Chapter VII. The Political Atmosphere. Defeat Of The Bill. (1886)
Everything on every side was full of traps and mines.... It was in the midst of this chaos of plots and counterplots ... that the firmness of that noble person [Lord Rockingham] was put to the proof. He never stirred from his ground; no, not an inch.—Burke (1766).
I
The atmosphere in London became thick and hot with political passion. Veteran observers declared that our generation had not seen anything like it. Distinguished men of letters and, as it oddly happened, men who had won some distinction either by denouncing the legislative union, or by insisting on a decentralisation that should satisfy Irish national aspirations, now choked with anger because they were taken at their word. Just like irascible scholars of old time who settled controversies about corrupt texts by imputing to rival grammarians shameful crimes, so these writers could find no other explanation for an opinion that was not their own about Irish government, except moral turpitude and personal degradation. One professor of urbanity compared Mr. Gladstone to a desperate pirate burning his ship, or a gambler doubling and trebling his stake as luck goes against him. Such strange violence in calm natures, such pharisaic pretension in a world where we are all fallen, remains a riddle. Political differences were turned into social proscription. Whigs who could not accept the new policy were specially furious with whigs who could. Great ladies purified their lists of the names of old intimates. Amiable magnates excluded from their dinner-tables and their country houses once familiar friends who had fallen into the guilty heresy, and even harmless portraits of the [pg 322] heresiarch were sternly removed from the walls. At some of the political clubs it rained blackballs. It was a painful demonstration how thin after all is our social veneer, even when most highly polished.
When a royal birthday was drawing near, the prime minister wrote to Lord Granville, his unfailing counsellor in every difficulty political and social: “I am becoming seriously perplexed about my birthday dinner. Hardly any peers of the higher ranks will be available, and not many of the lower. Will the seceding colleagues come if they are asked? (Argyll, to whom I applied privately on the score of old friendship, has already refused me.) I am for asking them; but I expect refusal. Lastly, it has become customary for the Prince of Wales to dine with me on that day, and he brings his eldest son now that the young Prince is of age. But his position would be very awkward, if he comes and witnesses a great nakedness of the land. What do you say to all this? If you cannot help me, who can?” Most of the seceding colleagues accepted, and the dinner came off well enough, though as the host wrote to a friend beforehand, “If Hartington were to get up and move a vote of want of confidence after dinner, he would almost carry it.” The Prince was unable to be present, and so the great nakedness was by him unseen, but Prince Albert Victor, who was there instead, is described by Mr. Gladstone as “most kind.”
The conversion of Peel to free trade forty years before had led to the same species of explosion, though Peel had the court strongly with him. Both then and now it was the case of a feud within the bosom of a party, and such feuds like civil wars have ever been the fiercest. In each case there was a sense of betrayal—at least as unreasonable in 1886 as it was in 1846. The provinces somehow took things more rationally than the metropolis. Those who were stunned by the fierce moans of London over the assured decline in national honour and credit, the imminence of civil war, and the ultimate destruction of British power, found their acquaintances in the country excited and interested, but still clothed and in their right minds. The gravity of the question was fully understood, but in taking sides ordinary [pg 323]
Subterranean Activity
men did not talk as if they were in for the battle of Armageddon. The attempt to kindle the torch of religious fear or hate was in Great Britain happily a failure. The mass of liberal presbyterians in Scotland, and of nonconformists in England and Wales, stood firm, though some of their most eminent and able divines resisted the new project, less on religious grounds than on what they took to be the balance of political arguments. Mr. Gladstone was able to point to the conclusive assurances he had received that the kindred peoples in the colonies and America regarded with warm and fraternal sympathy the present effort to settle the long-vexed and troubled relations between Great Britain and Ireland:—
We must not be discouraged if at home and particularly in the upper ranks of society, we hear a variety of discordant notes, notes alike discordant from our policy and from one another. You have before you a cabinet determined in its purpose and an intelligible plan. I own I see very little else in the political arena that is determined or that is intelligible.
Inside the House subterranean activity was at its height all through the month of May. This was the critical period. The regular opposition spoke little and did little; with composed interest they watched others do their work. On the ministerial side men wavered and changed and changed again, from day to day and almost from hour to hour. Never were the motions of the pendulum so agitated and so irregular. So novel and complex a problem was a terrible burden for a new parliament. About half its members had not sat in any parliament before. The whips were new, some of the leaders on the front benches were new, and those of them who were most in earnest about the policy were too heavily engrossed in the business of the measure, to have much time for the exercises of explanation, argument, and persuasion with their adherents. One circumstance told powerfully for ministers. The great central organisation of the liberal party came decisively over to Mr. Gladstone (May 5), and was followed by nearly all the local associations in the country. Neither whig secession nor radical [pg 324] dubitation shook the strength inherent in such machinery, in a community where the principle of government by party has solidly established itself. This was almost the single consolidating and steadying element in that hour of dispersion. A serious move in the opposite direction had taken place three weeks earlier. A great meeting was held at the Opera House, in the Haymarket, presided over by the accomplished whig nobleman who had the misfortune to be Irish viceroy in the two dismal years from 1880, and it was attended both by Lord Salisbury on one side and Lord Hartington on the other. This was the first broad public mark of liberal secession, and of that practical fusion between whig and tory which the new Irish policy had actually precipitated, but to which all the signs in the political heavens had been for three or four years unmistakably pointing.
