THE BILL IN COMMITTEE.
The first fence.
Yes, there was something intoxicating to an Irish Nationalist—after all his weary years of waiting—in seeing the House of Commons engaged in Committee on the Bill which is to restore the freedom of Ireland. And as I looked across the House on May 8th, with every seat occupied—with galleries crowded—with that air of tense excitement which betokens the solemn and portentous occasion—there rose to my brain something of the exaltation of passion's first hour. The Unionists might rage—the Tories might obstruct—faction might bellow its throat hoarse—Orangemen swear that they would die rather than see Home Rule—for all that, nobody could get over this great fact, of which I saw the palpable evidence at that solemn and historic hour.
But if for a few brief moments one was inclined to abandon oneself to the intoxication of this great hour, there was plenty to bring one very quickly back to solid earth, and to the sense of the long, dreary, and thorny road which Home Rule has yet to traverse.
Time after time Mr. Chamberlain gets up to continue the obstructive debate. Gravelled for matter, he clutches any topic as a means of lengthening the thin chain of his discourse. Mr. Redmond—the Parnellite leader—happens to be for a few moments out of the House. Here at once, and with eager welcome, Mr. Chamberlain seizes upon this fact to string a few sentences together—something after this fashion:—"I observe that the hon. and learned member for Waterford is not in his place. This is very remarkable. Indeed, I may go further and say that this is a most sinister fact. For we all know what the hon. and learned gentleman has said with regard to the kind of Parliamentary supremacy which alone he will accept. Well, now we are discussing this very point of the Imperial supremacy, and the hon. and learned gentleman is not in his place. I repeat, Mr. Mellor, it is a very remarkable, a very significant, a very sinister, and instructive fact!" And so on and so on.
The stony silence of the Irishry.
This kind of speech had another object—it was to provoke Mr. Redmond into a speech. For it was all the same to the Obstructives who spoke—provided only there was a speech. For, first, the speech of the Irish or the Liberal member consumed so much time in itself—and then one speech justified another; and thus the speech by the Irishman, or the Liberal, would give an excellent excuse for another series of harangues by the Obstructives. And this brings me to describe one of the portents of the present House of Commons which has excited a great deal of attention and a great deal of unfeigned admiration. As speakers of eloquence—as Obstructives—as Parliamentarians of exhaustless resources—as gladiators, tireless, brave, and cool—and, again, as stormy Parliamentary petrels—fierce, disorderly, passionate—the Irish members have been known to the House of Commons and to all the world during all the long series of years through which they have been fighting out this struggle. In this Parliament, and at this great hour, they appear in quite another, and perfectly new character. Amid all the groups of this House they stand out for their unbroken and unbreakable silence, for their unshakable self-control. Taunts, insults, gentle and seductive invitations, are addressed to them—from the front, from behind, from their side; they never open their lips—the silent, stony, and eternal silence of the Sphinx is not more inflexible. And similarly men rage, some almost seem to threaten each other with physical violence; they sit still—silent, watchful, composed. Not all, of course. There are the young, and the vehement, and the undisciplined; but that Old Guard which was created by Parnell—which went with him through coercion, and the wildest of modern agitations—which contains men that have lived for years under the shadow of the living death of penal servitude—men who have passed the long hours of the day—the longer hours of the night—in the cheerless, maddening, spectral silence of the whitewashed cells—the Old Parliamentary Guard is silent.
I have been in the House of Commons for upwards of thirteen years; and in the course of that stormy time have, of course, seen many scenes of passion, anger, and tumult; but the scene which ensued on May 8th, after Mr. Morley's motion, was the worst thing I have ever beheld. I am a lover of the British House of Commons—with all its faults, and drawbacks, and weaknesses, it is to me the most august assembly in the world, with the greatest history, the finest traditions, the best oratory. And, verily, I could have wept as I saw the House that night. It was not that the passion was greater than I have ever seen, or the noise even, or the dramatic excitement, it was that for hours, there was nothing but sheer downright chaos, drivel, and anarchy.
The unloosing of anarchy.
