To my surprise, although apparently interested, he said very quietly:
"But the House of Commons couldn't admit me as a peer."
"That's what I should hope. If I were in your place, and rejected, I would stand again for the next vacancy and force the issue. Insist that one having renounced his hereditary privileges becomes elevated to citizenship and is eligible for any position to which he is elected. Victory is certain. That's playing the part of a Cromwell. Democracy worships a precedent-breaker or a precedent-maker."
We dropped the subject. Telling Morley of this afterward, I shall never forget his comment:
"My friend, Cromwell doesn't reside at Number 38 Berkeley Square." Slowly, solemnly spoken, but conclusive.
Fine fellow, Rosebery, only he was handicapped by being born a peer. On the other hand, Morley, rising from the ranks, his father a surgeon hard-pressed to keep his son at college, is still "Honest John," unaffected in the slightest degree by the so-called elevation to the peerage and the Legion of Honor, both given for merit. The same with "Bob" Reid, M.P., who became Earl Loreburn and Lord High Chancellor, Lord Haldane, his successor as Chancellor; Asquith, Prime Minister, Lloyd George, and others. Not even the rulers of our Republic to-day are more democratic or more thorough men of the people.
When the world's foremost citizen passed away, the question was, Who is to succeed Gladstone; who can succeed him? The younger members of the Cabinet agreed to leave the decision to Morley. Harcourt or Campbell-Bannerman? There was only one impediment in the path of the former, but that was fatal—inability to control his temper. The issue had unfortunately aroused him to such outbursts as really unfitted him for leadership, and so the man of calm, sober, unclouded judgment was considered indispensable.
I was warmly attached to Harcourt, who in turn was a devoted admirer of our Republic, as became the husband of Motley's daughter. Our census and our printed reports, which I took care that he should receive, interested him deeply. Of course, the elevation of the representative of my native town of Dunfermline (Campbell-Bannerman)[64] gave me unalloyed pleasure, the more so since in returning thanks from the Town House to the people assembled he used these words:
"I owe my election to my Chairman, Bailie Morrison."
The Bailie, Dunfermline's leading radical, was my uncle. We were radical families in those days and are so still, both Carnegies and Morrisons, and intense admirers of the Great Republic, like that one who extolled Washington and his colleagues as "men who knew and dared proclaim the royalty of man"—a proclamation worth while. There is nothing more certain than that the English-speaking race in orderly, lawful development will soon establish the golden rule of citizenship through evolution, never revolution: