Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography

by George William Erskine Russell

Lord Frederick Cavendish was laid to rest with his forefathers at Edensor, near Chatsworth, on the 11th of May, 1882—and on the evening of that day the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, brought in a "Prevention of Crimes Bill" for Ireland, designed to supersede the Coercion Act which had proved such a dismal failure. The new Bill provided for the creation of special tribunals composed of Judges of the Superior Courts, who could sit without juries; and gave the police the right of search at any time in proclaimed districts, and authorized them to arrest any persons unable to give an account of themselves. The Bill was succinctly described as "Martial Law in a Wig," and, as such, it was exactly adapted to the needs of a country in which social war had raged unchecked for two years. The murderous conspiracy died hard, but experience soon justified those who had maintained that, as soon as a proper tribunal was constituted, evidence would be forthcoming. The Act was courageously administered by Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan, under circumstances of personal and political peril which the present generation can hardly realize. In less than two years the murderers of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke had been hanged; the conspiracy which organized the murders had been broken up; and social order was permanently re-established.

Such were the excellent effects of the Crimes Act of 1882, and annalists treating of this period have commonly said that the Act was due to the murders in the Phœnix Park. Some years ago Lord James of Hereford, who, as Attorney-General, had been closely associated with these events, placed in my hands a written statement of the circumstances in which the Act originated, and begged that, if possible, the truth of the matter might be made known. This may be a convenient opportunity for giving his testimony.

"The Bill of 1882 was designed, and on the stocks, during the month of April. I saw F. Cavendish as to some of its details almost immediately before his starting for Ireland. As Chief Secretary, he discussed with me the provisions the Bill should contain. On Sunday, May 7, 1882, when the news of F. Cavendish's murder became known, I went to see Harcourt. He begged me to see that the drawing of the Bill was hastened on. About 2 o'clock I went to the Irish Office, and found the Irish Attorney-General hard at work on the Bill. The first draft of it was then in print. No doubt F. Cavendish's death tended to affect the subsequent framing of the Bill. Harcourt came upon the scenes. T—— and J—— were called to the assistance of the Irish draftsmen, and no doubt the Bill was rendered stronger in consequence of the events of May 6.

"I also well remember the change of front about the power of Search. The Irish Members in the most determined manner fought against the creation of this power.... Harcourt, who had charge of the Bill, would listen to none of these arguments, but Mr. Gladstone was much moved by them. There was almost a crisis produced in consequence of this disagreement; but Harcourt gave way, and the concession was announced."

It is not my purpose in these chapters to speak about my own performances in Parliament, but the foregoing allusion to the concession on the Right of Search tempts me to a personal confession. In the Bill, as brought in, there was a most salutary provision giving the police the right to search houses in which murders were believed to be plotted. After making us vote for this clause three times—on the First Reading, on the Second Reading, and in Committee—the Government, as we have just seen, yielded to clamour, and proposed on Report to alter the clause by limiting the Right of Search to day-time. I opposed this alteration, as providing a "close time for murder," and had the satisfaction of helping to defeat the Government. The Big-Wigs of the Party were extremely angry, and Mr. R. H. Hutton, in The Spectator, rebuked us in his most grandmotherly style. In reply, I quoted some words of his own. "There is nothing which injures true Liberalism more than the sympathy of its left wing with the loose ruffianism of unsettled States." "Such a State," I said, "is Ireland; and if, under the pressure of extraordinary difficulties, Ministers vacillate or waver in their dealings with it, the truest Liberalism, I believe, is that which holds them firmly to their duty."

In that sad Session of 1882 the troubles of the Government "came not single spies, but in battalions," and the most enduring of those troubles arose in Egypt. For the benefit of a younger generation, let me recall the circumstances.

Ismail Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, had accumulated a national debt of about £100,000,000, and the pressure on the wretched peasants who had to pay was crushing. Presently they broke out in revolt, partly with the hope of shaking off this burden, and partly with a view to establishing some sort of self-government. But the financiers who had lent money to Egypt took fright, and urged the Government to interfere and suppress the insurrection. A meeting of Tories was held in London on June 29th and the Tory Leaders made the most inflammatory speeches. Unhappily, the Government yielded to this show of violence. It was said by a close observer of Parliamentary institutions that "When the Government of the day and the Opposition of the day take the same side, one may be almost sure that some great wrong is at hand," and so it was now. On July 10th our fleet bombarded Alexandria, smashing its rotten forts with the utmost ease, and killing plenty of Egyptians. I remember to this day the sense of shame with which I read our Admiral's telegraphic despatch: "Enemy's fire weak and ineffectual."

The protest delivered on the following day, by Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the most consistent and the most disinterested politician whom I ever knew, deserves to be remembered.

"I say deliberately, and in doing so I challenge either Tory or Liberal to contradict me, that no Tory Government could have done what the Liberal Government did yesterday in bombarding those forts. If such a thing had been proposed, what would have happened? We should have had Sir William Harcourt stumping the country, and denouncing Government by Ultimatum. We should have had Lord Hartington coming down, and moving a Resolution condemning these proceedings being taken behind the back of Parliament. We should have had Mr. Chamberlain summoning the Caucuses. We should have had Mr. Bright declaiming in the Town Hall of Birmingham against the wicked Tory Government; and as for Mr. Gladstone, we all know that there would not have been a railway-train, passing a roadside station, that he would not have pulled up at, to proclaim non-intervention as the duty of the Government."