It began when Mr. Mellor accepted the motion for closure. At once there arose from the Tory Benches wild, angry, insulting cries of "Shame! shame! scandalous! the gag! the gag!" This would have been all right if it had been addressed to Mr. Gladstone. Party leaders have to give and take, and in moments of excitement they must not complain if their political opponents denounce them. But closure is the act of the presiding officer of the House, and it has been an almost unbroken rule and tradition of Parliament that the presiding officer shall be safeguarded against even an approach to attack or insult. It is a tradition that has its weak side; but, on the whole, it is in accordance with that great national English characteristic of subordination to necessary authority and the maintenance of order, decency, and self-control as the trinity of public virtues and personal demeanour. If Mr. Peel had been in the chair he would have called those Tories to order; and if they had persisted as they did, he would have promptly named the highest among them. Mr. Chamberlain was not ashamed to join in those hoarse and disorderly shouts; and it was in this temper that the different sides walked slowly, silently, and frowningly to the division lobbies.
The moment the division was over, the storm which had been stilled broke forth again, and with wilder fury. Lord Randolph Churchill, as I have several times remarked, is not the man he was. I remember the time when in such a scene he would have been perfectly at home; self-restrained, vigilant, and effective. But on this night it was nothing above mere inarticulateness—hoarse and ineffective fury—an almost painful exhibition. Sometimes his lisp became so strong that he was scarcely able to utter the words he desired to bring out. The Prime Minister became "The Primisther," the Chief Secretary the "Cheesesecry," and all this impotence was made the more manifest by thundering on the box with his open hand—in short, it was all inarticulate, painful, perplexing emptiness, weakened and not fortified by prolific tub-thumping. A poor—sad—nay, a tragic business.
The young man and the old.
Such was the young man; and then came the old. To all this inarticulate, hoarse, stammering passion, Mr. Gladstone opposed a speech gentle, persuasive, self-possessed; as admirable in its courtesy as in its reserve of gigantic strength. With the deadly pallor of his face more remarkable than ever—the white hair shining out, as it were, with the peaceful suggestion of calm and strong old age—in a voice, low, soft, gentle—Mr. Gladstone uttered a few words which revealed all the great depths. In completely quiet, almost inaudible tones, he uttered these pregnant words: "As to other passages in the noble lord's speech, I do not know whether he intended to intimidate me; but if he did, I do not think he will succeed." There they are—these few words—so simple, plain, even commonplace; but what a history—what a character—what a grandeur there is behind and beneath them! So splendid are they that even Lord Randolph is touched to the quick, and he rises to explain. The Old Man—suave, calm, unutterably courteous—hears him politely; and then puts the whole case of the Government in a few, dignified, and tranquil words.
In the depths.
But the House, exalted to a higher plane of feeling by this great little speech, was soon dragged down again to the arena of chaos let loose; and, of course, Mr. Chamberlain was the person to lead the way to the dusty pit. Mr. Mellor had very properly attempted to stop the disorderly discussion of the closure; but Mr. Chamberlain was not in the mood to respect the authority of the chair or the traditions of the House of Commons, and audaciously, shamelessly—with a perky self-satisfaction painful to witness—he proceeded to violate the ruling of the chair—to trample on the order of Parliament, and to flout the Chairman. And then the waters of the great deep were loosed. A hurricane of shouts, yells, protests arose. Member got up after member—here, there, everywhere—always excepting the sternly silent Irish Bench, where sate the Irish leaders. A half-dozen men were on their feet—all shouting, gesticulating, speaking at the same time. In short, it was utterly unlike anything ever seen before in the House of Commons; it brought vividly back to the mind the tumultuous French Convention in the days of the French Revolution.
Deeper and deeper still.
It was almost a welcome break in this passionate and scarcely civilized din that a personal encounter between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Byles for a moment interrupted the tempest. Mr. Chamberlain, in his characteristically genial way, had spoken of the Irish members as having been "squared." The Irish members, habituated to insult—conscious of Mr. Chamberlain's object—had allowed the observation to pass unnoticed; but Mr. Byles—ardent, sincere, an enthusiast on the Irish question—shouted out, "How much would it take to square you?" At once there rose a fierce tropical storm. There were loud shouts of approval—equally loud shouts demanding an instant withdrawal; members rose from every part of the House; in short, it was Bedlam let loose, and a scene impossible to describe.
This was deep enough, but there was a lower depth still to be sounded; and again it was Mr. Chamberlain's plummet that descended down to the unfathomable bottom. "I do not," he said to Mr. Byles, "object to the question, and I will answer it by saying that it would take a great deal more than the hon. member for Shipley will ever be able to pay." There the words stand—in the immensity of their vulgarity, in their unsurpassable degradation, let them lie.
