as he was sure to be beaten in the Boroughs. His only hope was in the agricultural labourers. Then, acting under pressure which is not known but can be easily guessed, he suddenly announced, on the 17th of November, that he was prepared to introduce the Redistribution Bill before the Lords went into Committee on the Franchise Bill. It was the point for which the Tories had been contending all along, and by conceding it, Gladstone made an absolute surrender. All the sound and fury of the last six months had been expended in protesting that we could never do what now we meekly did. It was the beginning of troubles which have lasted to this day. The House of Lords learned the welcome lesson that, when the Liberal Party railed, they only had to sit still; and the lesson learnt in 1884 was applied in each succeeding crisis down to August 1911. It has always been to me an amazing instance of Gladstone's powers of self-deception that to the end of his life he spoke of this pernicious surrender as a signal victory.

Early in 1885, it became my duty to receive at the Local Government Board a deputation of the Unemployed, who then were beginning to agitate the habitual calm of the well-fed and the easy-going. It was a curious experience. The deputation consisted of respectable-looking and apparently earnest men, some of whom spoke the language of _Alton Locke_, while others talked in a more modern strain of dynamite, Secret Societies, and "a life for a life." The most conspicuous figure in the deputation was an engineer called John Burns,[40] and those who are interested in political development may find something to their mind in the report of the deputation in _The Times_ of February 17th, 1885.

There they will read that, after leaving Whitehall, the crowd adjourned to the Embankment, where the following resolution was carried, and despatched to the President of the Local Government Board:

"That this meeting of the unemployed, having heard the answer given by the Local Government Board to their deputation, considers the refusal to start public works to be a sentence of death on thousands of those out of work, and the recommendation to bring pressure to bear on the local bodies to be a direct incitement to violence; further, it will hold Mr. G. W. E. Russell and the members of the Government, individually and collectively, guilty of the murder of those who may die in the next few weeks, and whose lives would have been saved had the suggestion of the deputation been acted on.

(Signed) JOHN BURNS, _Engineer_.

JOHN E. WILLIAMS, _Labourer_.

WILLIAM HENRY, _Foreman_.

JAMES MACDONALD, _Tailor_."

The threats with which the leaders of the Unemployed regaled us derived a pleasing actuality from the fact that on the 24th of January simultaneous explosions had occurred at the Tower and in the House of Commons. I did not see the destruction at the Tower, but I went straight across from my office to the House of Commons, and saw a curious object-lesson in scientific Fenianism. In Westminster Hall there was a hole in the pavement six feet wide, and another in the roof. I had scarcely done examining these phenomena when another crash shook the whole building, and we found that an infernal machine had been exploded in the House of Commons, tearing the doors off their hinges, wrecking the galleries, and smas.h.i.+ng the Treasury Bench into matchwood. The French Amba.s.sador, M. Waddington, entered the House with me, and for a while stood silent and amazed. At length he said, "There's no other country in the world where this could happen." Certainly it must be admitted that at that moment our detective organization was not at its best.

However, neither mock-heroics nor actual outrage could obscure the fact that during the spring of 1885 there Was an immense amount of unemployment, and consequent suffering, among the unskilled labourers. I suggested that we should issue from the Local Government Board a Circular Letter to all the Local Authorities in London, asking them, not to invent work, but to push forward works which, owing to the rapid extension of London into the suburbs, were becoming absolutely necessary. But the President of the Board, a bond slave of Political Economy, would not sanction even this very mild departure from the precepts of the Dismal Science. The distress was peculiarly acute at the Docks, where work is precarious and uncertain in the highest degree.

Some well-meaning people at the West End inst.i.tuted a plan of "Free Breakfasts" to be served at the Dock-Gates to men who had failed to obtain employment for the day. On one of these occasions--and very pathetic they were--I was the host, and the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ treated me to some not unkindly ridicule.

Child of the Whigs whose name you flout, Slip of the tree you fain would fell; Your colleagues own, I cannot doubt, Your plan, George Russell, likes them well, "What will regain," you heard them cry, "That popular praise we once enjoyed?"

And instant was your smart reply, "Free Breakfasts to the Unemployed."

And then, after six more verses of rhythmical chaff, this prophetic stanza:

And howsoe'er profusely flow The tea and coffee round the board, The hospitality you show Shall nowise lack its due reward.

For soon, I trust, our turn 'twill be, With joy by no regret alloyed, To give the present Ministry A Breakfast for the Unemployed.