The strength of the friends of the bill was twofold: first, it lay in the dislike of coercion as the only visible alternative; and second, it lay in the hope of at last touching the firm ground of a final settlement with Ireland. Their weakness was also twofold: first, misgivings about the exclusion of the Irish members; and second, repugnance to the scheme for land purchase. There were not a few, indeed, who pronounced the exclusion of Irish members to be the most sensible part of the plan. Mr. Gladstone retained his impartiality, but knew that if we proposed to keep the Irishmen, we should be run in upon quite as fiercely from the other side. Mr. Parnell stood to his original position. Any regular and compulsory attendance at Westminster, he said, would be highly objectionable to his friends. Further, the right of Irish members to take part in purely English as well as imperial business would be seized upon by English politicians, whenever it should answer their purpose, as a pretext for interfering in Irish affairs. In short, he foresaw, as all did, the difficulties that would inevitably arise from retention. But the tide ran more and more strongly the other way. Scotland grew rather restive at a proposal which, as she apprehended, would make a precedent for herself when her turn for extension of local powers should come, and Scotchmen had no intention of being shut out [pg 325]
Strength And Weakness
from a voice in imperial affairs. In England, the catholics professed alarm at the prospect of losing the only catholic force in the House of Commons. “We cannot spare one of you,” cried Cardinal Manning. Some partisans of imperial federation took it into their heads that the plan for Ireland would be fatal to a plan for the whole empire, though others more rationally conceived that if there was to be a scheme for the empire, schemes for its several parts must come first. Some sages, while pretending infinite friendship to home rule, insisted that the parliament at Westminster should retain a direct and active veto upon legislation at Dublin, and that Irish members should remain as they were in London. That is to say, every precaution should be taken to ensure a stiff fight at Westminster over every Irish measure of any importance that had already been fought on College Green. Speaking generally, the feeling against this provision was due less to the anomaly of taxation without representation, than to fears for the unity of the empire and the supremacy of parliament.
The Purchase bill proved from the first to be an almost intolerable dose. Vivid pictures were drawn of a train of railway trucks two miles long, loaded with millions of bright sovereigns, all travelling from the pocket of the British son of toil to the pocket of the idle Irish landlord. The nationalists from the first urged that the scheme for home rule should not be weighted with a land scheme, though they were willing to accept it so long as it was not used to prejudice the larger demand. On the other side the Irish landlords themselves peremptorily rejected the plan that had been devised for their protection.
The air was thick with suggestions, devices, contrivances, expedients, possible or madly impossible. Proposals or embryonic notions of proposals floated like motes in a sunbeam. Those to whom lobby diplomacy is as the breath of their nostrils, were in their element. So were the worthy persons who are always ready with ingenious schemes for catching a vote or two here, at the cost of twenty votes elsewhere. Intrigue may be too dark a word, but coaxing, bullying, managing, and all the other arts of party emergency, went [pg 326] on at an unprecedented rate. Of these arts, the supervising angels will hardly record that any section had a monopoly. The legerdemain that makes words pass for things, and liquefies things into words, achieved many flashes of success. But they were only momentary, and the solid obstacles remained. The foundations of human character are much the same in all historic ages, and every public crisis brings out the same types.
Much depended on Mr. Bright, the great citizen and noble orator, who had in the last five-and-forty years fought and helped to win more than one battle for wise and just government; whose constancy had confronted storms of public obloquy without yielding an inch of his ground; whose eye for the highest questions of state had proved itself singularly sure; and whose simplicity, love of right, and unsophisticated purity of public and private conduct, commanded the trust and the reverence of nearly all the better part of his countrymen. To Mr. Bright the eyes of many thousands were turned in these weeks of anxiety and doubt. He had in public kept silence, though in private he made little secret of his disapproval of the new policy. Before the bill was produced he had a prolonged conversation (March 20) with Mr. Gladstone at Downing Street. “Long and weighty” are the words in the diary. The minister sketched his general design, Mr. Bright stated his objections much in the form in which, as we shall see, he stated them later. Of the exclusion of the Irish members he approved. The Land bill he thought quite wrong, for why should so enormous an effort be made for one interest only? He expressed his sympathy with Mr. Gladstone in his great difficulties, could not but admire his ardour, and came away with the expectation that the obstacles would be found invincible, and that the minister would retire and leave others to approach the task on other lines. Other important persons, it may be observed, derived at this time a similar impression from Mr. Gladstone's language to them: that he might discern the impossibility of his policy, that he would admit it, and would then hand the responsibility over to Lord Hartington, or whoever else might be willing to face it.
Correspondence With Mr. Bright
On the other hand, Mr. Bright left the minister himself not without hopes that as things went forward he might count on this potent auxiliary. So late as the middle of May, though he could not support, it was not certain that he would actively oppose. The following letter to Mr. Gladstone best describes his attitude at this time:—
Mr. Bright to Mr. Gladstone.
Rochdale, May 13th, 1886.
My Dear Gladstone,—Your note just received has put me in a great difficulty. To-day is the anniversary of the greatest sorrow of my life, and I feel pressed to spend it at home. I sent a message to Mr. Arnold Morley last evening to say that I did not intend to return to town before Monday next—but I shall now arrange to go to-morrow—although I do not see how I can be of service in the great trouble which has arisen.
I feel outside all the contending sections of the liberal party—for I am not in favour of home rule, or the creation of a Dublin parliament—nor can I believe in any scheme of federation as shadowed forth by Mr. Chamberlain.
I do not believe that with regard to the Irish question “the resources of civilisation are exhausted”; and I think the plan of your bill is full of complexity, and gives no hope of successful working in Ireland or of harmony between Westminster and Dublin. I may say that my regard for you and my sympathy with you have made me silent in the discussion on the bills before the House. I cannot consent to a measure which is so offensive to the whole protestant population of Ireland, and to the whole sentiment of the province of Ulster so far as its loyal and protestant people are concerned. I cannot agree to exclude them from the protection of the imperial parliament. I would do much to clear the rebel party from Westminster, and I do not sympathise with those who wish to retain them, but admit there is much force in the arguments on this point which are opposed to my views upon it.
Up to this time I have not been able to bring myself to the point of giving a vote in favour of your bills. I am grieved to have to say this. As to the Land bill, if it comes to a second reading, I fear I must vote against it. It may be that my hostility to the rebel [pg 328] party, looking at their conduct since your government was formed six years ago, disables me from taking an impartial view of this great question. If I could believe them loyal, if they were honourable and truthful men, I could yield them much; but I suspect that your policy of surrender to them will only place more power in their hands, to war with greater effect against the unity of the three kingdoms with no increase of good to the Irish people.
