The Life of William Ewart Gladstone Volume III Part 36

_Mr. G._-I think on the whole, Innocent III. But his greatness was not for good. What did he do? He imposed the dogma of transubstantiation; he is responsible for the Albigensian persecutions; he is responsible for the crusade which ended in the conquest of Byzantium. Have you ever realised what a deadly blow was the ruin of Byzantium by the Latins, how wonderful a fabric the Eastern Empire was?

_J. M._-Oh, yes, I used to know my Finlay better than most books.

Mill used to say a page of Finlay was worth a chapter of Gibbon: he explains how decline and fall came about.

_Mr. G._-Of course. Finlay has it all.

He tried then to make out that the eastern empire was more wonderful than anything done by the Romans; it stood out for eleven centuries, while Rome fell in three. I pointed out to him that the whole solid framework of the eastern empire was after all built up by the Romans. But he is philh.e.l.lene all through past and present.

Chapter V. Breach With Mr. Parnell. (1890-1891)

Fortuna vitrea est,-tum quum splendet frangitur.-PUBLIL. SYRUS.

Brittle like gla.s.s is fortune,-bright as light, and then the crash.

I

It would have been a miracle if the sight of all the methods of coercion, along with the ignominy of the forged letters, had not worked with strong effect upon the public mind. Distrust began to creep at a very rapid pace even into the ministerial ranks. The tory member for a large northern borough rose to resent "the inexpedient treatment of the Irishmen from a party point of view," to protest against the 'straining and stretching of the law' by the resident magistrates, to declare his opinion that these gentlemen were not qualified to exercise the jurisdiction entrusted to them, "and to denounce the folly of making English law unpopular in Ireland, and provoking the leaders of the Irish people by illegal and unconst.i.tutional acts."(266) These sentiments were notoriously shared to the full by many who sat around him. n.o.body in those days, discredited as he was with his party, had a keener scent for the drift of popular feeling than Lord Randolph Churchill, and he publicly proclaimed that this sending of Irish members of parliament to prison in such numbers was a feature which he did not like. Further, he said that the fact of the government not thinking it safe for public meetings of any sort to be held, excited painful feelings in English minds.(267) All this was after the system had been in operation for two years. Even strong unionist organs in the Irish press could not stand it.(268) They declared that if (M150) the Irish, government wished to make the coercive system appear as odious as possible, they would act just as they were acting. They could only explain all these doings, not by "wrong-headedness or imbecility," but by a strange theory that there must be deliberate treachery among the government agents.

Before the end of the year 1889 the electoral signs were unmistakable.

Fifty-three bye-elections had been contested since the beginning of the parliament. The net result was the gain of one seat for ministers and of nine to the opposition. The Irish secretary with characteristic candour never denied the formidable extent of these victories, though he mourned over the evils that such temporary successes might entail, and was convinced that they would prove to be dearly bought.(269) A year later the tide still flowed on; the net gain of the opposition rose to eleven. In 1886 seventy-seven const.i.tuencies were represented by forty-seven unionists and thirty liberals. By the beginning of October in 1890 the unionist members in the same const.i.tuencies had sunk to thirty-six, and the liberals had risen to forty-one. Then came the most significant election of all.

There had been for some months a lull in Ireland. Government claimed the credit of it for coercion; their adversaries set it down partly to the operation of the Land Act, partly to the natural tendency in such agitations to fluctuate or to wear themselves out, and most of all to the strengthened reliance on the sincerity of the English liberals. Suddenly the country was amazed towards the middle of September by news that proceedings under the Coercion Act had been inst.i.tuted against two nationalist leaders, and others. Even strong adherents of the government and their policy were deeply dismayed, when they saw that after three years of it, the dreary work was to begin over again. The proceedings seemed to be stamped in every aspect as impolitic. In a few days the two leaders would have been on their way to America, leaving a half-empty war chest behind them and the flame of agitation burning low. As the offences charged had been going on for six months, there was clearly no pressing emergency.

A critical bye-election was close at hand at the moment in the Eccles division of Lancas.h.i.+re. The polling took place four days after a vehement defence of his policy by Mr. Balfour at Newcastle. The liberal candidate at Eccles expressly declared from his election address onwards, that the great issue on which he fought was the alternative between conciliation and coercion. Each candidate increased the party vote, the tory by rather more than one hundred, the liberal by nearly six hundred. For the first time the seat was wrested from the tories, and the liberal triumphed by a substantial majority.(270) This was the latest gauge of the failure of the Irish policy to conquer public approval, the last indication of the direction in which the currents of public opinion were steadily moving.(271) Then all at once a blinding sandstorm swept the ground.

