RENEWAL OF THE FIGHT.
A fresh start.
Nothing of memorable importance occurred during the week before the Whitsuntide holidays, but with Tuesday, May 30th, came the renewal of the great battle over Home Rule. The Old Man was first to be observed. He looked very fresh and sunny, but, at the same time, had that slightly deepened pallor which he always has on the first day of a Session—the result of the long day's journey which he has gone through in coming from his country house. Mr. Balfour was also in his place, looking as though the open rivalry of Lord Randolph Churchill had not much affected his spirits. Mr. Chamberlain nearly always looks the same. He has himself informed the world that he does not take exercise in any shape or form whatsoever, and there is never therefore, on his cheek that look of deep-drunk sunshine which marks the cheeks of more active men. But he was ready for the conflict, and as the night went on showed there was no decrease in either the venom or the vehemence with which he means to fight against the Home Rule Bill. On the Irish Benches nearly every man was in his place, and the Tories had so far benefited by their buffetings from the Times as to make a braver show than they usually do in the early days after vacation.
Home Rule once more.
When the House separated, the subject under debate was an audacious proposal to postpone Clause 3. There was nothing whatever to be urged in favour of such a proposal; it was pure, unadulterated, shameless obstruction. But Sir Richard Temple is not gifted with a sense of humour, and on this amendment he wandered and maundered away for the better part of an hour. The House has yet no power to prevent a bore from consuming its time; but it is free to save itself from the yoke of attention. By a sort of general spontaneity, everybody left his seat; and though hapless Mr. Balfour was forced by the hard necessities of his official position to remain in his place, nobody else was compelled to do so; and Sir Richard addressed the general, void, encasing air. There was some more speech-making of the like kind—still to empty air—when suddenly and almost unexpectedly the debate was allowed to collapse. At first, this was unintelligible—for, senseless as was the amendment, it was no worse than scores of others which the Tories have made the pretext for endless debates.
A tight division.
However, the division revealed the secret. It is one of the peculiarities of this strangely interesting Session that nearly every division is a picturesque and portentous event. With a majority so small as forty, the turnover of a very few votes from one side to the other may mean the defeat of Home Rule, the downfall of Gladstone and his Government, and chaos come again. And these accidents are always possible. Death knocks at the door of the families of members of Parliament as of other people; and often, when one of the great divisions is pending, the Whips have to consider the grim and painful question whether they can allow a man to remain by the rack on which a wife lies tortured, or receive a loving mother's parting sigh. For some reason or other, Tuesday was a bad day for the Liberals, and there was a series of ugly and annoying little mishaps. Thus, in the first division, which was snatched quickly by the Tories, informed by their scouts of what was going on, the majority sank to thirty-three. This was a bad beginning, but worse, as will be seen, remained behind.
Lord Wolmer.
The Committee was now on Clause 3. This is the clause which contains the list of the subjects on which the Irish Legislature is not to have the right to legislate—such questions as the succession to the Crown, questions of peace and war, foreign treaties, coinage, copyright, trade, etc. The list is comprehensive enough, but it was not comprehensive enough for Lord Wolmer; for he had an amendment to the effect that the Irish Legislature should not be allowed to pass even resolutions on these subjects. But even his own amendment did not satisfy him. He amended the amendment by further proposing that the Irish Legislature should not be allowed even to "discuss" any of these questions. The speech in favour of these proposals started from the point of departure common to all the Unionists, namely, that the Irish people were hereditary and irreconcilable enemies, and that the moment they had a native Legislature, it would immediately proceed to make alliances with every Power in the world which was hostile to the British Empire. There was France; of course, the Irish Legislature would pass a resolution of sympathy with France in case there was a war between France and England. Then there was the United States; what was there to prevent the Irish Executive from sending an envoy to the United States? And so on, through all the possibilities and all the insanity and malignity of which an Irish Legislature could be held capable.
Sweet and low.
Mr. Gladstone on one or two points was able to overthrow the whole case so elaborately made up. The Irish Parliament could not send representatives to a foreign Power, because they could not vote the money for such a purpose under the Bill. "Ah, but"—interrupted the incautious Wolmer—"could they not send envoys who were unpaid?" "No," promptly responded the Old Man, "because they had no power under the Bill to 'accredit' envoys, and a foreign Power could not receive an envoy who was not accredited." All this argument—broad, acute, tranquil—was delivered in a voice that now and then was painfully low, and sometimes you had to strain your ears. But then it was worth your while to strain your ears, so that you might master all the supremacy of the art and skill and knowledge of the whole speech.
