III. DUNDEE ELECTION
The last letter of the series had hardly appeared in the 'Pall Mall Gazette,' when Fitzjames received an application to stand for Liverpool in the Liberal interest. He would be elected without expense to himself. He thought, as he observes, that he should find parliamentary life 'a nuisance'; but a seat in the House might of course further both his professional prospects and his schemes of codification. He consulted Coleridge, who informed him that, if Government remained in office, a codification Commission would be appointed. Coleridge was also of opinion that, in that event, Fitzjames's claims to a seat on the Commission would be irresistible. As, however, it was intended that the Commissioners should be selected from men outside Parliament and independent of political parties, Fitzjames would be disqualified by an election for Liverpool. Upon this he at once declined to stand. A place in a codification Commission would, he said, 'suit him better than anything else in the world.' Coleridge incidentally made the remark, which seems to be pretty obvious, that the authorship of the letters upon 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' would be a rather awkward burthen for a Liberal candidate to carry.
For some time Fitzjames might hope, though he hoped with trembling, that something would come of his various codifying projects. It was reported that Mr. Bruce (Lord Aberdare) would introduce the Homicide Bill during Russell Gurney's absence. Coleridge was able after many delays to introduce the Evidence Bill. But it was crowded out of sight by more exciting measures, and it was only upon its final withdrawal on the last day of the session (August 5, 1873) that he could say a few words about it.[165] The Bill was apparently ordered to be printed, but never became public. It went to the parliamentary limbo with many of its brethren.
In the session of 1873 the Government was beginning to totter. The ministerial crisis of March, upon the defeat of the Irish University Bill, was followed by Mr. Gladstone's resignation. He returned to office, but had to attend to questions very different from codification. 'My castle of cards has all come down with a run,' writes Fitzjames (March 14, 1873); 'Gladstone is out of office; Coleridge is going out; my Evidence Act and all my other schemes have blown up—and here am I, a briefless, or nearly briefless, barrister, beginning the world all over again.... I have some reason to think that, if Gladstone had stayed in, I should, in a few weeks, have been Solicitor-General, and on my way to all sorts of honour and glory.' However, he comforts himself with various proverbs. His favourite saying on these occasions, which were only too common, was 'Patience, and shuffle the cards.' The Gladstone Ministry, however, was patched up, and things looked better presently. 'I am,' he says in May, 'in the queerest nondescript position—something between Solicitor-General and Mr. Briefless—with occasional spurts of business' which look promising, but in frequency resemble angelic visits. On June 27 he announces, however, that a whole heap of briefs 'has come in, and, to crown all, a solemn letter came yesterday from the Lord Chancellor, offering to appoint me to act as circuit judge in the place of Lush, who stays in town to try that lump of iniquity, the Claimant.' He was, accordingly, soon at the Winchester Assizes, making a serious experiment in the art of judging, and finding the position thoroughly congenial. He is delighted with everything, including Chief Baron Kelly, a 'very pleasant, chatty old fellow,' who had been called to the bar fifty years before, and was still bright and efficient. Fitzjames's duties exactly suit him. They require close attention, without excessive labour. He could judge for nine hours a day all the year round without fatigue. He gets up at 5.30, and so secures two or three hours, 'reading his books with a quiet mind.' Then there is the pleasure of choosing the right side, instead of having to take a side chosen by others; while 'the constant little effort to keep counsel in order, and to keep them also in good humour, and to see that all things go straight and well, is to me perfectly exquisite.' His practice in journalism has enabled him to take notes of the evidence rapidly, without delaying the witnesses; and he is conscious of doing the thing well and giving satisfaction. The leader of the circuit pays him 'a most earnest compliment,' declaring that the 'whole bar are unanimous in thinking the work done as well as possible. This,' he says, 'made me very happy, for I know, from knowing the men and the bar, it is just the case in which one cannot suspect flattery. If there are independent critics in this world, it is British barristers.' Briefly, it is a delicious 'Pisgah sight of Palestine.' If, in Indian phrase, he could only become 'pucka' instead of 'kucha'—a permanent instead of temporary judge—he would prefer it to anything in the world. He feels less anxious, and declares that he has 'not written a single article this week'; though he manages when work is slack, to find time for a little writing, such as the chapter in Hunter's 'Life of Lord Mayo.'