How then can I be of service to you or to the real interests of Ireland if I come up to town? I cannot venture to advise you, so superior to me in party tactics and in experienced statesmanship, and I am not so much in accord with Mr. Chamberlain as to make it likely that I can say anything that will affect his course. One thing I may remark, that it appears to me that measures of the gravity of those now before parliament cannot and ought not to be thrust through the House by force of a small majority. The various reform bills, the Irish church bill, the two great land bills, were passed by very large majorities. In the present case, not only the whole tory party oppose, but a very important section of the liberal party; and although numerous meetings of clubs and associations have passed resolutions of confidence in you, yet generally they have accepted your Irish government bill as a 'basis' only, and have admitted the need of important changes in the bill—changes which in reality would destroy the bill. Under these circumstances it seems to me that more time should be given for the consideration of the Irish question. Parliament is not ready for it, and the intelligence of the country is not ready for it. If it be possible, I should wish that no division should be taken upon the bill. If the second reading should be carried only by a small majority, it would not forward the bill; but it would strengthen the rebel party in their future agitation, and make it more difficult for another session or another parliament to deal with the question with some sense of independence of that party. In any case of a division, it is I suppose certain that a considerable majority of British members will oppose the bill. Thus, whilst it will have the support of the rebel members, it will be opposed by a majority from Great Britain and by a most hostile vote from all that is loyal in Ireland. The result will [pg 329] be, if a majority supports you it will be one composed in effect of the men who for six years past have insulted the Queen, have torn down the national flag, have declared your lord lieutenant guilty of deliberate murder, and have made the imperial parliament an assembly totally unable to manage the legislative business for which it annually assembles at Westminster.
Pray forgive me for writing this long letter. I need not assure you of my sympathy with you, or my sorrow at being unable to support your present policy in the House or the country. The more I consider the question, the more I am forced in a direction contrary to my wishes.
For thirty years I have preached justice to Ireland. I am as much in her favour now as in past times, but I do not think it justice or wisdom for Great Britain to consign her population, including Ulster and all her protestant families, to what there is of justice and wisdom in the Irish party now sitting in the parliament in Westminster.
Still, if you think I can be of service, a note to the Reform Club will, I hope, find me there to-morrow evening.—Ever most sincerely yours, John Bright.
An old parliamentary friend, of great weight and authority, went to Mr. Bright to urge him to support a proposal to read the bill a second time, and then to hang it up for six months. Bright suffered sore travail of spirit. At the end of an hour the peacemaker rose to depart. Bright pressed him to continue the wrestle. After three-quarters of an hour more of it, the same performance took place. It was not until a third hour of discussion that Mr. Bright would let it come to an end, and at the end he was still uncertain. The next day the friend met him, looking worn and gloomy. “You may guess,” Mr. Bright said, “what sort of a night I have had.” He had decided to vote against the second reading. The same person went to Lord Hartington. He took time to deliberate, and then finally said, “No; Mr. Gladstone and I do not mean the same thing.”
II
The centre of interest lay in the course that might be finally taken by those who declared that they accepted the principle of the bill, but demurred upon detail. It was upon the group led from Birmingham that the issue hung. “There are two principles in the bill,” said Mr. Chamberlain at this time, “which I regard as vital. The first is the principle of autonomy, to which I am able to give a hearty assent. The second is involved in the method of giving effect to this autonomy. In the bill the government have proceeded on the lines of separation or of colonial independence, whereas, in my humble judgment, they should have adopted the principle of federation as the only one in accordance with democratic aspirations and experience.”[207] He was even so strong for autonomy, that he was ready to face all the immense difficulties of federation, whether on the Canadian or some other pattern, rather than lose autonomy. Yet he was ready to slay the bill that made autonomy possible. To kill the bill was to kill autonomy. To say that they would go to the country on the plan, and not on the principle, was idle. If the election were to go against the government, that would destroy not only the plan which they disliked, but the principle of which they declared that they warmly approved. The new government that would in that case come into existence, would certainly have nothing to say either to plan or principle.
Two things, said Mr. Chamberlain on the ninth night of the debate, had become clear during the controversy. One was that the British democracy had a passionate devotion to the prime minister. The other was the display of a sentiment out of doors, “the universality and completeness of which, I dare say, has taken many of us by surprise, in favour of some form of home rule to Ireland, which will give to the Irish people some greater control over their own affairs.”[208] It did not need so acute a strategist as Mr. Chamberlain to perceive that the only hope of rallying any [pg 331]
Few Secondary Arguments
considerable portion of the left wing of the party to the dissentient flag, in face of this strong popular sentiment embodied in a supereminent minister, was to avoid as much as possible all irreconcilable language against either the minister or the sentiment, even while taking energetic steps to unhorse the one and to nullify the other.
The prime minister meanwhile fought the battle as a battle for a high public design once begun should be fought. He took few secondary arguments, but laboured only to hold up to men's imagination, and to burn into their understanding, the lines of central policy, the shame and dishonour from which it would relieve us, the new life with which it would inspire Ireland, the ease that it would bring to parliament in England. His tenacity, his force and resource, were inexhaustible. He was harassed on every side. The Irish leader pressed him hard upon finance. Old adherents urged concession about exclusion. The radicals disliked the two orders. Minor points for consideration in committee rained in upon him, as being good reasons for altering the bill before it came in sight of committee. Not a single constructive proposal made any way in the course of the debate. All was critical and negative. Mr. Gladstone's grasp was unshaken, and though he saw remote bearings and interdependent consequences where others supposed all to be plain sailing, yet if the principle were only saved he professed infinite pliancy. He protested that there ought to be no stereotyping of our minds against modifications, and that the widest possible variety of modes of action should be kept open; and he “hammered hard at his head,” as he put it, to see what could be worked out in the way of admitting Irish members without danger, and without intolerable inconvenience. If anybody considered, he continued to repeat in endless forms, that there was another set of provisions by which better and fuller effect could be given to the principle of the bill, they were free to displace all the particulars that hindered this better and fuller effect being given to the principle.[209]
III
At the beginning of May the unionist computation was that 119 on the ministerial side of the House had, with or without qualification, promised to vote against the second reading. Of these, 70 had publicly committed themselves, and 23 more were supposed to be absolutely certain. If the whole House voted, this estimate of 93 would give a majority of 17 against the bill.[210] The leader of the radical wing, however, reckoned that 55 out of the 119 would vote with him for the second reading, if he pronounced the ministerial amendments of the bill satisfactory. The amendments demanded were the retention of the Irish members, a definite declaration of the supremacy of the imperial parliament, a separate assembly for Ulster, and the abolition of the restrictive devices for the representation of minorities. Less than all this might have been taken in committee, provided that the government would expressly say before the second reading, that they would retain the Irish representation on its existing footing. The repeated offer by ministers to regard this as an open question was derided, because it was contended that if the bill were once safe through its second reading, Mr. Bright and the whigs would probably vote with ministers against Irish inclusion.