The first fence.
Finally, May 10th saw the first fence taken. The genial and gentle T.W. Russell proposed the removal from the Bill of the Second Chamber—the Chamber specially created for the protection of the loyal minority. With similar and strange unscrupulousness, the Tories all trooped into the lobby against their own principles. They were accompanied by a few foolish Radicals—indeed, it was the hope of detaching a sufficient number of Radicals to place the Government in a minority which produced the Tory apostasy from their own principles. There was a little uncertainty as to the result, and everybody expected that the Government majority would have been reduced to a dangerously low figure. When Mr. Marjoribanks read out a majority of 51—or a majority bigger than the usual one—there was a loud halloo of triumph and delighted surprise from the Liberal and the Irish Benches; and so the first big fence in the Home Rule Bill was easily taken.
Obstructive Chamberlain.
By the middle of the sitting on the following day the House of Commons stood face to face with the first clause. Under ordinary circumstances, the clause would have been passed after a few speeches—especially and definitely directed to the words of the clause; Mr. Chamberlain demanded the right on this clause to discuss, not only the whole Bill with all its other clauses, but the past and future of the whole Home Rule struggle. He quoted passage after passage from speeches delivered by Irish members years and years ago; in short, he entered upon a survey of the whole controversy. There were countless interruptions from the Irish Benches—not in the least because the Irish members cared for Joe's attacks, but because such a roundabout discussion was altogether a revolutionary departure from all previous precedents; and would have been held distinctly out of order by any of the predecessors of Mr. Mellor in the chair. That good-natured and easy-going official, however, gave Mr. Chamberlain his head; and so, for an hour, he poured forth a stream of clever, biting, but mean and irrelevant vituperation.
The G.O.M.'s greatest speech.
It was well that it should have been so; for to this speech the House of Commons owes one of the most remarkable and historic scenes in its long history. Every reader of Parliamentary reports knows what it means to speak at eight o'clock. By that time, three out of five at least of the members of the House have gone to their dinners in all quarters of London, and the assembly is given up to the faddists and the bores, who never get another opportunity of delivering themselves. Nothing, therefore, could have been more unexpected than a speech from Mr. Gladstone at such an hour, and especially a speech which, in the opinion of many, leaves far behind anything he ever did. But, indeed, it is probable that Mr. Gladstone himself had no notion when the sitting began, or even a few minutes before he rose, that he would say anything very special. It is one of the peculiarities of this extraordinary man to be always surprising you. His infinite variety, his boundless resource, seem to be without any limitations. By this time, you would have expected that one who had listened to him for nearly twenty years would imagine that he had no further oratorical worlds to conquer, and that he certainly would not have waited to his eighty-fourth year to do something better than ever he had done before. But so it was. In passion, in destructive sarcasm, in dramatic force, in the rush and resistless sweep of language, Mr. Gladstone was more potent in the dinner hour of that Thursday night than he was ever at any other single moment in his almost sixty years of triumphant oratory.
His powers as a mimic.
Observers are divided as to his temper when he rose. Some onlookers, observing the tremendous force of voice and language—the broad, ample, and frequent gestures—the tremulousness that sometimes underlies the swell of passion—the deadly and startling pallor of the face—thought that he was suffering from excitement almost touching and perhaps affrighting to behold; while others thought that the chief and most impressive feature of this perfect tornado of triumphant eloquence, was the perfect calm that lay in the heart and bosom of all that storm. There are two things which will tell you of the omnipotence of an orator—one is the effect of his speech on foes as well as friends, and the other is its effect upon himself. Both these evidences were present, for the Tories seemed to have been swept away by the cyclone as resistlessly as the Liberals and the Irish, and the Tory pæans in honour of the Old Man which were to be found in the Tory organs next day only echoed the bounteous and generous recognition of his matchless powers which one heard from Tories in the lobbies throughout the evening. And as to the effect of the speech on Mr. Gladstone himself, it was to bring out a dramatic and mimetic power on which he very rarely ventures, and which in anybody but a perfect master of the House of Commons might descend into bad taste and bad tact. I know that Mr. Gladstone is really triumphant when he brings these qualities into requisition. I remember the last time he used them with any approach to the abundance of this occasion was when he was making the great speech which preceded his defeat in 1885 and the fall of his Government. On that occasion I remember very well that the Old Man puckered up his forehead into a thousand wrinkles, turned and twisted that very wonderfully mobile mouth of his—with its lips so full with strength and at the same time so sensitive with all the Celtic passion of his Highland ancestry—until sometimes you almost thought it a pity he had not taken to the Lyceum and some of the great parts in which Mr. Henry Irving has made his fame. There was another occasion which dwells in my memory. It was on one of the nights of the debate on the Coercion Bill. He was describing the promises of equal laws to Ireland, with the restrictions on Irish liberty which were contained in the Bill, and as he described restriction he gradually raised the fingers on one hand, then turned them spiral fashion until he had pointed the index finger to the roof—- as though he were describing the ascent of a funambulist to the top of spiral stairs. It was at once eloquent and grotesque, and the House cheered and cheered yet again without any distinction of party—the friends in admiration of the splendid eloquence of the gesture, the foes in hearty admiration of the great and perennial spirit of the great Old Man.