The Parliamentary work of 1885 was Redistribution. The principles had been settled in secret conclave by the leaders on both sides; but the details were exhaustively discussed in the House of Commons. By this time we had become inured to Tory votes of censure on our Egyptian policy, and had always contrived to escape by the skin of our teeth; but we were in a disturbed and uneasy condition. We knew--for there was an incessant leakage of official secrets--that the Cabinet was rent by acute dissensions. The Whiggish section was in favour of renewing the Irish Crimes Act. The Radicals wished to let it expire, and proposed to conciliate Ireland by a scheme of National Councils. Between the middle of April and the middle of May, nine members of the Cabinet, for one cause or another, contemplated resignation. After one of these disputes Gladstone said to a friend: "A very fair Cabinet to-day--only three resignations." Six months later, after his Government had fallen, he wrote: "A Cabinet does not exist out of office, and no one in his senses could covenant to call _the late Cabinet_ together." The solution of these difficulties came unexpectedly. The Budget introduced by Hugh Childers on the 30th of April proposed to meet a deficit by additional duties on beer and spirits; and was therefore extremely unpopular.

Silently and skilfully, the Tories, the Irish, and the disaffected Liberals laid their plans. On Sunday, June 7th, Lord Henry Lennox--a leading Tory--told me at luncheon that we were to be turned out on the following day, and so, sure enough, we were, on an amendment to the Budget moved by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.[41] It was thought at the time that the Liberal wirepullers welcomed this defeat, as a way out of difficulties. Certainly no strenuous efforts were made to avert it. The scene in the House when the fatal figures were announced has been often described, and in my mind's eye I see clearly the image of Lord Randolph Churchill, dancing a kind of triumphant hornpipe on the bench which for five momentous years had been the seat of the Fourth Party. On the 24th of June Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the first time.

The break-up of the Government revealed to all the world the fact that the Liberal Party was cleft in twain. The Whig section was led by Lord Hartington, and the Radical section by Mr. Chamberlain. Gladstone did his best to mediate between the two, and so to present an unbroken front to the common foe. But the parting of the ways soon became painfully apparent. The fall of the Government involved, of course, the return of Lord Spencer from Ireland, and some of his friends resolved, after the manner of admiring Englishmen, to give him a public dinner. The current phrase was that we were to "Dine Spencer for coercing the Irish." As he had done that thoroughly for the s.p.a.ce of three years, and, at the risk of his own life, had destroyed a treasonable and murderous conspiracy, he was well ent.i.tled to all the honours which we could give him. So it was arranged that the dinner was to take place at the Westminster Palace Hotel on the 24th of July. Shortly before the day arrived, Mr.

Chamberlain said to me: "I think you had better not attend that dinner to Spencer. I am not going, nor is D----. Certainly Spencer has done his duty, and shown capital pluck; but I hope we should all have done the same, and there's no reason to mark it by a dinner. And, after all, coercion is not a nice business for Liberals, though we may be forced into it." However, as I had greatly admired Lord Spencer's administration, and as his family and mine had been politically a.s.sociated for a century, I made a point of attending, and a capital evening we had. There was an enthusiastic and representative company of two hundred Liberals. Lord Hartington presided, and extolled Lord Spencer to the skies; and Lord Spencer justified the Crimes Act by saying that, when it was pa.s.sed, there was an organization of thirty thousand Fenians, aided by branches in Scotland and England, and by funds from America, defying the law of the land in Ireland. Not a word in all this about Home Rule, or the Union of Hearts, but we cheered it to the echo, little dreaming what the next six months had in store for us.

Though I was thoroughly in favour of resolute dealing with murder and outrage, I was also--and this was a combination which sorely puzzled _The Spectator_--an enthusiastic Radical, and specially keen on the side of social reform. My views on domestic politics were substantially the same as those set forth with extraordinary vigour and effect in a long series of speeches by Mr. Chamberlain, who was now unmuzzled, and was making the fullest use of his freedom. He was then at the very zenith of his powers, and the scheme of political and social reform which he expounded is still, in my opinion, the best compendium of Radical politics; but it tended in the direction of what old-fas.h.i.+oned people called Socialism, and this was to Gladstone an abomination. One day, to my consternation, he asked me if it was true that Socialism had made some way among the younger Liberals, of whom I was then one.

Endeavouring to parry a question which must have revealed my own guilt, I feebly asked if by Socialism my venerable Leader meant the practice of taking private property for public uses, or the performance by the State of what ought to be left to the individual; whereupon he replied, with startling emphasis: "I mean both, but I reserve my worst Billingsgate for the attack on private property."

On the 18th of September Gladstone issued his Address to the Electors of Midlothian--an exceedingly long-winded doc.u.ment, which seemed to commit the Liberal Party to nothing in particular. _Verbosa et grandis epistola_, said Mr. John Morley. "An old man's manifesto," wrote the _Pall Mall_. By contrast with this colourless but authoritative doc.u.ment, Mr. Chamberlain's scheme became known as "The Unauthorized Programme," and of that programme I was a zealous promoter.

