A Breakfast for the Unemployed.
The Parliamentary work of 1885 was Redistribution. The principles had been settled in secret conclave by the leaders on both sides; but the details were exhaustively discussed in the House of Commons. By this time we had become inured to Tory votes of censure on our Egyptian policy, and had always contrived to escape by the skin of our teeth; but we were in a disturbed and uneasy condition. We knew—for there was an incessant leakage of official secrets—that the Cabinet was rent by acute dissensions. The Whiggish section was in favour of renewing the Irish Crimes Act. The Radicals wished to let it expire, and proposed to conciliate Ireland by a scheme of National Councils. Between the middle of April and the middle of May, nine members of the Cabinet, for one cause or another, contemplated resignation. After one of these disputes Gladstone said to a friend: "A very fair Cabinet to-day—only three resignations." Six months later, after his Government had fallen, he wrote: "A Cabinet does not exist out of office, and no one in his senses could covenant to call the late Cabinet together." The solution of these difficulties came unexpectedly. The Budget introduced by Hugh Childers on the 30th of April proposed to meet a deficit by additional duties on beer and spirits; and was therefore extremely unpopular. Silently and skilfully, the Tories, the Irish, and the disaffected Liberals laid their plans. On Sunday, June 7th, Lord Henry Lennox—a leading Tory—told me at luncheon that we were to be turned out on the following day, and so, sure enough, we were, on an amendment to the Budget moved by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.[41] It was thought at the time that the Liberal wirepullers welcomed this defeat, as a way out of difficulties. Certainly no strenuous efforts were made to avert it. The scene in the House when the fatal figures were announced has been often described, and in my mind's eye I see clearly the image of Lord Randolph Churchill, dancing a kind of triumphant hornpipe on the bench which for five momentous years had been the seat of the Fourth Party. On the 24th of June Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the first time.
The break-up of the Government revealed to all the world the fact that the Liberal Party was cleft in twain. The Whig section was led by Lord Hartington, and the Radical section by Mr. Chamberlain. Gladstone did his best to mediate between the two, and so to present an unbroken front to the common foe. But the parting of the ways soon became painfully apparent. The fall of the Government involved, of course, the return of Lord Spencer from Ireland, and some of his friends resolved, after the manner of admiring Englishmen, to give him a public dinner. The current phrase was that we were to "Dine Spencer for coercing the Irish." As he had done that thoroughly for the space of three years, and, at the risk of his own life, had destroyed a treasonable and murderous conspiracy, he was well entitled to all the honours which we could give him. So it was arranged that the dinner was to take place at the Westminster Palace Hotel on the 24th of July. Shortly before the day arrived, Mr. Chamberlain said to me: "I think you had better not attend that dinner to Spencer. I am not going, nor is D——. Certainly Spencer has done his duty, and shown capital pluck; but I hope we should all have done the same, and there's no reason to mark it by a dinner. And, after all, coercion is not a nice business for Liberals, though we may be forced into it." However, as I had greatly admired Lord Spencer's administration, and as his family and mine had been politically associated for a century, I made a point of attending, and a capital evening we had. There was an enthusiastic and representative company of two hundred Liberals. Lord Hartington presided, and extolled Lord Spencer to the skies; and Lord Spencer justified the Crimes Act by saying that, when it was passed, there was an organization of thirty thousand Fenians, aided by branches in Scotland and England, and by funds from America, defying the law of the land in Ireland. Not a word in all this about Home Rule, or the Union of Hearts, but we cheered it to the echo, little dreaming what the next six months had in store for us.
Though I was thoroughly in favour of resolute dealing with murder and outrage, I was also—and this was a combination which sorely puzzled The Spectator—an enthusiastic Radical, and specially keen on the side of social reform. My views on domestic politics were substantially the same as those set forth with extraordinary vigour and effect in a long series of speeches by Mr. Chamberlain, who was now unmuzzled, and was making the fullest use of his freedom. He was then at the very zenith of his powers, and the scheme of political and social reform which he expounded is still, in my opinion, the best compendium of Radical politics; but it tended in the direction of what old-fashioned people called Socialism, and this was to Gladstone an abomination. One day, to my consternation, he asked me if it was true that Socialism had made some way among the younger Liberals, of whom I was then one. Endeavouring to parry a question which must have revealed my own guilt, I feebly asked if by Socialism my venerable Leader meant the practice of taking private property for public uses, or the performance by the State of what ought to be left to the individual; whereupon he replied, with startling emphasis: "I mean both, but I reserve my worst Billingsgate for the attack on private property."