The assizes were being held at Salisbury soon afterwards, when Fitzjames was summoned to London by a telegram from Coleridge. Coleridge had to tell him that if he could stand for Dundee, where a vacancy had just occurred, he would probably be elected; and that, if elected, he would probably, though no pledge could be given, be made Solicitor-General. Lord Romilly had retired from the Mastership of the Rolls in March. The appointment of his successor was delayed until the Judicature Act, then before Parliament, was finally settled. As, however, Coleridge himself or the Solicitor-General, Sir G. Jessel, would probably take the place, there would be a vacancy in the law offices. Fitzjames hesitated; but, after consulting Lord Selborne, and hearing Coleridge's private opinion that he would be appointed Solicitor-General even if he failed to win the seat, he felt that it would be 'faint-hearted' to refuse. He was to sit as judge, however, at Dorchester, and thought that it would be improper to abandon this duty. The consequent delay, as it turned out, had serious effects. From Dorchester he hurried off to Dundee.
He writes from Dundee on Sunday, July 27, 1873, giving an account of his proceedings. He had been up till 5 a.m. on the morning of the previous Tuesday, and rose again at eight. He did not get to bed till 3 a.m. on Wednesday. He was up at six, went to Dorchester, and attended a 'big dinner,' without feeling sleepy. On Thursday he tried prisoners for four hours; then went to London, and 'rushed hither and thither' from 10 p.m. till 2 a.m. on Friday. He was up again at six, left by the 7.15 train, reached Dundee at 10.30, and was worried by deputations till past twelve. Part of the Liberal party had accepted another candidate, and met him with a polite request that he would at once return to the place whence he came. He preferred to take a night's rest and postpone the question. On Saturday he again 'rushed hither and thither' all day; spoke to 2,000 people for nearly two hours, was 'heckled' for another hour in stifling heat, and had not 'the slightest sensation of fatigue,' except a trifling headache for less than an hour. He was 'surprised at his own strength,' feeling the work less than he had felt the corresponding work at Harwich in 1865.
The struggle lasted till August 5, the day of polling. Fitzjames had to go through the usual experience of a candidate for a large constituency: speaking often six times a day in the open air; addressing crowded meetings at night; becoming involved in a variety of disputes, more or less heated and personal in their nature; and seeing from the inside the true nature of the process by which we manufacture legislators. It was the second election in Dundee affected by Disraeli's extension of the suffrage, and, I believe, the first election in the country which took place under the provisions of the Ballot Act. The work was hard and exciting, especially for a novice who had still to learn the art of speaking to large public meetings; but it was such work as many eager politicians would have enjoyed without reserve. To Fitzjames it was a practical lesson in politics, to which he submitted with a kind of rueful resignation, and from which he emerged with intensified dislike of the whole system concerned.
Dundee was a safe Liberal seat; the working classes under the new system had an overwhelming majority; and no Tory candidate had ventured to offer himself.[166] Fitzjames was virtually the Government candidate. One of his opponents, Mr. Yeaman, had been provost of Dundee, but his fame does not appear to have spread beyond his native town. While Fitzjames was lingering at Dorchester another candidate had come forward, Mr. Edward Jenkins, known as the author of 'Ginx's Baby.' This very clever little book, which had appeared a couple of years previously, had struck the fancy of the public, and run through a great number of editions. It reflected precisely the school of opinion which Fitzjames most cordially despised. The morality was that of Dickens's 'Christmas Carol,' and the political aim that of sentimental socialism. Thus, though all three candidates promised to support Mr. Gladstone's Government, one of Fitzjames's rivals represented the stolid middle-class prejudices, and a second the unctuous philanthropic enthusiasm, which he had denounced with his whole force in 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' No combination could have been contrived which would have set before him more clearly the characteristics of the party of which he still considered himself to be a member.