For instance, he puts the question to Lord Wolmer, if he seriously means that the Irish Legislature is not to have the right to petition? Lord Wolmer answers that the Irish members will be in the Imperial Parliament. "Ah! that's an argument, not an answer," says the Old Man; and then, with the spring of a tiger, he pounces on the hapless Wolmer with the question: "Is the right of petition, then, to be taken away in every case where there is representation?"—a question which, with petitions pouring in by the thousand to the House of Commons from the Ulstermen and others, a Unionist like Lord Wolmer finds it impossible to answer. And it is in connection with this point a little scene occurs which brings out many of the points in this remarkable speech, which I have been trying to make clear. Mr. Bryce disappears from the House; then he returns: Mr. Gladstone asks him a question; the answer is apparently not satisfactory, for the Old Man lifts his hands to heaven in playful exaggeration of surprise. The House, puzzled, does not know what it means; but the Old Man soon explains. He had sent Mr. Bryce to the Library to get a copy of the recent Life of Lord Sherbrooke—Robert Lowe, that was—and Mr. Bryce had brought back the discomforting intelligence that the book was not there. However, with such a memory as Mr. Gladstone's, this does not matter, for he is able to point out that an Australian Legislature had at one time passed a resolution, and agreed on a petition to the Imperial Parliament, in reference to the Corn Laws. Just fancy the keenness, the omnivorousness, the promptitude of that marvellous Old Man, who had read one of the most recently published works, and had promptly seized on a point bearing reference to a detail in his Bill.
A pathetic scene.
And then came the pathetic scene, in which again Mr. Bryce figured, and which once more brought out the marvellous grasp, the tenacious and inevitable memory of the splendid Old Man. The amendment of Lord Wolmer was, declared Mr. Gladstone, against "the law of Parliament," and, by way of emphasizing this point, he wanted to have a quotation made from Sir Erskine May's Book on Parliament. But the eyesight of age is weak, and there is in the House of Commons, until the gas is lit, something of the dim, religious light of a cathedral, and, accordingly, Mr. Gladstone had to rely on the younger eyes of Mr. Bryce. The scene which followed might be described as out of order, for there were two members standing at the same time. But the vast ascendancy of Mr. Gladstone over the assembly—the profound reverence in which all, save the meanest, bow before his genius, character, and age—enable him to do things not permitted to common men. In the rapt and serious face, in the attentive look, in the fingers beating the table as word followed word in confirmation of this view—in the curious, almost weird and unusual sight of two men standing side by side, Mr. Gladstone silent, Mr. Bryce speaking—there was a scene, the impressiveness, poetry, and pathos of which will never pass from the memory of those who saw it. And the House—so quick, with all its passion, and fractiousness, and meannesses, at grasping the significance of a great and solemn moment—marked its sense of the scene by a stillness that was almost audible—a hush that spoke aloud.
And yet another.
There was just one other incident in this marvellous little speech which must be noted. I have remarked the ofttimes the voice of Mr. Gladstone was so low, that it was with difficulty one could hear him. The reason is curious, and is revealed in a little gesture that has only come in recent years, and that has a melancholy interest. Often now, when he is speaking, Mr. Gladstone puts his hand to his right ear, as men do who are making a laborious effort to catch and concentrate sound. The cause of this is that Mr. Gladstone's hearing has become defective, and he has to adopt this little stratagem to make his own voice audible to himself. You should see the Old Man with his hand to his ear, with the look of gentle anxiety on his face, to understand all this little gesture conveys; and how it exalts your sense of the mighty courage of this great Old Man, who is able to rise thus superior to all obstacles, to all foes, to all weaknesses of the flesh, all devices of the enemy.
Mr. Balfour.
Mr. Balfour, I have said more than once, does not display his talents best in Opposition. In his desire to be effective, he strains a not very strong voice until, it sounds almost like a shriek. I do not wish to be unfair to Mr. Balfour. There is, as I have often said in these columns, a certain distinction in all he does. I often think he is wanting in that consideration and reverence for the mighty old gladiator whom it is his duty to oppose; but for all this I make allowance, as it is his duty to oppose Mr. Gladstone, and in doing that, he may sometimes appear unintentionally irreverent. But the fact is, Mr. Balfour is thin, narrow, and does not get at the reality of things. Many people say he is very inferior to Mr. Chamberlain; but most assuredly I do not in the least agree with this opinion. To me the difference between the two men is the difference between a scholar and a counter-jumper—I mean a counter-jumper of the Senate, and not of the shop. But though that is my opinion, I cannot refrain from saying that Mr. Balfour contrasts very unfavourably with Mr. Gladstone in this struggle of giants.