On the 18th of September Gladstone issued his Address to the Electors of Midlothian—an exceedingly long-winded document, which seemed to commit the Liberal Party to nothing in particular. Verbosa et grandis epistola, said Mr. John Morley. "An old man's manifesto," wrote the Pall Mall. By contrast with this colourless but authoritative document, Mr. Chamberlain's scheme became known as "The Unauthorized Programme," and of that programme I was a zealous promoter.
As soon as the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill had passed into law, it was arranged that the dissolution should take place in November. The whole autumn was given up to electioneering. The newly-enfranchised labourers seemed friendly to the Liberal cause, but our bewildered candidates saw that their leaders were divided into two sections—one might almost say, two camps. This was a condition of things which boded disaster to the Liberal Party; but Gladstone never realized that Chamberlain was a power which it was madness to alienate.
On the 2nd of October I went on a visit to Hawarden, and the next day Gladstone opened a conversation on the state of the Party and the prospects of the Election. He said: "I believe you are in Chamberlain's confidence. Can you tell me what he means?" I replied that I was not the least in Chamberlain's confidence, though he had always been very friendly to me, and I admired his Programme. "But," I said, "I think that what he means is quite clear. He has no thought of trying to oust you from the Leadership of the Liberal Party; but he is determined that, when you resign it, he, and not Hartington, shall succeed you." This seemed to give the Chief some food for reflection, and then I ventured to follow up my advantage. "After all," I said, "Chamberlain has been your colleague for five years. Surely your best plan would be to invite him here, and ascertain his intentions from himself." If I had suggested that my host should invite the Sultan or the Czar, he could not have looked more surprised. "I have always made a point," he said, "of keeping this place clear of political transactions. We never invite anyone except private friends." "Well," I said, "but we are within six weeks of the Election, and it will never do for us to go to the country with you and Chamberlain professing two rival policies."
Backed by Mrs. Gladstone, I carried my point, and with my own hand wrote the telegram inviting Mr. Chamberlain. Unfortunately I had to leave Hawarden on the 6th of October, so I was not present at the meeting which I had brought about; but a few days later I had a letter from Mr. Chamberlain saying that, though his visit had been socially pleasant, it had been politically useless. He had not succeeded in making Gladstone see the importance of the Unauthorized Programme, and "if I were to drop it now," he said, "the stones would immediately cry out."
What then ensued is matter of history. Parliament was dissolved on the 18th of November. When the elections were finished, the Liberal Party was just short of the numerical strength which was requisite to defeat a combination of Tories and Parnellites. Lord Salisbury, therefore, retained office, but the life of his administration hung by a thread.
On the 24th of November, 1884, the great Lord Shaftesbury, moved by the spirit of prophecy, had written: "In a year or so we shall have Home Rule disposed of (at all hazards) to save us from daily and hourly bores." On the 17th of December, 1885, the world was astonished by an anonymous announcement in two newspapers—and the rest followed suit next day—that, if Gladstone were returned to power, he would be prepared to deal, in a liberal spirit, with the demand for Home Rule. This announcement was an act of folly not easy to explain or condone. We now know whose act it was, and we know that it was committed without Gladstone's privity. As Lord Morley says: "Never was there a moment when every consideration of political prudence more imperatively counselled silence." But now every political tongue in the United Kingdom was set wagging, and Gladstone could neither confirm nor deny. Our bewilderment and confusion were absolute. No one knew what was coming next; who was on what side; or whither his party—or, indeed, himself—was tending. One point only was clear: if Gladstone meant what he seemed to mean, the Parnellites would support him, and the Tories would be turned out. The new Parliament met on the 21st of January, 1886. On the—, the Government were defeated on an amendment to the Address, in favour of Municipal Allotments, and Lord Salisbury resigned. It was a moment of intense excitement, and everyone tasted for a day or two "the joy of eventful living."