From the beginning he felt himself to be, in some respects, in a false position. 'My dislike of the business,' he says at starting, 'is not the least due to weakness or over-delicacy, but to a deep-rooted disgust at the whole system of elections and government by constituencies like this.' Three days' experience do not change his view. It is, he says, 'hateful work—such a noise, such waste of time, such unbusinesslike, raging, noisy, irregular ways, and such intolerable smallness in the minds of the people, that I wonder I do not do it even worse.' He could scarcely stand a month of it for a certainty of the Solicitor-Generalship. On the day before the poll he observes that 'it is wretched, paltry work.' A local paper is full of extracts from his 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,' which, he fears, will not help him. However, 'it was very good fun writing it.' And meanwhile, Mr. Jenkins was making speeches which showed that 'his heart beat in unison with the people's,' and speaking 'earnest words' on Sunday afternoon to boys on a training ship. Even an enthusiastic speech from one of Fitzjames's supporters at a large meeting, which was followed by a unanimous vote of approval, 'nearly made him sick—it was so unspeakably fulsome.' It was no wonder that he should be inclined to be disgusted with the whole business.
Considering the general uncongeniality of the surroundings, the most remarkable thing was that he made so good a fight as he did. He was encouraged by the presence of his brother by adoption and affection, Frederick Gibbs. 'No one,' he reports, 'could be kinder or more sensible; and he is as cool as a cucumber, and not shocked by my cynical heresies.' From Frederick Gibbs, as he afterwards reports, he has received the 'best and wisest' advice on every point. The 'cynical heresies' to which he refers were simply those already expounded in his book. He said precisely what he thought, and as vigorously as he could say it. A campaign paper, called the 'Torch,' published by some of his supporters, sums up the difference between him and Mr. Jenkins. 'Mr. Stephen's liberalism,' says the 'Torch,' 'is much nearer to radicalism than the liberalism of Mr. Jenkins. Mr. Stephen's liberalism is the liberalism of self-help, of individualism, of every form of conscious industry and energy. It is the only liberalism which has the smallest chance of success in Scotland. The liberalism of Mr. Jenkins is the liberalism of state aid, of self-abasement, of incapacity and indolence'; and leads straight to sentimental communism. According to a 'working man' who writes to the paper, Mr. Jenkins virtually proposes that the industrious part of the working classes are to support the children of the lazy, idle, and improvident—a principle which many people now seem inclined to regard as defensible.
Fitzjames's accounts of his own speeches are to the same purpose. He has repeated, he says, what he has always and everywhere maintained—that people must 'help themselves, and that every class of society is bound together, and is in one boat and on one bottom.' I have read the reports in the local newspapers, which fully confirm this statement; but I need only notice one point. He manages to get in a good word for codification, and illustrates his argument by an ingenious parallel with Bradshaw's 'Railway Guide.' That 'code' is puzzling enough as it is; but what would be our state if we had to discover our route by examining and comparing all the orders given by the directors of railways from their origin, and interpreting them in accordance with a set of unwritten customs, putting special meanings upon the various terms employed?
The educated classes, as the 'Torch' asserts, and as his supporters told him, were entirely in his favour; and, had the old suffrage remained unaltered, no one else would have had a chance against him. Not only so, but they declared that every speech he made was converting the working classes. He is told that, if he had longer time, he would be able to 'talk them all round.' His speeches obviously impressed his hearers for the time. 'You cannot imagine,' he says on August 2, 'how well I get on with the people here, working men as well as gentry. They listen with the deepest attention to all I say, and question me with the keenest intelligence.' He admits, indeed, that there is no political sympathy between him and his hearers. They want a 'thorough-going radical,' and he cannot pretend to be one—'it is forced out on all occasions.' In fact, he was illustrating what he had said in his book. He heartily liked the individual working man; but he had no sympathy with the beliefs which find favour with the abstract or collective working man, who somehow manages to do the voting. They seem to have admired his force, size, and manliness. 'Eh, but ye're a wiselike mon ony way,' says a hideous old woman (as he ungratefully calls her), which, he is told, is the highest of Scottish compliments to his personal appearance. This friendly feeling, and the encouragement of his supporters, and the success of his speeches, raised his hopes by degrees, and he even 'felt a kind of pride in it,' though 'it is poor work educating people by roaring at them.' Towards the end he even thinks it possible that he may win, and, if so, 'it will be an extraordinary triumph, for I have never asked one single person to support me, and I have said the most unpopular things to such an extent that my supporters told me I was over-defiant, or, indeed, almost rude.'
