CHAPTER VIII
The House of Commons Press Gallery—Disraeli as Orator—The
Story of the Dry Champagne—The Labour Member—Dr Kenealy's
Fiasco—Mr Newdigate's Eloquence—Lord Beaconsfield's
Success—“Stone-walling”—Robert Lowe's Classics—The Press
Gallery and Mr Gladstone.
I forget precisely how it came about that I secured my first sessional appointment in the gallery of the House of Commons. Some member of the reporting staff of the Daily News was disabled or had gone upon the spree. Anyway the staff was shorthanded for a night, and I was told that I could earn a guinea by presenting myself to the chief at the House of Commons, and that there would probably be very little indeed to do for it. I attended accordingly and found that my whole duty for the evening consisted in inscribing on three separate sheets of paper, “Murray follows Murphy—Pullen follows.” I got my guinea and was instructed to appear again on the following afternoon when I found a very different condition of affairs prevailing. Every bench was packed, the side galleries were full, and it would have been impossible to squeeze another person into the Stranger's Gallery above the clock. A great field night was toward, and from the time at which I first entered the box at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon until two the following morning, my pencil was kept going without cessation, note-taking or transcribing.
I have quite forgotten what the fight was about, but it was then that I first caught sight of the parliamentary heroes of the time. Gladstone was in his place with Hartington and Bright and the rugged Forster, and Sir William Harcourt and all the rest of his henchmen. Disraeli sat impassive opposite with folded arms and closed eyes, with his chin resting on his breast. The only clear impression I brought out of the rush and hurry of the night was that whereas Disraeli, whenever it came to be my turn to be in the reporter's box, was apparently sound in slumber and utterly oblivious of all that was going on, he rose an hour after midnight and presented a masterly analysis of the whole debate, interspersed with snatches of a fine ironic mockery. His method as an orator was far from being impressive or agreeable, his voice was veiled and husky, and once or twice when he dropped the ironic vein and affected to be serious, he seemed to me to fall into burlesque. “It would be idle,” he said, and there he brought his elbows resoundingly to his ribs, “to suppose”—and there the elbows came down energetically again—“that at such a crisis”—and here was another repetition of the grotesque gesture—“Her Majesty's Ministers”—more rib and elbow work—“would endeavour,” and so on and so on, in what seemed to one listener at least to be the merest insincerity. His irony was perfect, his assumption of earnestness a farce. Robert Lowe was put up to answer him, and after coughing out a score or two of biting trenchant phrases, with a page of notes almost touching his white albino eyebrows and the tip of his nose, every sentence punctuated with a roar of laughter, cheers and protests, he sat down. Among the speakers I heard that night were Mr Beresford Hope and Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the latter of whom offered to the House quite a sheaf of carefully prepared impromptu. Again I got my guinea, and again I was asked to appear on the following night, and at the end of that week, the defaulting member of the staff not having again put in an appearance, I was formally enrolled for the rest of the session. I do not profess to record in anything like their chronological order the events which most impressed me, but many scenes occur to me as being worth remembering.
Perhaps the most remarkable example of Disraeli's careless audacity was afforded on the occasion on which, in the House of Commons, he contrived to denounce his great rival as a liar, without infringing the etiquette of the House. I was on what is called or used to be called the “victim” turn that week. It was the duty of the victim to stay on in the gallery after all other members of his staff had left the House, and to watch proceedings until the Assembly was adjourned. On one occasion, I remember, I was on duty for seventy-two hours. That was when Parnell made his famous stand against the Government, and the Irish members went off in detachments to sleep at the Westminster Hotel and came back in detachments to keep the parliamentary ball a-rolling.
Disraeli's famous escapade was made on another occasion in the small hours of the morning and so far as I know I am the only surviving eye and ear witness of the occurrence. Shortly before the dinner hour on the preceding evening, somebody brought up from the lobby to the gallery the intelligence that Mr Disraeli had called for a pint of champagne, and that was taken to indicate his intention to make a speech. When Mr Gladstone was bent upon a great effort, he generally prepared himself for it by taking the yolk of an egg beaten up in a glass of sherry, Mr Bright's priming was said to be a glass of a particular old port, and there was a malicious whisper to the effect that Mr Lowe, whilst Chancellor of the Exchequer made ready to enter the oratorical arena by taking a glass of iced water at the bar, being moved to his choice of a stimulant by considerations of economy. Mr Disraeli then was reported to the gallery as having taken his half-bottle, and very shortly afterwards he slipped into the House from behind the Speaker's chair and assumed his accustomed seat. Some quite inconsiderable Member of the Conservative party was on his legs, and we all supposed that on his chiefs arrival he would bring his speech to a close. He prosed along, however, until the House adjourned for dinner, and Disraeli's opportunity was for the meantime lost. He left the House at the hour of adjournment and did not return until about one o'clock in the morning. When at last he rose, he entered upon a long tale which at first seemed to have no bearing whatever upon any business the House could possibly have in contemplation. “Mr Speaker, sir,” he began, “it will be within the memory of many right honourable and honourable gentlemen, members of this House, that one of the most distinguished ornaments at an earlier period of its history was the late greatly lamented Sir Robert Peel. One of Sir Robert Peel's most intimate friends was Colonel Ellis, a less distinguished member of this Assembly. Colonel Ellis, sir, was a noted authority in all matters relating to gourmandising and his opinion was especially respected with regard to the quality of wines. At the time of which I speak, champagne was a liqueured and sugared beverage, mainly relegated to the use and for the enjoyment of the ladies.”
The House sat in an amazed speculation as to whither the orator was being led by this extraordinary exordium, but Mr Disraeli flowed on unmoved.
“It happened that a friend upon the continent sent to Sir Robert Peel a case of dry champagne, a beverage then almost unknown in this country. Sir Robert invited Colonel Ellis to dine with him and to taste and to pronounce upon the novel beverage, and when the repast had been discussed, Sir Robert turned upon his guest and inquired of him, with a solemnity befitting the occasion: 'Pray, Colonel Ellis, what is your opinion of dry champagne?' To which Colonel Ellis, with a solemnity equal to Sir Robert's own, responded: 'I believe that the man who is capable of saying that he likes dry champagne, is capable of saying anything.' Now, sir, it is not within my purpose or my province to charge the right honourable gentleman who controls the destinies of the party opposite with tergiversation, but this I will say that, on my honour and my conscience, I believe that he is capable of declaring that he is fond of dry champagne!”
This astonishing sally was greeted with roars of laughter and cries of disapproval, neither of which moved the speaker in the least. The incident somehow remained unreported, but one can easily fancy the avidity with which it would have been pounced upon by the alerter journalism of modern days.
Mr Thomas Burt was the first working man to be returned to Parliament, where his sterling qualities of character and his unassuming and natural demeanour made a very favourable impression. But a year or two after his return, he was joined by a Labour representative who displayed the characteristics of altogether a different sort. For one thing, he was a vulgarly overdressed man, and he used to sprawl about the benches with outstretched arms, making his cry of condescending patronage heard in answer to any utterance of which he might approve from such inconsiderable persons as Gladstone or Harcourt or Forster. His “Hear, hear, hear,” was the very essence of a self-satisfied and unconscious insolence. He was a man who would have patronised the angel Gabriel, and he was quite unconscious of his own offensiveness until he tried his hand upon Disraeli, when he found his level once for all and with a ludicrous swiftness.