Even if this ultimatum had been accepted, there would still have remained the difficulty of the Land bill, of which Mr. Chamberlain had announced that he would move the rejection. In the face of ever-growing embarrassments and importunities, recourse was had to the usual device of a meeting of the party at the foreign office (May 27). The circular calling the meeting was addressed to those liberals who, while retaining full freedom on all particulars in the bill, were “in favour of the establishment of a legislative body in Dublin for the management of affairs specifically and exclusively Irish.” This was henceforth to be the test of party membership. A man who was for an Irish legislative body was expected to come to the party meeting, and a man who was against it was expected to stay [pg 333]
Party Meeting
away. Many thought this discrimination a mistake. Some two hundred and twenty members attended. The pith of the prime minister's speech, which lasted for an hour, came to this: that the government would not consent to emasculate the principle of the bill, or turn it into a mockery, a delusion, and a snare; that members who did not wholly agree with the bill, might still in accordance with the strict spirit of parliamentary rules vote for the second reading with a view to its amendment in committee; that such a vote would not involve support of the Land bill; that he was ready to consider any plan for the retention of the Irish members, provided that it did not interfere with the liberty of the Irish legislative body, and would not introduce confusion into the imperial parliament. Finally, as to procedure—and here his anxious audience fell almost breathless—they could either after a second reading hang up the bill, and defer committee until the autumn; or they could wind up the session, prorogue, and introduce the bill afresh with the proper amendments in October. The cabinet, he told them, inclined to the later course.
Before the meeting Mr. Parnell had done his best to impress upon ministers the mischievous effect that would be produced on Irish members and in Ireland, by any promise to withdraw the bill after the second reading. On the previous evening, I received from him a letter of unusual length. “You of course,” he said, “are the best judges of what the result may be in England, but if it be permitted me to express an opinion, I should say that withdrawal could scarcely fail to give great encouragement to those whom it cannot conciliate, to depress and discourage those who are now the strongest fighters for the measure, to produce doubt and wonder in the country and to cool enthusiasm; and finally, when the same bill is again produced in the autumn, to disappoint and cause reaction among those who may have been temporarily disarmed by withdrawal, and to make them at once more hostile and less easy to appease.” This letter I carried to Mr. Gladstone the next morning, and read aloud to him a few minutes before he was to cross over to the foreign office. For a single instant—the only occasion [pg 334] that I can recall during all these severe weeks—his patience broke. The recovery was as rapid as the flash, for he knew the duty of the lieutenant of the watch to report the signs of rock or shoal. He was quite as conscious of all that was urged in Mr. Parnell's letter as was its writer, but perception of risks on one side did not overcome risks on the other. The same evening they met for a second time:—
May 27.—... Mr. Gladstone and Parnell had a conversation in my room. Parnell courteous enough, but depressed and gloomy. Mr. Gladstone worn and fagged.... When he was gone, Parnell repeated moodily that he might not be able to vote for the second reading, if it were understood that after the second reading the bill was to be withdrawn. “Very well,” said I, “that will of course destroy the government and the policy; but be that as it may, the cabinet, I am positive, won't change their line.”
The proceedings at the foreign office brought to the supporters of government a lively sense of relief. In the course of the evening a score of the waverers were found to have been satisfied, and were struck off the dissentient lists. But the relief did not last for many hours. The opposition instantly challenged ministers (May 28) to say plainly which of the two courses they intended to adopt. Though short, this was the most vivacious debate of all. Was the bill to be withdrawn, or was it to be postponed? If it was to be withdrawn, then, argued the tory leader (Sir M.H. Beach) in angry tones, the vote on the second reading would be a farce. If it was to be postponed, what was that but to paralyse the forces of law and order in Ireland in the meantime? Such things were trifling with parliament, trifling with a vital constitutional question, and trifling with the social order which the government professed to be so anxious to restore. A bill read a second time on such terms as these would be neither more nor less than a Continuance-in-Office bill.
This biting sally raised the temper of the House on both sides, and Mr. Gladstone met it with that dignity which did not often fail to quell even the harshest of his adversaries. “You pronounce that obviously the motive of the government [pg 335] is to ensure their own continuance in office. They prefer that to all the considerations connected with the great issue before them, and their minds in fact are of such a mean and degraded order, that they can only be acted upon, not by motives of honour and duty, but simply by those of selfishness and personal interest. Sir, I do not condescend to discuss that imputation. The dart aimed at our shield, being such a dart as that, is telum imbelle sine ictu.”[211]
The speaker then got on to the more hazardous part of the ground. He proceeded to criticise the observation of the leader of the opposition that ministers had undertaken to remodel the bill. “That happy word,” he said, “as applied to the structure of the bill, is a pure invention.” Lord Randolph interjected that the word used was not “remodelled,” but “reconstructed.” “Does the noble lord dare to say,” asked the minister, “that it was used in respect of the bill?” “Yes,” said the noble lord. “Never, never,” cried the minister, with a vehemence that shook the hearts of doubting followers; “it was used with respect to one particular clause, and one particular point of the bill, namely so much of it as touches the future relation of the representatives of Ireland to the imperial parliament.” Before the exciting episode was over, it was stated definitely that if the bill were read a second time, ministers would advise a prorogation and re-introduce the bill with amendments. The effect of this couple of hours was to convince the House that the government had made up their minds that it was easier and safer to go to the country with the plan as it stood, than to agree to changes that would entangle them in new embarrassments, and discredit their confidence in their own handiwork. Ingenious negotiators perceived that their toil had been fruitless. Every man now knew the precise situation that he had to face, in respect alike of the Irish bill and liberal unity.
On the day following this decisive scene (May 29), under the direction of the radical leader an invitation to a conference was issued to those members “who being in favour [pg 336] of some sort of autonomy for Ireland, disapproved of the government bills in their present shape.” The form of the invitation is remarkable in view of its ultimate effect on Irish autonomy. The meeting was held on May 31, in the same committee room upstairs that four years later became associated with the most cruel of all phases of the Irish controversy. Mr. Chamberlain presided, and some fifty-five gentlemen attended. Not all of them had hitherto been understood to be in favour either of some sort, or of any sort, of autonomy for Ireland. The question was whether they should content themselves with abstention from the division, or should go into the lobby against the government. If they abstained, the bill would pass, and an extension of the party schism would be averted. The point was carried, as all great parliamentary issues are, by considerations apart from the nice and exact balance of argument on the merits. In anxious and distracting moments like this, when so many arguments tell in one way and so many tell in another, a casting vote often belongs to the moral weight of some particular person. The chairman opened in a neutral sense. It seems to have been mainly the moral weight of Mr. Bright that sent down the scale. He was not present, but he sent a letter. He hoped that every man would use his own mind, but for his part he must vote against the bill. This letter was afterwards described as the death-warrant of the bill and of the administration. The course of the men who had been summoned because they were favourable to some sort of home rule was decided by the illustrious statesman who opposed every sort of home rule. Their boat was driven straight upon the rocks of coercion by the influence of the great orator who had never in all his career been more eloquent than when he was denouncing the mischief and futility of Irish coercion, and protesting that force is no remedy.
One of the best speakers in the House, though not at that time in the cabinet, was making an admirably warm and convinced defence alike of the policy and the bill while these proceedings were going on. But Mr. Fowler was listened to by men of pre-occupied minds. All knew what [pg 337]
Death-Warrant Of The Bill
momentous business was on foot in another part of the parliamentary precincts. Many in the ranks were confident that abstention would carry the day. Others knew that the meeting had been summoned for no such purpose, and they made sure that the conveners would have their way. The quiet inside the House was intense and unnatural. As at last the news of the determination upstairs to vote against the bill ran along the benches before the speaker sat down, men knew that the ministerial day was lost. It was estimated by the heads of the “Chamberlain group” that if they abstained, the bill would pass by a majority of five. Such a bill carried by such a majority could of course not have proceeded much further. The principle of autonomy would have been saved, and time would have been secured for deliberation upon a new plan. More than once Mr. Gladstone observed that no decision taken from the beginning of the crisis to the end was either more incomprehensible or more disastrous.
IV
The division was taken a little after one o'clock on the morning of the 8th of June. The Irish leader made one of the most masterly speeches that ever fell from him. Whether agreeing with or differing from the policy, every unprejudiced listener felt that this was not the mere dialectic of a party debater, dealing smartly with abstract or verbal or artificial arguments, but the utterance of a statesman with his eye firmly fixed upon the actual circumstances of the nation for whose government this bill would make him responsible. As he dealt with Ulster, with finance, with the supremacy of parliament, with the loyal minority, with the settlement of education in an Irish legislature,—soberly, steadily, deliberately, with that full, familiar, deep insight into the facts of a country, which is only possible to a man who belongs to it and has passed his life in it, the effect of Mr. Parnell's speech was to make even able disputants on either side look little better than amateurs.
The debate was wound up for the regular opposition by Sir Michael Hicks Beach, who was justly regarded throughout [pg 338] the session as having led his party with remarkable skill and judgment. Like the Irish leader, he seemed to be inspired by the occasion to a performance beyond his usual range, and he delivered the final charge with strong effect. The bill, he said, was the concoction of the prime minister and the Irish secretary, and the cabinet had no voice in the matter. The government had delayed the progress of the bill for a whole long and weary month, in order to give party wirepullers plenty of time in which to frighten waverers. To treat a vote on the second reading as a mere vote on a principle, without reference to the possibility of applying it, was a mischievous farce. Could anybody dream that if he supported the second reading now, he would not compromise his action in the autumn and would not be appealed to as having made a virtual promise to Ireland, of which it would be impossible to disappoint her? As for the bill itself, whatever lawyers might say of the theoretic maintenance of supremacy, in practice it would have gone. All this side of the case was put by the speaker with the straight and vigorous thrust that always works with strong effect in this great arena of contest.