An ugly moment.
It was during the speech of Mr. Balfour that a little incident took place, the full significance of which would probably not be grasped by the non-Parliamentarian. Mr. Balfour was arguing that it was impossible to properly discuss the amendment of Lord Wolmer until the House knew whether or not the Irish members were going to be retained in the Imperial Parliament. I do not know whether it was because there was something provocative in the manner in which Mr. Balfour referred to this subject, but it had the effect of rousing the once vulnerable, but now admirably controlled temper, which has played such a part in Mr. Gladstone's career. Rising with a certain deepened pallor, and with that feverish rush in his voice which those who watch him know so well he said that the Ministry meant to stick by the ninth clause, and would do their very best to get it accepted by the House. Here was a most portentous announcement—the portentousness of which the careful observer could see at once, by the sudden stillness which fell upon the House. Whenever a Minister, or even a politician of small importance who is not a Minister, makes a statement full of portentous possibilities as to the future, the House suddenly becomes still and tense, and you can hear a pin drop. It is the prompt and sometimes almost irresistible expression of the feeling that Destiny is throwing the die, and that you have to watch the grim and fateful result.
The Treasury Bench looks awkward.
And if you looked on the Treasury Bench, you could see that the feeling was not altogether comfortable. It was no secret that the ninth clause was the one which offered to the Government the one perilous fence they had still to take—that is to say, so far as their own followers were concerned. Hitherto the attitude of the Government was quite unknown; and, indeed, it was quite probable that the Government themselves had not finally decided what their attitude should be. But when Mr. Gladstone—pale, excited, and angry—jumped in with this outburst, it seemed all at once as if the fateful and final word of Destiny had been spoken, and as if the whole fate of Ireland, of Mr. Gladstone, of this great Ministry, and of this mighty Bill, had been definitely pledged to one throw of the dice. Imagine one of those contests which you find in the pages of Turgenieff or Tolstoi, which perchance you may have seen at Monte Carlo, which in the last few days may have been observed at Epsom Downs—in which life or death, ruin or halcyon fortune, depended on one throw—and you can have some sense of all that passed through the imagination of the House and that made it almost audibly shiver when Mr. Gladstone made this slight and terse interruption. Mr. Morley's face—serious, often sombre—cast in a mould and reflective of a soul inclined to the darker rather than the more cheerful view of life's tangled and unsatisfactory workings—grew black and troubled; the other Ministers who were present looked—not so eloquently, but still perceptibly—uncomfortable; Mr. Asquith—who had been a close observer—could not keep his keen anxiety from breaking through the mask of easy equanimity with which he is able to clothe his readiness to meet fortune in all her moods; in short, it was for Ministerialists one of those uncomfortable quarters of an hour in which life seems to concentrate all its bitterness, sorrow, and anxieties within a terribly brief space of time. And if you wanted to know further what was the full significance of what had taken place, you saw it in the open and almost indecent joy of Mr. Chamberlain's face; in the more subdued but a still unctuous look of Mr. Courtney; and you could hear it in the shriller pitch of Mr. Balfour's voice.
A false alarm.
But all the same, it was a false alarm. For if the Old Man had tripped, he was able to recover himself very soon. Mr. Balfour was foolish enough to try and dot the "I's," and to put into Mr. Gladstone's mouth that which his enemies hoped he had said. For Mr. Balfour, remarking that Mr. Gladstone had made a more explicit declaration than any which had yet come from his lips—this was all right, and was quite true—went on to the further statement that the Old Man had now committed himself to standing or falling by the ninth clause "in its present shape." This, you will see, was the whole crux of the situation. If Mr. Gladstone had said this, then, indeed, it might go hard with him by-and-bye, for whether the Liberal party would accept the ninth clause in its present shape was one of the questions yet to be decided. The Old Man, however his words might have been open to this construction, had not in reality said anything of the kind. And, at once, he was prompt to see how necessary it was to correct this error, for he immediately rose to his feet to say that he had never said anything of the sort. What he had said was that the Government intended to stand by the principle that the Irish members were to have a place in the Imperial Parliament, which, it will be seen, leaves open the perilous and perplexing question: what form that representation in the Imperial Parliament is to take. At once there was a heavy sigh of relief, and most of all on the Irish Benches. Among the Irishry, the declaration of Mr. Gladstone had produced a moment of something like panic; the only exhibition of which was a certain impatience with the attempt of Mr. Balfour to pin the Old Man down to the most literal interpretation of his words. The panic soon passed away. It was all, I say, a false alarm. Vulnerable though his temper—though there was in him still enough of the hot onrush of battle and of resistance under all the snow of advancing years—the great old tactician had not forgotten his cunning. He at once seized the opportunity of saying he was not finally committed to the ninth clause in its present shape, and so we once more breathed freely.