As soon as the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill had pa.s.sed into law, it was arranged that the dissolution should take place in November. The whole autumn was given up to electioneering. The newly-enfranchised labourers seemed friendly to the Liberal cause, but our bewildered candidates saw that their leaders were divided into two sections--one might almost say, two camps. This was a condition of things which boded disaster to the Liberal Party; but Gladstone never realized that Chamberlain was a power which it was madness to alienate.

On the 2nd of October I went on a visit to Hawarden, and the next day Gladstone opened a conversation on the state of the Party and the prospects of the Election. He said: "I believe you are in Chamberlain's confidence. Can you tell me what he means?" I replied that I was not the least in Chamberlain's confidence, though he had always been very friendly to me, and I admired his Programme. "But," I said, "I think that what he means is quite clear. He has no thought of trying to oust you from the Leaders.h.i.+p of the Liberal Party; but he is determined that, when you resign it, he, and not Hartington, shall succeed you." This seemed to give the Chief some food for reflection, and then I ventured to follow up my advantage. "After all," I said, "Chamberlain has been your colleague for five years. Surely your best plan would be to invite him here, and ascertain his intentions from himself." If I had suggested that my host should invite the Sultan or the Czar, he could not have looked more surprised. "I have always made a point," he said, "of keeping this place clear of political transactions. We never invite anyone except private friends." "Well," I said, "but we are within six weeks of the Election, and it will never do for us to go to the country with you and Chamberlain professing two rival policies."

Backed by Mrs. Gladstone, I carried my point, and with my own hand wrote the telegram inviting Mr. Chamberlain. Unfortunately I had to leave Hawarden on the 6th of October, so I was not present at the meeting which I had brought about; but a few days later I had a letter from Mr.

Chamberlain saying that, though his visit had been socially pleasant, it had been politically useless. He had not succeeded in making Gladstone see the importance of the Unauthorized Programme, and "if I were to drop it now," he said, "the stones would immediately cry out."

What then ensued is matter of history. Parliament was dissolved on the 18th of November. When the elections were finished, the Liberal Party was just short of the numerical strength which was requisite to defeat a combination of Tories and Parnellites. Lord Salisbury, therefore, retained office, but the life of his administration hung by a thread.

On the 24th of November, 1884, the great Lord Shaftesbury, moved by the spirit of prophecy, had written: "In a year or so we shall have Home Rule disposed of (at all hazards) to save us from daily and hourly bores." On the 17th of December, 1885, the world was astonished by an anonymous announcement in two newspapers--and the rest followed suit next day--that, if Gladstone were returned to power, he would be prepared to deal, in a liberal spirit, with the demand for Home Rule.

This announcement was an act of folly not easy to explain or condone. We now know whose act it was, and we know that it was committed without Gladstone's privity. As Lord Morley says: "Never was there a moment when every consideration of political prudence more imperatively counselled silence." But now every political tongue in the United Kingdom was set wagging, and Gladstone could neither confirm nor deny. Our bewilderment and confusion were absolute. No one knew what was coming next; who was on what side; or whither his party--or, indeed, himself--was tending.

One point only was clear: if Gladstone meant what he seemed to mean, the Parnellites would support him, and the Tories would be turned out. The new Parliament met on the 21st of January, 1886. On the--, the Government were defeated on an amendment to the Address, in favour of Munic.i.p.al Allotments, and Lord Salisbury resigned. It was a moment of intense excitement, and everyone tasted for a day or two "the joy of eventful living."

On the 29th of January, I dined with Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. The host was in a grim mood of suppressed excitement, anger, and apprehension.

All day long he had been expecting a summons from the Queen, and it had not arrived. "It begins to look," he said, "as if the Government meant after all to ignore the vote of the House of Commons, and go on. All I can say is that, if they do, the Crown will be placed in a worse position than it has ever occupied in my lifetime." But after the party had broken up, Sir Henry Ponsonby arrived with the desired message from the Queen; and on the 1st of February Gladstone kissed hands, as Prime Minister for the third time.

"When Gladstone runs down a steep place, his immense majority, like the pigs in Scripture but hoping for a better issue, will go with him, roaring in grunts of exultation." This was Lord Shaftesbury's prediction in the previous year; but it was based on an a.s.sumption which proved erroneous. It took for granted the unalterable docility of the Liberal Party. I knew little at first hand of the transactions and tumults which filled the spring and early summer of 1886. At the beginning of February I was laid low by serious illness, resulting from the fatigue and exposure of the Election; and when, after a long imprisonment, I was out of bed, I went off to the seaside for convalescence. But even in the sick-room I heard rumours of the obstinate perversity with which the Liberal Government was rus.h.i.+ng on its fate, and the admirably effective resistance to Home Rule engineered by Lord Hartington and Mr.