II

One of those events now occurred that with their stern irony so mock the statesman's foresight, and shatter political designs in their most prosperous hour. As a mightier figure than Mr. Parnell remorsefully said on a grander stage, a hundred years before, cases sometimes befall in the history of nations where private fault is public disaster.

At the end of 1889, the Irish leader had been made a party in a suit for divorce. He betrayed no trace in his demeanour, either to his friends or to the House, of embarra.s.sment at the position. His earliest appearance after the evil news, was in the debate on the first night of the session (February 11, '90), upon a motion about the publication of the forged letter. Some twenty of (M151) his followers being absent, he wished the discussion to be prolonged into another sitting. Closely as it might be supposed to concern him, he listened to none of the debate. He had a sincere contempt for speeches in themselves, and was wont to set down most of them to vanity. A message was sent that he should come upstairs and speak. After some indolent remonstrance, he came. His speech was admirable; firm without emphasis, penetrating, dignified, freezing, and unanswerable. Neither now nor on any later occasion did his air of composure in public or in private give way.

Mr. Gladstone was at Hawarden, wide awake to the possibility of peril. To Mr. Arnold Morley he wrote on November 4:-"I fear a thundercloud is about to burst over Parnell's head, and I suppose it will end the career of a man in many respects invaluable." On the 13th he was told by the present writer that there were grounds for an impression that Mr. Parnell would emerge as triumphantly from the new charge, as he had emerged from the obloquy of the forged letters. The case was opened two days later, and enough came out upon the first day of the proceedings to point to an adverse result. A Sunday intervened, and Mr. Gladstone's self-command under storm-clouds may be seen in a letter written on that day to me:-

_Nov. 16, 1890._-1. It is, after all, a thunder-clap about Parnell. Will he ask for the Chiltern Hundreds? He cannot continue to lead? What could he mean by his language to you? The Pope has now clearly got a commandment under which to pull him up. It surely cannot have been always thus; for he represented his diocese in the church synod. 2. I thank you for your kind scruple, but in the country my Sundays are habitually and largely invaded.

3. Query, whether if a bye-seat were open and chanced to have a large Irish vote W-- might not be a good man there. 4. I do not think my Mem. is worth circulating but perhaps you would send it to Spencer. I sent a copy to Harcourt. 5. [A small parliamentary point, not related to the Parnell affair, nor otherwise significant.] 6. Most warmly do I agree with you about the Scott _Journal_. How one loves him. 7. Some day I hope to inflict on you a talk about Homer and Homerology (as I call it).

The court p.r.o.nounced a condemnatory decree on Monday, November 17th.

Parliament was appointed to meet on Tuesday, the 25th. There was only a week for Irish and English to resolve what effect this condemnation should have upon Mr. Parnell's position as leader of one and ally of the other.

Mr. Parnell wrote the ordinary letter to his parliamentary followers. The first impulses of Mr. Gladstone are indicated in a letter to me on the day after the decree:-

_Nov. 18, 1890._-Many thanks for your letter. I had noticed the Parnell circular, not without misgiving. I read in the _P. M. G._ this morning a noteworthy article in the _Daily Telegraph_,(272) or rather from it, with which I very much agree. But I think it plain that we have nothing to say and nothing to do in the matter.

The party is as distinct from us as that of Smith or Hartington. I own to some surprise at the apparent facility with which the R. C.

bishops and clergy appear to take the continued leaders.h.i.+p, but they may have tried the ground and found it would not _bear_. It is the Irish parliamentary party, and that alone to which we have to look....

Such were Mr. Gladstone's thoughts when the stroke first fell.

III

In England and Scotland loud voices were speedily lifted up. Some treated the offence itself as an inexpiable disqualification. Others argued that, even if the offence could be pa.s.sed over as lying outside of politics, it (M152) had been surrounded by incidents of squalor and deceit that betrayed a character in which no trust could ever be placed again. In some English quarters all this was expressed with a strident arrogance that set Irishmen on fire. It is ridiculous, if we remember what s.p.a.ce Mr. Parnell filled in Irish imagination and feeling, how popular, how mysterious, how invincible he had been, to blame them because in the first moment of shock and bewilderment they did not instantly plant themselves in the judgment seat, always so easily ascended by Englishmen with little at stake. The politicians in Dublin did not hesitate. A great meeting was held at Leinster Hall in Dublin on the Thursday (November 20th). The result was easy to foresee. Not a whisper of revolt was heard. The chief nationalist newspaper stood firm for Mr. Parnell's continuance. At least one ecclesiastic of commanding influence was supposed to be among the journal's most ardent prompters. It has since been stated that the bishops were in fact forging bolts of commination. No lurid premonitory fork or sheet flashed on the horizon, no rumble of the coming thunders reached the public ear.