Joe comes back from dinner.
This was the end of the important part of the debate before the dinner hour. It is one of the peculiarities of Mr. Chamberlain that no stress of a Parliamentary situation induces him to seriously interfere with his habits. When the clock points to ten minutes to eight any evening of the week, he may be seen to rise from his place with the inevitableness of fate, and to disappear for a couple of hours. I have seen him do this even when the fortune of a most important amendment seemed to lie trembling in the balance—the one occasion on which I have known him to break through that rigid rule was when his son was about to make that maiden speech which started that promising young fellow on his Parliamentary career. Coming back like a giant refreshed about ten o'clock, Mr. Chamberlain contrived to once more set aflame the embers of dying passion; and he threw himself into the fight over Lord Wolmer's amendment at the moment when all life seemed to have gone out of it. His speech was full of cleverness—of what the Americans call smartness, and it had all that point, personal and party, which sets your friends in a roar. The Tories cheered him vociferously, and point after point of brilliant and effective invective pleased the House—always anxious with its jaded appetite for a sensation. But when you had time to compare, it with that little speech delivered by Mr. Gladstone earlier in the evening—when you contrasted its fitful and gaudy brilliancy with the sober and broad wisdom of Mr. Gladstone's utterance—then, indeed, you were able to see what a gulf there is between the smart debater and the genuine statesman.
A narrow shave.
At last the debate was over; and then came what was, perhaps, the most exciting and most momentous incident of the evening. I have already spoken of the interest with which every division is regarded. The interest in this particular division was fully justified when the numbers were told; for the Government majority had fallen to twenty-one. At once there was a wild outburst of cheering from the Tory Benches. Some wits ventured on the cry, "Resign! Resign!"—altogether, the Tories had the best quarter of an hour they have enjoyed since that hideous afternoon before the Easter vacation, when, after a prolonged fight, the Old Man had to announce that he could not propose the second reading of the Bill until after Easter. It was all more or less of an accident; there were plenty of things to account for it—a reception at the House of a prominent Liberal lady, and many other explanations: but, all the same, it was a very ugly little incident; and though Mr. Gladstone carried it off with that indomitable courage of his, which doesn't know what a confession of defeat means, one could see that he did not like it; and for the rest of the evening there was a visible gloom in the Liberal ranks.
Happy again.
But May 31st brought the Derby, and with the Derby there came upon the Tory Benches one of those moments of temptation which the natural man is utterly unable to resist. The amendments followed each other in rapid succession; division came on top of division; and in them all the Liberals jumped back to their old superiority of numbers. In the earlier part of the day, when the fortunes of Isinglass were still undetermined, the majorities were enormous; and though there was a certain falling off when sporting gentlemen began to get back from the dusty Downs, the average was well kept up; and it was with a distinct rise in the temperature of Liberal hopes and confidence that this stage was reached. On the following day the lowness of the voice in the Old Man was a little more perceptible, and when it got to midnight, he seemed painfully fagged and exhausted. It was, perhaps, because he was in that mood that he made some concessions to the Unionists, which have been somewhat resented. But as these concessions, according to Mr. Gladstone himself, only carried out what the Government had intended from the first, these things may be passed. They had reference chiefly to prohibition of raising in Ireland anything like a military force—even in the shape of a militia or volunteer force. On June 2nd, there was one of those transformations in which the Old Man is constantly surprising friends and foes. He was alert, vigorous, watchful of everything that went on, and the voice rose to its old strength and resonance. It was during that afternoon that there was a slight indication for the first time throughout the progress of the whole Bill of any dissatisfaction on the part of the Irish members. Mr. Byrne—one of the Unionist gang of lawyers—proposed a ridiculous amendment, the effect of which would have been that the Irish Legislature would not have had the right to give a license for a fowling-piece, or to arm their police to meet a rising of the Orangemen.