However, it was not to be. Whether, as his friends said, he was too good for the place, or whether less complimentary reasons alleged by his opponents might be justified, he was hopelessly behind at the polls. He received 1,086 votes; Mr. Jenkins, 4,010; and Mr. Yeaman, 5,207—or rather more than both his opponents together. Fitzjames comforts himself by the reflection that both he and Mr. Jenkins had shown their true colours; that the respectable people had believed in him 'with a vengeance,' and that the working men were beginning to like him. But Mr. Jenkins's views were, and naturally must be, the most popular. Fitzjames's chief supporter gave a dinner in his honour, when his health was drunk three times with boundless enthusiasm, and promises were made of the heartiest support on a future occasion. The fulfilment of the promises was not required; and Fitzjames, in spite of occasional overtures, never again took an active part in a political contest.
In 1881, Lord Beaconsfield wrote to Lord Lytton: 'It is a thousand pities that J. F. Stephen is a judge; he might have done anything and everything as leader of the future Conservative party.' Lord Beaconsfield was an incomparably better judge than I can pretend to be of a man's fitness for such a position. The opinion, too, which he thus expressed was shared by some of Fitzjames's friends, who thought that his masculine force of mind and downrightness of character would have qualified him to lead a party effectively. I shall only say that it is idle to speculate on what he might haw done had he received the kind of training which seems to be generally essential to success in political life. He might, no doubt, have learnt to be more tolerant of the necessary compromises and concessions to the feelings engendered by party government. As it was, he had, during his early life, taken so little interest in the political movements of the day, and, before he was dragged for a time into the vortex, had acquired so many prepossessions against the whole system, that I cannot but think that he would have found a difficulty in allying himself closely with any party. He considered the Tories to be not much, if at all, better than the Radicals; and he would, I fancy, have discovered that both sides had, in Lowell's phrase, an equal facility for extemporising lifelong convictions. Upon this, however, I need not dwell. In any case, I think that the Dundee defeat was a blessing in disguise; for, had he been elected and found himself enlisted as a supporter of Mr. Gladstone, his position would have been almost comically inappropriate. A breach would, doubtless, have followed; and perhaps it would have been an awkward business to manage the transition with delicacy.
Fitzjames, in fact, discovered at Dundee that he was not really a 'Liberal' in the sense used in modern politics. His 'liberalism,' as the 'Torch' said, meant something radically opposed to the ideas which were becoming dominant with the party technically called by the name. His growing recognition of a fact which, it may perhaps be thought, should have already been sufficiently obvious, greatly influenced his future career. Meanwhile, he went back to finish his duties as Commissioner at the assizes, and to reflect upon the lessons which, as he said, he had learnt at Dundee. He had fresh ideas, he said, as to politics and the proper mode of treating them. He propounded some of his doctrines in a couple of lectures upon 'Parliamentary Government,' delivered to the Edinburgh Philosophical Society in the following November.[167] He describes some of the familiar consequences; shows how our administrative system has become an 'aggregate of isolated institutions'; and how the reduction of the Royal power to a cipher has led to the substitution of a set of ministers, each a little king in his own department, and shifted backwards and forwards in obedience to popular sentiment. One result is the subordination to party purposes of important interests not essentially connected with them. At the present moment, he says, a disaster on the west coast of Africa would affect the prospects of popular education. That is as rational as it would be to change your lawyer because you have had to discharge your cook. Fitzjames, however, was under no illusions. He fully admits that parliamentary government is inevitable, and that foreign systems are in some respects worse, and, in any case, incapable of being introduced. He confines himself to suggesting that some departments of administration and legislation might be withdrawn from the influence of our party system.