Then came the unflagging veteran with the last of his five speeches. He was almost as white as the flower in his coat, but the splendid compass, the flexibility, the moving charm and power of his voice, were never more wonderful. The construction of the speech was a masterpiece, the temper of it unbroken, its freedom from taunt and bitterness and small personality incomparable. Even if Mr. Gladstone had been in the prime of his days, instead of a man of seventy-six years all struck; even if he had been at his ease for the last four months, instead of labouring with indomitable toil at the two bills, bearing all the multifarious burdens of the head of a government, and all the weight of the business of the leader of the House, undergoing all the hourly strain and contention of a political situation of unprecedented difficulty,—much of the contention being of that peculiarly trying and painful sort which means the parting of colleagues and friends,—his closing speech would still have been a surprising effort of free, argumentative, and fervid appeal. With the fervid [pg 339]
End Of The Debate
appeal was mingled more than one piece of piquant mockery. Mr. Chamberlain had said that a dissolution had no terrors for him. “I do not wonder at it. I do not see how a dissolution can have any terrors for him. He has trimmed his vessel, and he has touched his rudder in such a masterly way, that in whichever direction the winds of heaven may blow they must fill his sails. Supposing that at an election public opinion should be very strong in favour of the bill, my right hon. friend would then be perfectly prepared to meet that public opinion, and tell it, ‘I declared strongly that I adopted the principle of the bill.’ On the other hand, if public opinion were very adverse to the bill, he again is in complete armour, because he says, ‘Yes, I voted against the bill.’ Supposing, again, public opinion is in favour of a very large plan for Ireland, my right hon. friend is perfectly provided for that case also. The government plan was not large enough for him, and he proposed in his speech on the introduction of the bill that we should have a measure on the basis of federation, which goes beyond this bill. Lastly—and now I have very nearly boxed the compass—supposing that public opinion should take quite a different turn, and instead of wanting very large measures for Ireland, should demand very small measures for Ireland, still the resources of my right hon. friend are not exhausted, because he is then able to point out that the last of his plans was for four provincial circuits controlled from London.” All these alternatives and provisions were visibly “creations of the vivid imagination, born of the hour and perishing with the hour, totally unavailable for the solution of a great and difficult problem.”
Now, said the orator, was one of the golden moments of our history, one of those opportunities which may come and may go, but which rarely return, or if they return, return at long intervals, and under circumstances which no man can forecast. There was such a golden moment in 1795, on the mission of Lord Fitzwilliam. At that moment the parliament of Grattan was on the point of solving the Irish problem. The cup was at Ireland's lips, and she was ready to drink it, when the hand of England rudely and ruthlessly [pg 340] dashed it to the ground in obedience to the wild and dangerous intimations of an Irish faction. There had been no great day of hope for Ireland since, no day when you might completely and definitely hope to end the controversy till now—more than ninety years. The long periodic time had at last run out, and the star had again mounted into the heavens.
This strain of living passion was sustained with all its fire and speed to the very close. “Ireland stands at your bar expectant, hopeful, almost suppliant. Her words are the words of truth and soberness. She asks a blessed oblivion of the past, and in that oblivion our interest is deeper even than hers. You have been asked to-night to abide by the traditions of which we are the heirs. What traditions? By the Irish traditions? Go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find if you can a single voice, a single book, in which the conduct of England towards Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter condemnation. Are these the traditions by which we are exhorted to stand? No, they are a sad exception to the glory of our country. They are a broad and black blot upon the pages of its history, and what we want to do is to stand by the traditions of which we are the heirs in all matters except our relations with Ireland, and to make our relation with Ireland to conform to the other traditions of our country. So we treat our traditions, so we hail the demand of Ireland for what I call a blessed oblivion of the past. She asks also a boon for the future; and that boon for the future, unless we are much mistaken, will be a boon to us in respect of honour, no less than a boon to her in respect of happiness, prosperity and peace. Such, sir, is her prayer. Think, I beseech you; think well, think wisely, think, not for the moment, but for the years that are to come, before you reject this bill.”
The question was put, the sand glass was turned upon the table, the division bells were set ringing. Even at this moment, the ministerial whips believed that some were still wavering. A reference made by Mr. Parnell to harmonious communications in the previous summer with a tory minister, [pg 341]
Dissolution Of Parliament
inclined them to vote for the bill. On the other hand, the prospect of going to an election without a tory opponent was no weak temptation to a weak man. A common impression was that the bill would be beaten by ten or fifteen. Others were sure that it would be twice as much as either figure. Some on the treasury bench, perhaps including the prime minister himself, hoped against hope that the hostile majority might not be more than five or six. It proved to be thirty. The numbers were 343 against 313. Ninety-three liberals voted against the bill. These with the two tellers were between one-third and one-fourth of the full liberal strength from Great Britain. So ended the first engagement in this long campaign. As I passed into his room at the House with Mr. Gladstone that night, he seemed for the first time to bend under the crushing weight of the burden that he had taken up.
V
When ministers went into the cabinet on the following day, three of them inclined pretty strongly towards resignation as a better course than dissolution; mainly on the ground that the incoming government would then have to go to the country with a policy of their own. Mr. Gladstone, however, entirely composed though pallid, at once opened the case with a list of twelve reasons for recommending dissolution, and the reasons were so cogent that his opening of the case was also its closing. They were entirely characteristic, for they began with precedent and the key was courage. He knew of no instance where a ministry defeated under circumstances like ours, upon a great policy or on a vote of confidence, failed to appeal to the country. Then with a view to the enthusiasm of our friends in this country, as well as to feeling in Ireland, it was essential that we should not let the flag go down. We had been constantly challenged to a dissolution, and not to take the challenge up would be a proof of mistrust, weakness, and a faint heart. “My conclusion is,” he said, “a dissolution is formidable, but resignation would mean for the present juncture abandonment of the cause.” His conclusion was accepted without [pg 342] comment. The experts outside the cabinet were convinced that a bold front was the best way of securing the full fighting power of the party. The white feather on such an issue, and with so many minds wavering, would be a sure provocative of defeat.
Mr. Gladstone enumerated to the Queen what he took to be the new elements in the case. There were on the side of the government, 1. The transfer of the Irish vote from, the tories, 2. The popular enthusiasm in the liberal masses which he had never seen equalled. But what was the electoral value of enthusiasm against (a) anti-Irish prejudices, (b) the power of rank, station, and wealth, (c) the kind of influence exercised by the established clergy, 'perversely applied as of course Mr. Gladstone thinks in politics, but resting upon a very solid basis as founded on the generally excellent and devoted work which they do in their parishes'? This remained to be proved. On the other side there was the whig defection, with the strange and unnatural addition from Birmingham. “Mr. Gladstone himself has no skill in these matters, and dare not lay an opinion before your Majesty on the probable general result.” He thought there was little chance, if any, of a tory majority in the new parliament. Opinion taken as a whole seemed to point to a majority not very large, whichever way it may be.