Mr. Sexton intervenes.
It was then that Mr. Sexton intervened with a word of warning against such a restriction. In burning though carefully restrained language, Mr. Sexton replied to a taunt of Mr. Chamberlain at the silence of the Irish members. Their silence, said Mr. Sexton, was due to their knowledge that Mr. Chamberlain and his confederates had entered into a conspiracy to destroy the power of the House of Commons, and to defeat the mandate of the nation by obstructing a Bill they could not otherwise defeat. Spoken with great fire—with splendid choice of language—with biting sarcasm, of which he is a master—the speech was an event. Mr. Gladstone promptly recognized its spirit; thanked the Irish members for their consideration; and then declared, amid a great sniff from Joe's upturned nose, that if the Irish members desired to express their opinions on any amendment, he and his colleagues would wait before expressing their own views. There seemed to be a slight hope among the Tories and the ever-venomous Joe that this meant a rift in the lute between the Irish members and the Government; but they were woefully disappointed—especially when the amendment was indignantly rejected by the House.
The "Daily News."
It is the outspoken, rather than the loudly uttered, that is often the important thing in a House of Commons discussion. This was the case with the curious little debate which Mr. Chamberlain initiated on June 6th. The Daily News had published a little article describing the manner in which the Tories had shouted at—hooted—interrupted—Mr. Gladstone on the Thursday night previous. It may at once be asked why Mr. Chamberlain should have thought it necessary to notice the article. He boasted that he was not in the habit of noticing what appeared against him in the newspapers—which is not true to a certain extent, or at least is not generally so thought, for it is understood that no man reads more carefully the extracts sent to him by those press-cutting agencies which have added either a new luxury or a new terror to public life. But Mr. Chamberlain's action had many roots. First, like many others, very free in their comments and attacks, he is almost childishly sensitive. Watch him in the House of Commons when an attack is being made upon him which he does not like, and the fierce and domineering temper reveals itself in the fidgety movement, the darkened brow, the deeper pallor on the white-complexioned face. When he was a Cabinet Minister he could never, or rarely, be got to remain in the House of Commons during the whole of the evening; and one of the chief reasons, I have heard, he gave for thus absenting himself was that he could not stand the talk from the opposite side—it made him so angry.
Joe's motives.
But there were other and more immediate reasons for his anger with the Daily News. Joe was conscious of the growth of two feelings—either of which was very perilous to him. First, he began uneasily to feel that the country—watching the struggle between him and the Old Man—was getting a little disgusted at the business; and saw in it a want of that chivalry and fair play which it desires to see even in the fiercest political controversy. This was not a pleasant sentiment to have growing up against one; and Joe felt that it has serious perils to his future political position. And, secondly, he was conscious that the majority of the House of Commons was growing very restive under the desperate obstruction of which he had made himself the champion, and that this feeling might soon become strong enough to carry Mr. Gladstone and the Ministers off their feet, and compel drastic measures which had hitherto been steadily refrained from. This would not suit the book of Joe at all, whose object it was to keep the struggle going as long as he possibly could manage it, careless of the traditions of Parliament, of the dignity and decency of the House of Commons, of the life and strength of Mr. Gladstone, of everything except his own greedy desire for personal revenge and triumph.
Mr. Gladstone's gentleness.
This was what lay behind the plausible and honeyed words in which Mr. Chamberlain attacked the article in the Daily News. And here a curious difficulty arose which rather helped Joe, and almost enabled him to score a great triumph. Everybody knows that between the temper of Mr. Gladstone and that of his friends and supporters there is an impassable gulf. That mastery of a vulnerable temper, which accounted for many of the troubles of his earlier political career, which he himself has acknowledged in many a pathetic passage in his correspondence—that mastery of the vulnerable temper is now so complete that the Old Man glides through scenes of insult and passes over what the humblest member of the House would often find it hard to endure. There is something indeed strange, wistful, almost uncanny, in the unbreakable gentleness of that white figure, with the ivory complexion, the scant white hair, the large white collar and broad white shirt-front—there is something which becomes almost an obsession to the observer in watching the figure with its strangely tranquil and gentle expression in the heat and centre of all this fierce Parliamentary battle.
And eagerness.