Comedy.
But on May 11th there was a new and a bolder departure. Most of my readers have seen that remarkable little lay written by Mr. Gilbert for Miss Anderson to display the range and variety of her powers—"Comedy and Tragedy." Mr. Gladstone gave proof of powers of equally wide versatility; and all at the expense of poor Joe. First for the Comedy. I must quote the passage of the speech to explain what I mean:—
"My right hon. friend has a bundle of quotations. He says he has fortified himself. (Laughter.) He said he had fortified himself against me when I said there could be no supremacy without the presence of Irish members in this House. I never asserted anything of the kind. (Cheers.) 'Oh,' he said, 'I have got the papers'—(laughter)—and the party opposite cheered at the expected triumph. (Laughter.)"
When Mr. Gladstone came to the words. "'Oh,' he said, 'I have got the papers,'" Mr. Gladstone began fumbling in his pockets, just as Mr. Chamberlain had done—with that air of distraction and coming despair which appears on everybody's face when he is anxiously seeking for an important but mislaid paper; and the resemblance, heightened by just the least imitation of Mr. Chamberlain's voice, was so striking, so startling, so melodramatic, that the whole House, Tories and all, joined in the wild delight of laughter and cheers—laughter at the comic power, delight at the splendid courage and exuberant spirit of the prancing old war-horse, delighted, exhilarated, and fortified by the joy of battle and by the richness of his own powers and courage. Even yet the comic vein was not exhausted. Mr. Chamberlain—as I have said—had made copious quotations from past Irish speeches, and asked that they should be retracted. "If the work of retraction were to begin, is my right hon. friend," asked Mr. Gladstone, with scorn in every tone, "willing to submit himself to the same process of examination? If the work of retraction were to begin he would have a lot to do." And then came the passage which has already passed into Parliamentary history. "If we are to stand in white sheets, my right hon. friend would have to wear that ornamental garment standing in a very conspicuous position."
and Tragedy.
And then came the other and the tragic note. Again I have to quote the exact words to convey the impression and explain the description:—
"If I were in the position of one of those gentlemen—if I had seen the wrongs and the sufferings of Ireland in former times, if the iron had entered into my soul as it had entered into theirs, it would have been impossible. I should not have been more temperate possibly than some of them under those circumstances of the language I used. (Cheers.)"
It was when he uttered the words, "if the iron had entered into my soul," that Mr. Gladstone ventured on the bold gesture of striking his hand against his breast—a simple gesture, and not an uncommon gesture in itself—but you should have heard the resonant and thrilling voice—you should have been under the entrancing and almost bewildering spell beneath which at this moment all the imagination and emotion of the House lay supine, helpless, and drugged—to have understood the shiver of feeling which passed through everybody. And so he went on—rising higher and higher—a deeper harmony in every note—a more splendid strength in every sentence—till you almost thought you were looking at some great bird—with the strength and splendour of the eagle, the full-hearted and passionate melody of the lark—as it soared on, on its even and well-poised wing, higher and higher to the dim and blue ether of the upper air.
A strange scene.