No election was ever fought more keenly, and never did so many powerful men fling themselves with livelier activity into a great struggle. The heaviest and most telling attack came from Mr. Bright, who had up to now in public been studiously silent. Every word, as they said of Daniel Webster, seemed to weigh a pound. His arguments were mainly those of his letter already given, but they were delivered with a gravity and force that told powerfully upon the large phalanx of doubters all over the kingdom. On the other side, Mr. Gladstone's plume waved in every part of the field. He unhorsed an opponent as he flew past on the road; his voice rang with calls as thrilling as were ever heard in England; he appealed to the individual, to his personal responsibility, to the best elements in him, to the sense of justice, to the powers of hope and of sympathy; he [pg 343]
At Edinburgh
displayed to the full that rare combination of qualities that had always enabled him to view affairs in all their range, at the same time from the high commanding eminence and on the near and sober level.
He left London on June 17 on his way to Edinburgh, and found “wonderful demonstrations all along the road; many little speeches; could not be helped.” “The feeling here,” he wrote from Edinburgh (June 21), “is truly wonderful, especially when, the detestable state of the press is considered.” Even Mr. Goschen, whom he described as “supplying in the main, soul, brains, and movement to the dissentient body,” was handsomely beaten in one of the Edinburgh divisions, so fatal was the proximity of Achilles. “June 22. Off to Glasgow, 12-¾. Meeting at 3. Spoke an hour and twenty minutes. Off at 5.50. Reached Hawarden at 12.30 or 40. Some speeches by the way; others I declined. The whole a scene of triumph. God help us, His poor creatures.” At Hawarden, he found chaos in his room, and he set to work upon it, but he did not linger. On June 25, “off to Manchester; great meeting in the Free Trade Hall. Strain excessive. Five miles through the streets to Mr. Agnew's; a wonderful spectacle half the way.” From Manchester he wrote, “I have found the display of enthusiasm far beyond all former measure,” and the torrid heat of the meeting almost broke him down, but friends around him heard him murmur, “I must do it,” and bracing himself with tremendous effort he went on. Two days later (June 28) he wound up the campaign in a speech at Liverpool, which even old and practised political hands who were there, found the most magnificent of them all. Staying at Courthey, the residence of his nephews, in the morning he enters, “Worked up the Irish question once more for my last function. Seven or eight hours of processional uproar, and a speech of an hour and forty minutes to five or six thousand people in Hengler's Circus. Few buildings give so noble a presentation of an audience. Once more my voice held out in a marvellous manner. I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit, but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me.”
He had no sooner returned to Hawarden, than he wrote to [pg 344] tell Mrs. Gladstone (July 2) of a stroke which was thought to have a curiously dæmonic air about it:—
The Leith business will show you I have not been inactive here.—former M.P. attended my meeting in the Music Hall, and was greeted by me accordingly (he had voted against us after wobbling about much). Hearing by late post yesterday that waiting to the last he had then declared against us, I telegraphed down to Edinburgh in much indignation, that they might if they liked put me up against him, and I would go down again and speak if they wished it. They seem to have acted with admirable pluck and promptitude. Soon after mid-day to-day I received telegrams to say I am elected for Midlothian,[212] and also for Leith,—having retired rather than wait to be beaten. I told them instantly to publish this, as it may do good.
The Queen, who had never relished these oratorical crusades whether he was in opposition or in office, did not approve of the first minister of the crown addressing meetings outside of his own constituency. In reply to a gracious and frank letter from Balmoral, Mr. Gladstone wrote:—
He must state frankly what it is that has induced him thus to yield [to importunity for speeches]. It is that since the death of Lord Beaconsfield, in fact since 1880, the leaders of the opposition, Lord Salisbury and Lord Iddesleigh (he has not observed the same practice in the case of Sir M. H. Beach) have established a rule of what may be called popular agitation, by addressing public meetings from time to time at places with which they were not connected. This method was peculiarly marked in the case of Lord Salisbury as a peer, and this change on the part of the leaders of opposition has induced Mr. Gladstone to deviate on this critical occasion from the rule which he had (he believes) generally or uniformly observed in former years. He is, as he has previously apprised your Majesty, aware of the immense responsibility he has assumed, and of the severity of just condemnation which will be pronounced upon him, if he should eventually prove to have been wrong. But your Majesty will be [pg 345] the first to perceive that, even if it had been possible for him to decline this great contest, it was not possible for him having entered upon it, to conduct it in a half-hearted manner, or to omit the use of any means requisite in order to place (what he thinks) the true issue before the country.
Nature, however, served the royal purpose. Before his speech at Liverpool, he was pressed to speak in the metropolis:—
As to my going to London,—he wrote in reply,—I have twice had my chest rather seriously strained, and I have at this moment a sense of internal fatigue within it which is quite new to me, from the effects of a bad arrangement in the hall at Manchester. Should anything like it be repeated at Liverpool to-morrow I shall not be fit physically to speak for a week, if then. Mentally I have never undergone such an uninterrupted strain as since January 30 of this year. The forming and reforming of the government, the work of framing the bills, and studying the subject (which none of the opponents would do), have left me almost stunned, and I have the autumn in prospect with, perhaps, most of the work to do over again if we succeed.
But this was not to be. The incomparable effort was in vain. The sons of Zeruiah were too hard for him, and England was unconvinced.
The final result was that the ministerialists or liberals of the main body were reduced from 235 to 196, the tories rose from 251 to 316, the dissentient liberals fell to 74, and Mr. Parnell remained at his former strength. In other words, the opponents of the Irish policy of the government were 390, as against 280 in its favour; or a unionist majority of 110. Once more no single party possessed an independent or absolute majority. An important member of the tory party said to a liberal of his acquaintance (July 7), that he was almost sorry the tories had not played the bold game and fought independently of the dissentient liberals. “But then,” he added, “we could not have beaten you on the bill, without the compact to spare unionist seats.”