And what makes it all the more peculiar is that this strange gentleness does not go side by side with want of interest in the struggle. On the contrary, all those around him and near him declare that never has Mr. Gladstone been more keen of any subject than he has been on this Home Rule Bill. He thinks of nothing else; he enjoys it all. I saw a curious instance of this intensity of his interest about that time. Having a word to say to one of the Ministers, I was seated for a moment on the Treasury Bench just beside the Chairman—Mr. Mellor. Mr. Gladstone had gone out for a few minutes. Sir William Harcourt was in charge of the Bill, and he was replying to some argument of the Unionists opposite. Sir William Harcourt has an excellent method of dealing with futile and dishonest amendments. He declines to argue them in detail. With that rich humour of which the public know less than his friends and intimates, Sir William airily dismisses the whole business, and with a laugh brings down shivering to the ground a whole fabric of laboriously constructed nonsense. Well, Sir William was in the middle of a sentence in which he was speaking of the absurd suspicion of the Irish people which was entertained by the Tories—and Mr. Gladstone, entering from behind the Speaker's chair at that very moment, just caught that one phrase. It was impossible for him to hear more than that one word "suspicion"; but at that word he pricked up his ears, and while he was still walking to his place—before he had seated himself—"Hear, hear," he cried. His eagerness would not let him wait till he had taken his seat. His absolute absorption in the Bill before the House was so complete that, as he walked to his seat, you could see the rapt and concentrated look, which showed that, even during the few minutes he had been away, the brain had never left for one second its absorbing theme.
The consolations of old age.
But—as I have indicated—this complete subjugation of temper which Mr. Gladstone has achieved, has its disadvantages when such a conflict is provoked as that with Mr. Chamberlain on the article in the Daily News. Mr. Gladstone himself spoke of the consolations of old age; there is one consolation he did not mention. His absorption in the Bill and the slight deafness in one of his ears do not allow him to perceive so plainly the rude noises and interruptions by which he is often assailed from the Tory Benches. Moreover, the native chivalry of his disposition, the curious simplicity which has remained his central characteristic, in spite of all the experiences of the baser side of human nature which must have been crowded into all that half a century of official and Parliamentary life—that unwillingness to see anything but deplorable error in his most rancorous, meanest, and most malignant opponent—all these things make it difficult for him to understand the ugly realities whose serpent heads show themselves plainly to almost every other eye but his.
There is a dispute among the authorities as to the incidents of that Thursday night—some, even among those friendly to the Prime Minister, declaring that there was nothing unusual in the interruptions of that night. My own recollection is clear that there was a great deal of noise, and that it was so bad that Mr. Chamberlain tried to explain it away, and was careful to absolve himself and his friends from all responsibility for it. In the general body of the Liberal party there is no doubt whatsoever about that business. Liberal after Liberal came up to me afterwards, in allusion to a few remarks I felt it my duty to make, to declare their entire agreement with the view I had put forward—that the description of the Daily News, though consciously and obviously written in the vein of parody, was a fair and just description of what had taken place. Sir Henry Roscoe is not an excitable politician, though no man holds to the Liberal faith more firmly. He was met on the following Sunday by a friend, and when asked how he viewed the situation, declared that he was rather "low!" Why? he was asked. Because his heart was saddened and enraged by the treatment of the splendid Old Man by Mr. Chamberlain and the Tories. To a leading Liberal Minister, two Tories privately declared that their pain and shame and disgust with the conduct of their own side to Mr. Gladstone was so profound, that they had to get up and leave the House to control their feelings.
A complex situation.
When, therefore, Mr. Chamberlain came forward with his audacious complaint, this was the curious situation: that the bulk of the Liberal party, and many even of their opponents, were convinced that the comments of the Daily News were more than justified. The frantic cheers with which each successive sentence of the scathing attack in the description was punctuated by the Liberal and Irish Benches, as Joe, with affected horror, read them out, sufficiently indicated what they thought. And, on the other hand, the man in whose defence this reply to his assailants was made was just as convinced that his enemies had been unjustly assailed, and that he himself had been well and courteously treated. In such a situation it was just possible that Mr. Chamberlain would escape from his position with flying colours; would have the Daily News censured for falsehood by a House of Commons that believed in its truth; and have himself declared chivalrous by a Parliament that knows him to be malignant, unscrupulous, and merciless. To prevent such a catastrophe it was a painful but necessary duty to bring out the realities of the case; and not only a painful but also a thankless duty in face of what everybody knew would be the attitude of Mr. Gladstone himself.