Three days after the decree in the court, the great English liberal organization chanced to hold its annual meeting at Sheffield (November 20-21). In reply to a request of mine as to his views upon our position, Mr. Gladstone wrote to me as follows:-

_Nov. 19, 1890._-Your appeal as to your meeting of to-morrow gives matter for thought. I feel (1) that the Irish have abstractedly a right to decide the question; (2) that on account of Parnell's enormous services-he has done for home rule something like what Cobden did for free trade, set the argument on its legs-they are in a position of immense difficulty; (3) that we, the liberal party as a whole, and especially we its leaders, have for the moment nothing to say to it, that we must be pa.s.sive, must wait and watch. But I again and again say to myself, I say I mean in the interior and silent forum, "It'll na dee." I should not be surprised if there were to be rather painful manifestations in the House on Tuesday. It is yet to be seen what our Nonconformist friends, such a man as --, for example, or such a man as -- will say.... If I recollect right, Southey's _Life of Nelson_ was in my early days published and circulated by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. It would be curious to look back upon it and see how the biographer treats his narrative at the tender points.

What I have said under figure 3 applies to me beyond all others, and notwithstanding my prognostications I shall maintain an extreme reserve in a position where I can do no good (in the present tense), and might by indiscretion do much harm. You will doubtless communicate with Harcourt and confidential friends only as to anything in this letter. The thing, one can see, is not a _res judicata_. It may ripen fast. Thus far, there is a total want of moral support from this side to the Irish judgment.

A fierce current was soon perceived to be running. All the elements so powerful for high enthusiasm, but hazardous where an occasion demands circ.u.mspection, were in full blast. The deep instinct for domestic order was awake. Many were even violently and irrationally impatient that Mr.

Gladstone had not peremptorily renounced the alliance on the very morrow of the decree. As if, Mr. Gladstone himself used to say, it could be the duty of any party leader to take into his hands the intolerable burden of exercising the rigours of inquisition and private censors.h.i.+p over every man with whom what he judged the highest public expediency might draw him to co-operate. As if, moreover, it could be the duty of Mr. Gladstone to hurry headlong into action, without giving Mr. Parnell time or chance of taking such action of his own as might make intervention unnecessary. Why was it to be a.s.sumed that Mr. Parnell would not recognise the facts of the situation? "I determined," said Mr. Gladstone "to watch the state of feeling in this country. I made no public declaration, but the country made up its mind. I was in some degree like the soothsayer Shakespeare introduces into one of his plays. He says, 'I do not make the facts; I only foresee them.' I did not foresee the facts even; they were present before me."(273)

(M153) The facts were plain, and Mr. Gladstone was keenly alive to the full purport of every one of them. Men, in whose hearts religion and morals held the first place, were strongly joined by men accustomed to settle political action by political considerations. Platform-men united with pulpit-men in swelling the whirlwind. Electoral calculation and moral faithfulness were held for once to point the same way. The report from every quarter, every letter to a member from a const.i.tuent, all was in one sense. Some, as I have said, pressed the point that the misconduct itself made co-operation impossible; others urged the impossibility of relying upon political understandings with one to whom habitual duplicity was believed to have been brought home. We may set what value we choose upon such arguments. Undoubtedly they would have proscribed some of the most important and admired figures in the supreme doings of modern Europe.

Undoubtedly some who have fallen into s.h.i.+ft and deceit in this particular relation, have yet been true as steel in all else. For a man's character is a strangely fitted mosaic, and it is unsafe to a.s.sume that all his traits are of one piece, or inseparable in fact because they ought to be inseparable by logic. But people were in no humour for casuistry, and whether all this be sophistry or sense, the volume of hostile judgment and obstinate intention could neither be mistaken, nor be wisely breasted if home rule was to be saved in Great Britain.

Mr. Gladstone remained at Hawarden during the week. To Mr. Arnold Morley he wrote (Nov. 23): "I have a bundle of letters every morning on the Parnell business, and the bundles increase. My own opinion has been the same from the first, and I conceive that the time for action has now come.