England had returned opponents of the liberal policy in [pg 346] the proportion of two and a half to one against its friends; but Scotland approved in the proportion of three to two, Wales approved by five to one, and Ireland by four and a half to one. Another fact with a warning in it was that, taking the total poll for Great Britain, the liberals had 1,344,000, the seceders 397,000, and the tories 1,041,000. Therefore in contested constituencies the liberals of the main body were only 76,000 behind the forces of tories and seceders combined. Considering the magnitude and the surprise of the issue laid before the electors, and in view of the confident prophecies of even some peculiar friends of the policy, that both policy and its authors would be swept out of existence by a universal explosion of national anger and disgust, there was certainly no final and irrevocable verdict in a hostile British majority of no more than four per cent, of the votes polled. Apart from electoral figures, coercion loomed large and near at hand, and coercion tried under the new political circumstances that would for the first time attend it, might well be trusted to do much more than wipe out the margin at the polls. “There is nothing in the recent defeat,” said Mr. Gladstone, “to abate the hopes or to modify the anticipations of those who desire to meet the wants and wishes of Ireland.”
VI
The question now before Mr. Gladstone was whether to meet the new parliament or at once to resign. For a short time he wavered, along with an important colleague, and then he and all the rest came round to resignation. The considerations that guided him were these. It is best for Ireland that the party strongest in the new parliament should be at once confronted with its responsibilities. Again, we were bound to consider what would most tend to reunite the liberal party, and it was in opposition that the chances of such reunion would be likely to stand highest, especially in view of coercion which many of the dissidents had refused to contemplate. If he could remodel the bill or frame a new one, that might be a possible ground for endeavouring to make up a majority, but he could not see his way to any [pg 347]
Cabinet Resign
such process, though he was ready for certain amendments. Finally, if we remained, an amendment would be moved definitely committing the new House against home rule.
The conclusion was for immediate resignation, and his colleagues were unanimous in assent. The Irish view was different and impossible. Returning from a visit to Ireland I wrote to Mr. Gladstone (July 19):—
You may perhaps care to see what —— [not a secular politician] thinks, so I enclose you a conversation between him and ——. He does not show much strength of political judgment, and one can understand why Parnell never takes him into counsel. Parnell, of course, is anxious for us to hold on to the last moment. Our fall will force him without delay to take up a new and difficult line. But his letters to me, especially the last, show a desperate willingness to blink the new parliamentary situation.
Mr. Parnell, in fact, pressed with some importunity that we should meet the new parliament, on the strange view that the result of the election was favourable on general questions, and indecisive only on Irish policy. We were to obtain the balance of supply in an autumn sitting, in January to attack registration reform, and then to dissolve upon that, without making any Irish proposition whatever. This curious suggestion left altogether out of sight the certainty that an amendment referring to Ireland would be at once moved on the Address, such as must beyond all doubt command the whole of the tories and a large part, if not all, of the liberal dissentients. Only one course was possible for the defeated ministers, and they resigned.
On July 30, Mr. Gladstone had his final audience of the Queen, of which he wrote the memorandum following:—
Conversation with the Queen, August 2, 1886.
The conversation at my closing audience on Friday was a singular one, when regarded as the probable last word with the sovereign after fifty-five years of political life, and a good quarter of a century's service rendered to her in office.
The Queen was in good spirits; her manners altogether pleasant. She made me sit at once. Asked after my wife as we [pg 348] began, and sent a kind message to her as we ended. About me personally, I think, her single remark was that I should require some rest. I remember that on a closing audience in 1874 she said she felt sure I might be reckoned upon to support the throne. She did not say anything of the sort to-day. Her mind and opinions have since that day been seriously warped, and I respect her for the scrupulous avoidance of anything which could have seemed to indicate a desire on her part to claim anything in common with me.
Only at three points did the conversation touch upon anything even faintly related to public affairs.... The second point was the conclusion of some arrangement for appanages or incomes on behalf of the third generation of the royal house. I agreed that there ought at a suitable time to be a committee on this subject, as had been settled some time back, she observing that the recent circumstances had made the time unsuitable. I did not offer any suggestion as to the grounds of the affair, but said it seemed to me possible to try some plan under which intended marriages should be communicated without forcing a reply from the Houses. Also I agreed that the amounts were not excessive. I did not pretend to have a solution ready: but said it would, of course, be the duty of the government to submit a plan to the committee. The third matter was trivial: a question or two from her on the dates and proceedings connected with the meeting. The rest of the conversation, not a very long one, was filled up with nothings. It is rather melancholy. But on neither side, given the conditions, could it well be helped.
On the following day she wrote a letter, making it evident that, so far as Ireland was concerned, she could not trust herself to say what she wanted to say....
Among the hundreds of letters that reached him every week was one from an evangelical lady of known piety, enclosing him a form of prayer that had been issued against home rule. His acknowledgment (July 27) shows none of the impatience of the baffled statesman:—
I thank you much for your note; and though I greatly deplored the issue, and the ideas of the prayer in question, yet, from the moment when I heard it was your composition, I knew [pg 349] perfectly well that it was written in entire good faith, and had no relation to political controversy in the ordinary sense. I cannot but think that, in bringing the subject of Irish intolerance before the Almighty Father, we ought to have some regard to the fact that down to the present day, as between the two religions, the offence has been in the proportion of perhaps a hundred to one on the protestant side, and the suffering by it on the Roman side. At the present hour, I am pained to express my belief that there is far more of intolerance in action from so-called protestants against Roman catholics, than from Roman catholics against protestants. It is a great satisfaction to agree with you, as I feel confident that I must do, in the conviction that of prayers we cannot possibly have too much in this great matter, and for my own part I heartily desire that, unless the policy I am proposing be for the honour of God and the good of His creatures, it may be trampled under foot and broken into dust. Of your most charitable thoughts and feelings towards me I am deeply sensible, and I remain with hearty regard.
As he wrote at this time to R. H. Hutton (July 2), one of the choice spirits of our age, “Rely upon it, I can never quarrel with you or with Bright. What vexes me is when differences disclose baseness, which sometimes happens.”