Mr. Gladstone shakes his head.
For Mr. Gladstone did not delay long in indicating to the House what his attitude would be. When I was speaking and denouncing the rude interruptions of the eventful Thursday night, he shook his head ominously and in contradiction—though manifestations which came from Liberal and Irish Benches showed that he stood alone in his view of the events of that night. And it was no surprise to the House, therefore, when he stood up and said that he entirely disclaimed any feeling of resentment for anything that had been done to him, and that he confessed he had not perceived the interruptions to which the report of the Daily News had called attention. After this, there seemed no more to be said; but the battle was not yet over. The Tories had been charged both by the Daily News and by a speech in the House with want of courtesy to Mr. Gladstone. Nobody knew better than Mr. Balfour how much ground there was for such a charge; for often in the course of the present Session—with a dark frown on his face, with an almost violent gesture—he has called on his unruly followers behind him to conduct themselves. The effect of what had taken place was to extort from Mr. Balfour a tribute to the universal respect in which the Prime Minister was held—a tribute which the splendid Old Man acknowledged by a low bow; and, in short, the Tories had to bind themselves over to keep the peace by their professions of a chivalrous desire to respect the person and the feelings of the great Prime Minister. And thus it was that it ended for the moment in a drawn battle—Mr. Chamberlain having to withdraw his motion, and I my amendment.
Slow progress.
But in the meantime the progress with the Bill was terribly slow. We were now on the second week with the third clause. Amendments were disposed of one night only to find that the next day the number of amendments, instead of being diminished, had been increased. It would be a sheer waste of time and space to go into detail about these amendments. The third clause is the clause which deals with the questions that are to be excluded from the Irish Parliament. The list is sufficiently long—peace and war—the Crown—the Lord-Lieutenancy—trade and commerce—the coinage and the currency—copyright and navigation—treason and treason felony. But even this list was not sufficiently long for the Unionists. They propose to increase this list of exemptions until, if they succeeded, the Irish Legislature would have to shut up shop for want of business to attend to. One man gravely proposed that the Irish executive—being made responsible for the peace, order, and good Government of Ireland—should not have the right to settle the procedure in the Irish criminal courts. Another gentleman proposed that all cases referring to criminal conspiracy should be left to the Imperial Government and Parliament. The meaning of all this was that the Unionists wanted to draw a ring fence around the Orangemen of Ulster, who had been threatening rebellion. First, by one set of amendments the Irish Government was not to have a police able to put them down, and then the Irish courts were not to be able to convict them when they broke the law.
The hours of labour.
On June 9th the Unionists were on another line. They professed to think that if the Irish Legislature were not compelled to do so they would not prevent overwork and long hours. This led to the proposal that all legislation on hours of labour should be taken out of the hands of the Irish Parliament. Mr. Chamberlain argued this with his tongue in his cheek—professing to dread the unequal competition in which poor England would be placed if wealthy Ireland were allowed to compete unfairly by longer hours. He urged this in a speech directed to every absurd prejudice and alarm which the ignorant or the timid could feel—altogether made a most unworthy contribution. John Burns—breezy, outspoken—not friendly to all things done by the Liberals in the past, but firm in his Home Rule faith—went for Mr. Chamberlain in good, honest, sledge-hammer, and workmanlike fashion. The member for Battersea even dared to blaspheme Birmingham—the Mecca of the industrial world—for its notoriously bad record in industrial matters—an attack which Joe seemed in no way to relish. And all the time the Old Man—with his hand to his ear, and sitting on the very end of the Treasury Bench, so as to be nearer the speaker—listened attentively, sympathetically, occasionally uttering that fine leonine cheer of his. It was on this amendment that the Ministerial majority fell, owing to various accidents, to 30, and the Tories cheered themselves into a happy condition of mind for a few minutes.
The guillotine—but not yet.
Towards the end of the sitting there was a certain feverishness of expectation. Dr. McGregor, a Scotch Highland member, had announced that at half-past six he would move the closure of the third clause—on which we had now been working for a fortnight. But Mr. Mellor refused to put such a drastic proposal on the suggestion of a private member. There was, however, a very plain intimation that if a Minister were to make such a proposal it might be considered differently; all of which meant that we were approaching—slowly, patiently, forbearingly—but still approaching the moment when drastic steps would be taken to accelerate progress.