Chamberlain. The Liberal leaders ran down the steep place, but an important minority of the pigs refused to follow them. The Home Rule Bill was thrown out on the 8th of June. Parliament was immediately dissolved. The General Election gave a majority of more than a hundred against Home Rule; the Government retired and Lord Salisbury again became Prime Minister.

In those distant days, there was a happy arrangement by which once a year, when my father was staying with me, Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone dined with me to meet him. My father and Gladstone had both entered public life at the General Election of 1832, and my father loved to describe him as he appeared riding in Hyde Park on a grey Arabian mare, "with his hat, narrow-brimmed, high up on the centre of his head, sustained by a crop of thick, curly hair," while a pa.s.ser-by said: "That's Gladstone.

He is to make his maiden speech to-night. It will be worth hearing." The annual rencounter took place on the 21st of July, 1886. After dinner, Gladstone drew me into a window and said: "Well, this Election has been a great disappointment." I replied that we could certainly have wished it better, but that the result was not unexpected. To my amazement, Gladstone replied that it was completely unexpected. "The experts a.s.sured me that we should sweep the country." (I always wish that I could have had an opportunity of speaking my mind to those "experts.") Pursuing the subject, Gladstone said that the Queen had demurred to a second election in six months, and that some of his colleagues had recommended more moderate courses. "But I said that, if we didn't dissolve, we should be showing the white feather."

It is no part of my purpose to trace the dismal history of the Liberal Party between 1886 and 1892. But one incident in that time deserves to be recorded. I was dining with Lord and Lady Rosebery on the 4th of March, 1889; Gladstone was of the company, and was indulging in pa.s.sionate diatribes against Pitt. One phrase has always stuck in my memory. "There is no crime recorded in history--I do not except the Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew--which will compare for a moment with the means by which the Union was brought about." When the party was breaking up, one of the diners said: "I hope Mr. Gladstone won't draw that parallel, between the Union and the Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, on a public platform, or we shall stand even less well with the thinking public than we do now."

Parliament was dissolved in June, 1892, and, when the elections were over, it was found that the Liberal Party, including the Irish, had only a majority of 40. When Gladstone knew the final figures, he saw the impossibility of forcing Home Rule through the Lords, and exclaimed: "My life's work is done." However, as we all remember, he took the Premiers.h.i.+p for a fourth time, and during the Session of 1893 pa.s.sed a Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons. The Lords threw it out by 419 to 41, the minority being mainly wage-receivers. Other troubles there were, both inside the Government and outside it; Mr. Gladstone told his friends that the Naval Estimates demanded by the Admiralty were "mad and drunk"; and people began to suspect that the great change was at hand.

On the 1st of March, 1894, Gladstone made his last speech in the House of Commons. In that speech he bequeathed to his party the legacy of a n.o.bly-worded protest against the irresponsible power of the "Nominated Chamber"; and then, having accomplished sixty-one years of Parliamentary service, he simply disappeared, without ceremony or farewell. In my mind's eye I see him now, upright as ever, and walking fast, with his despatch-box dangling from his right hand, as he pa.s.sed the Speaker's Chair, and quitted the scene of his life's work for ever.

In spite of warnings and antic.i.p.ations, the end had, after all, come suddenly; and, with a sharp pang of regretful surprise, we woke to the fact that "our master was taken away from our head to-day." Strong men were shaken with emotion and hard men were moved to unaccustomed tears, as we pa.s.sed out of the emptied House in the dusk of that gloomy afternoon.

On the 6th of March, 1894, Gladstone wrote to me as follows, in reply to my letter of farewell:

"My speculative view into the future shows me a very mixed spectacle, and a doubtful atmosphere. I am thankful to have borne a part in the emanc.i.p.ating labours of the last sixty years; but entirely uncertain how, had I now to begin my life, I could face the very different problems of the next sixty years. Of one thing I am, and always have been, convinced--it is not by the State that man can be regenerated, and the terrible woes of this darkened world effectually dealt with. In some, and some very important, respects, I yearn for the impossible revival of the men and the ideas of my first twenty years, which immediately followed the first Reform Act. But I am stepping out upon a boundless plain.

"May G.o.d give you strength of all kinds to perform your appointed work in the world."

FOOTNOTES:

[37] The British troops entered Cairo on the 14th of September, 1882.

[38] Better known as "Billy Johnson," the famous Eton Tutor.

[39] The Right Hon. J. W. Lowther.

[40] Afterwards the Right Hon. John Burns, M.P., President of the Local Government Board.

[41] Afterwards Lord St. Aldwyn.