Right to the last word, there was the same unbroken, passionate strength and fervour, so that when it was all ended the House gave a start as though it had to rouse itself from some splendid vision. And then came that rude and quick awakening which, in the world of actualities, always bursts in upon the most solemn and moving hours. At about half-past eight every evening the Speaker or Chairman—whichever is in the chair—gets up and goes out to tea. Before doing so the presiding officer calls upon the next speaker, and when the speaker has been named, cries "Order, order!" and promptly disappears into the room where his meal is laid. Scarcely had Mr. Gladstone sat down when Mr. Mellor called upon Sir Richard Temple, then cried "Order, order!" and, almost within a couple of seconds after Mr. Gladstone had concluded, had vanished from the House. This was immediately followed by the stampede of the rest of the House—for by half-past eight everybody was famished with hunger—and the Chamber was left empty, silent, and dim, with a suddenness that was startling, disconcerting, and a little disillusioning. And then it was that the strongest proof was given of the effect of the speech.
The outburst.
The House, I say, became empty—but not altogether. The Irish Benches, which had become crowded as the great apology for Ireland was being pronounced, remained still full—full, but silent. There was something strange, weird, startling in those benches, full and yet silent, amid all this emptiness and almost audible stillness; and some of the Liberal members, who had left the House in the mad rush to dinner, quietly stole back to see what was going to happen. The explanation of the mystery soon came. After he sat down, ghastly pale, almost painfully panting after this tremendous effort, Mr. Gladstone tarried a little to recover himself—to say a few words to Mr. John Morley—to scribble a note. At last he rose, and then came the moment for which those silent Irish Benches had been waiting. With one accord, with one quick and simultaneous spring, the Irish members were on their feet—hats and handkerchiefs were waved; there was the suggestion of tears under the swelling cheers. Nor were the Irish left alone. The Liberals who had slipped back joined in. The effectiveness of their cheers was heightened by the fact that they were not in their places, but standing on the floor. From out their cheering ranks stood the splendid figure—the broad shoulders, the massive head, the shaggy beard and hair, all the virility and sensitiveness that are found in the splendid form of Mr. Allen—manufacturer and workman, poet and Radical. The Old Man, splendidly composed, and yet profoundly moved, looked back, gave a courtly bow, and then went out. And here it was that a little scene took place of which the public prints have hitherto contained no mention. In her corner place in the gallery had sat throughout this dazzling speech that best of friends and truest of wives, who has been the guardian angel of Mr. Gladstone's life; and with outstretched hands and dim eyes, she received her triumphant husband in the corridor, where she had been waiting for him.
Deeper and deeper.
Friday, May 12th, I may dismiss in a few words. As the closure had been refused on Thursday night, the Obstructives started again on the first clause on Friday afternoon—Mr. T.W. Russell leading the van. He had nothing to say beyond what he had said a hundred times already, even in the course of the present Session; and his speech would have passed unnoticed had it not been for a brisk but odious and ignoble little storm which he and the Tories managed to raise between them. Mr. Russell declared that he heard the phrase across the floor, "What the devil are you saying?" and stopped as if the heavens and the earth must refuse to go round on their axes because of this introduction into Parliament of the negligences of private conversation. Mr. Gibbs—a very pestilent and very empty member of the young army of silly obstructives—moved that the words be taken down—an ancient formula not heard of for years till the present Session, when everything is turned to account for the purpose of occupying time and breaking down the House of Commons, and at the same time accused Mr. Swift McNeill of having used the words. Mr. McNeill indignantly denied the charge: then Mr. Macartney attributed them to Mr. Sexton—another and equally indignant denial; and then much uproar and contradictions and apologies—the lubberly and unmannerly interventions of Lord Cranborne as usual conspicuous—and, finally, the end of the storm in a teacup. Positively loathsome—the whole business methods of the Tories to grasp at everything to rouse a storm or provoke a scene; and altogether disheartening to those who don't wish to see the House of Commons reduced to the drivel and turbulence and anarchy of a French Convention. Finally, a little after six o'clock, the first clause of the Bill had passed, with a majority of 42. The House of Commons had decided that there shall be established in Ireland a Legislature of two Chambers. Then in a graceful, well-delivered, and pleasant little speech, Mr. Victor Cavendish opened the fight on the second clause. The evening was devoted to the Anti-vaccinationists—answered triumphantly in an admirable and unanswerable little speech by Sir Walter Foster—with as many as seventy men voting against vaccination. I had no idea previously that the proportion of lunatics in the Assembly was so large.