Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography

by George William Erskine Russell

It happens that Agricultural Labourers are the class of voters with which I am most familiar; and an intimate acquaintance with these men has taught me increasingly to admire their staunchness, their shrewdness, and their racy humour. Two or three of the old sayings come back to memory as I write. "More pigs and less parsons" must have been a survival from the days of Tithe. "The Black Recruiting Sergeant" was a nickname for a canvassing Incumbent. "I tell you how it is with a State-Parson," cried a Village Hampden: "if you take away his book, he can't preach. If you take away his gown he mayn't preach. If you take away his screw, he'll be d—d if he'll preach." A Radical M.P. suddenly deserted his constituency and took a peerage, and this was the verdict of the Village Green: "Mister So-and-so says he's going to the House of Lords to 'leaven it with Liberal principles.' Bosh! Mr. So-and-so can't no more leaven the House of Lords than you can sweeten a cartload of muck with a pot of marmalade."

Aylesbury returned two Members to Parliament, and its political history had been chequered. When first I came to know it, the two members were Mr. Samuel George Smith and Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild (afterwards Lord Rothschild). Mr. Smith was a Tory. Sir Nathaniel professed to be a Liberal; but, as his Liberalism was of the sort which had doggedly supported Lord Beaconsfield all through the Eastern Question, the more enthusiastic spirits in the constituency felt that they were wholly unrepresented. It was they who invited me to stand. From the first, Sir Nathaniel made it known that he would not support or coalesce with me; and perhaps, considering the dissimilarity of our politics, it was just as well. So there were three candidates, fighting independently for two seats; there was no Corrupt Practices Act in those days; and the situation was neatly summarized by a tradesman of the town. "Our three candidates are Mr. S. G. Smith, head of 'Smith, Payne & Co.;' Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild, head of 'N. M. Rothschild & Sons,' and Mr. George Russell, who, we understand, has the Duke of Bedford behind him. So we are looking forward to a very interesting contest." That word interesting was well chosen.

Now began the most vivid and enjoyable portion of my life. Everything conspired to make it pleasant. In the first place, I believed absolutely in my cause. I was not, as Sydney Smith said, "stricken by the palsy of candour." There were no doubts or questionings or ambiguities in my mind. My creed with regard both to foreign and to domestic politics was clear, positive, and deliberate. I was received with the most extraordinary kindness and enthusiasm by people who really longed to have a hand in the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield, and who believed in their politics as part of their religion.

After my first speech in the Corn Exchange of Aylesbury I was severely reprehended because I had called Lord Beaconsfield a "Jew." If I had known better, I should have said "a Semite" or "an Israelite," or—his own phrase—"a Mosaic Arab," and all would have been well. I had and have close friends among the Jews, so my use of the offending word was not dictated by racial or social prejudice. But it expressed a strong conviction. I held then, and I hold now, that it was a heavy misfortune for England that, during the Eastern Question, her Prime Minister was one of the Ancient Race. The spiritual affinity between Judaism and Mahomedanism, founded on a common denial of the Christian Creed, could not be without its influence on a statesman whose deepest convictions, from first to last, were with the religion of his forefathers. In 1876 Mr. Gladstone wrote—"Some new lights about Disraeli's Judaic feeling, in which he is both consistent and conscientious, have come in upon me." And similar "lights" dictated my action and my language at the crisis of 1879-1880.

Another element of enjoyment was that I was young—only twenty-six. Youth is an invaluable asset in a first campaign. Youth can canvass all day, and harangue all night. It can traverse immense distances without fatigue, make speeches in the open air without catching cold, sleep anywhere, eat anything, and even drink port with a grocer's label on it, at five in the afternoon. Then again, I had a natural and inborn love of public speaking, and I have known no enjoyment in life equal to that of addressing a great audience which you feel to be actively sympathetic.

Yes, that spring of 1880 was a delightful time. As the condemned highwayman said to the chaplain who was exhorting him to repentance for his life of adventure on the road—"You dog, it was delicious." It was all so new. One emerged (like Herbert Gladstone) from the obscurity of College rooms or from the undistinguished herd of London ball-goers, or from the stables and stubbles of a country home, and became, all in a moment, a Personage. For the first time in one's life one found that people—grown-up, sensible, vote-possessing people—wished to know one's opinions, and gave heed to one's words. For the first time, one had "Colours" of one's own, as if one were a Regiment or a University; for the first time one beheld one's portrait, flattering though perhaps mud-bespattered, on every wall. For the first time one was cheered in the street, and entered the Corn-Exchange amid what the Liberal paper called "thunders of applause," and the opponent's organ whittled down to "cheers."

But canvassing cannot, I think, be reckoned among the pleasures of a candidature. One must be very young indeed to find it even tolerable. A candidate engaged in a house-to-house canvass has always seemed to me (and not least clearly when I was the candidate) to sink beneath the level of humanity. To beg for votes, as if they were alms or broken victuals, is a form of mendicancy which is incompatible with common self-respect, and yet it is a self-abasement which thirty years ago custom imperatively demanded. "If my vote ain't worth calling for, I suppose it ain't worth 'aving" was the formula in which the elector stated his requirement.

To trudge, weary and footsore, dusty and deliquescent, from door to door; to ask, with damnable iteration, if Mr. So-and-so is at home, and to meet the invariable rejoinder, "No, he isn't," not seldom running on with—"And, if he was, he wouldn't see you;" to find oneself (being Blue) in a Red quarter, where the very children hoot at you, and inebriate matrons shout personalities from upper windows—all this is detestable enough. But to find the voter at home and unfriendly is an experience which plunges the candidate lower still. A curious tradition of privileged insolence, which runs through all English history from the days when great men kept Jesters and the Universities had their Terræ Filii, asserts itself, by immemorial usage, at an election. People who would be perfectly civil if one called on them in the ordinary way, and even rapturously grateful if they could sell one six boxes of lucifers or a pound of toffee, permit themselves a freedom of speech to the suppliant candidate, which tests the fibre of his manhood. If he loses his temper and answers in like sort, the door is shut on him with some Parthian jeer, and, as he walks dejectedly away, the agent says—"Ah, it's a pity you offended that fellow. He's very influential in this ward, and I believe a civil word would have won him." If, on the other hand, the candidate endures the raillery and smiles a sickly smile, he really fares no better. After a prolonged battle of wits (in which he takes care not to be too successful) he discovers that the beery gentleman in shirtsleeves has no vote, and that, in the time which he has spent in these fruitless pleasantries, he might have canvassed half the street.

There is, of course, a pleasanter side to canvassing. It warms the cockles of one's heart to be greeted with the words, "Don't waste your time here, sir. My vote's yours before you ask for it. There's your picture over the chimney-piece." And when a wife says, "My husband is out at work, but I know he means to vote for you," one is inclined to embrace her on the spot.