All my correspondents are in unison." Every post-bag was heavy with admonitions, of greater cogency than such epistles sometimes possess; and a voluminous bundle of letters still at Hawarden bears witness to the emotions of the time. Sir William Harcourt and I, who had taken part in the proceedings at Sheffield, made our reports. The acute manager of the liberal party came to announce that three of our candidates had bolted already, that more were sure to follow, and that this indispensable commodity in elections would become scarcer than ever. Of the general party opinion, there could be no shadow of doubt. It was no application of special rigour because Mr. Parnell was an Irishman. Any English politician of his rank would have fared the same or worse, and retirement, temporary or for ever, would have been inevitable. Temporary withdrawal, said some; permanent withdrawal, said others; but for withdrawal of some sort, almost all were inexorable.

IV

Mr. Gladstone did not reach London until the afternoon of Monday, November 24. Parliament was to a.s.semble on the next day. Three members of the cabinet of 1886, and the chief whip of the party,(274) met him in the library of Lord Rendel's house at Carlton Gardens. The issue before the liberal leaders was a plain one. It was no question of the right of the nationalists to choose their own chief. It was no question of inflicting political ostracism on a particular kind of moral delinquency. The question was whether the present continuance of the Irish leaders.h.i.+p with the silent a.s.sent of the British leaders, did not involve decisive abstention at the polls on the day when Irish policy could once more be submitted to the electors of Great Britain? At the best the standing difficulties even to sanguine eyes, and under circ.u.mstances that had seemed so promising, were still formidable. What chance was there if this new burden were superadded? Only one conclusion was possible upon the state of facts, and even those among persons responsible for this decision who were most earnestly concerned in the success of the Irish policy, reviewing all the circ.u.mstances of the dilemma, deliberately hold to this day that though a catastrophe followed, a worse catastrophe was avoided.

It is one of the commonest of all secrets of cheap misjudgment in human affairs, to start by a.s.suming that there is always some good way out of a bad case. Alas for us all, this is not so. Situations arise alike (M154) for individuals, for parties, and for states, from which no good way out exists, but only choice between bad way and worse. Here was one of those situations. The mischiefs that followed the course actually taken, we see; then, as is the wont of human kind, we ignore the mischiefs that as surely awaited any other.

Mr. Gladstone always steadfastly resisted every call to express an opinion of his own that the delinquency itself had made Mr. Parnell unfit and impossible. It was vain to tell him that the party would expect such a declaration, or that his reputation required that he should found his action on moral censure all his own. "What!" he cried, "because a man is what is called leader of a party, does that const.i.tute him a censor and a judge of faith and morals? I will not accept it. It would make life intolerable." He adhered tenaciously to political ground. "I have been for four years," Mr. Gladstone justly argued, "endeavouring to persuade voters to support Irish autonomy. Now the voter says to me, 'If a certain thing happens-namely, the retention of the Irish leaders.h.i.+p in its present hands-I will not support Irish autonomy.' How can I go on with the work?

We laboriously rolled the great stone up to the top of the hill, and now it topples down to the bottom again, unless Mr. Parnell sees fit to go."

From the point of view of Irish policy this was absolutely unanswerable.

It would have been just as unanswerable, even if all the dire confusion that afterwards came to pa.s.s had then been actually in sight. Its force was wholly independent, and necessarily so, of any intention that might be formed by Mr. Parnell.

As for that intention, let us turn to him for a moment. Who could dream that a man so resolute in facing facts as Mr. Parnell, would expect all to go on as before? Substantial people in Ireland who were preparing to come round to home rule at the prospect of a liberal victory in Great Britain, would a.s.suredly be frightened back. Belfast would be more resolute than ever. A man might estimate as he pleased either the nonconformist conscience in England, or the catholic conscience in Ireland. But the most cynical of mere calculators,-and I should be slow to say that this was Mr.

Parnell,-could not fall a prey to such a hallucination as to suppose that a scandal so frightfully public, so impossible for even the most mild-eyed charity to pretend not to see, and which political pa.s.sion was so interested in keeping in full blaze, would instantly drop out of the mind of two of the most religious communities in the world; or that either of these communities could tolerate without effective protest so impenitent an affront as the unruffled continuity of the stained leaders.h.i.+p. All this was independent of anything that Mr. Gladstone might do or might not do.

The liberal leaders had a right to a.s.sume that the case must be as obvious to Mr. Parnell as it was to everybody else, and unless loyalty and good faith have no place in political alliances, they had a right to look for his spontaneous action. Was unlimited consideration due from them to him and none from him to them?