6. As to intentions, I am determined to have none at present, to leave space to the government—I should wish to encourage them if I properly could—above all, on no account to say or do anything which would enable the nationalists to establish rival biddings between us. If this storm of rumours continues to rage, it may be necessary for me to write some new letter to my constituents, but I am desirous to do nothing, simply leaving the field open for the government until time makes it necessary to decide. Of our late colleagues I have had most communication with Granville, Spencer, Rosebery. Would you kindly send this on to Granville?
I think you will find this in conformity with my public declarations, though some blanks are filled up. I have in truth thought it my duty without in the least committing myself or any one else, to think through the subject as well as I could, being equally convinced of its urgency and bigness. If H. and N. are with you, pray show them this letter, which is a very hasty one, [pg 264] for I am so battered with telegrams that I hardly know whether I stand on my head or my heels....
With regard to the letter I sent you, my opinion is that there is a Parnell party and a separation or civil war party, and the question which is to have the upper hand will have to be decided in a limited time. My earnest recommendation to everybody is not to commit himself. Upon this rule, under whatever pressure, I shall act as long as I can. There shall be no private negotiation carried on by me, but the time may come when I shall be obliged to speak publicly. Meanwhile I hope you will keep in free and full communication with old colleagues. Pray put questions if this letter seems ambiguous....
Pray remember that I am at all times ready for personal communication, should you think it desirable.
III
Before receiving this letter, Lord Hartington was startled, as all the world was, to come on something in the newspapers that instantly created a new situation. Certain prints published on December 17 what was alleged to be Mr. Gladstone's scheme for an Irish settlement.[168] It proposed in terms the creation of an Irish parliament. Further particulars were given in detail, but with these we need not concern ourselves. The Irish parliament was enough. The public mind, bewildered as it was by the situation that the curious issue of the election had created, was thrown by this announcement into extraordinary commotion. The facts are these. Mr. Herbert Gladstone visited London at this time (Dec. 14), partly in consequence of a speech made a few days before by Sir C. Dilke, and of the club talk which the speech had set going. It was taken to mean that he and Mr. Chamberlain, the two radical leaders, thought that such an Irish policy as might be concocted between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell would receive no general support from the liberal party, and that it would be much safer to [pg 265]
Reports From Hawarden
leave the tories in power, in the expectation that some moderate measures of reform might be got from them, and that meanwhile they would become committed with the Irishmen. Tactics of this kind were equivalent to the exclusion of Mr. Gladstone, for in every letter that he wrote he pronounced the Irish question urgent. Mr. Herbert Gladstone had not been long in London before the impression became strong upon him, that in the absence of a guiding hint upon the Irish question, the party might be drifting towards a split. Under this impression he had a conversation with the chief of an important press agency, who had previously warned him that the party was all at sea. To this gentleman, in an interview at which no notes were taken and nothing read from papers—so little formal was it—he told his own opinions on the assumed opinions of Mr. Gladstone, all in general terms, and only with the negative view of preventing friendly writers from falling into traps. Unluckily it would seem to need at least the genius of a Bismarck, to perform with precision and success the delicate office of inspiring a modern oracle on the journalistic tripod. Here, what was intended to be a blameless negative soon swelled, as the oracular fumes are wont to do, into a giant positive. In conversations with another journalist, who was also his private friend (Dec. 15), he used language which the friend took to justify the pretty unreserved announcement that Mr. Gladstone was about to set to work in earnest on home rule.
“With all these matters,” Mr. Herbert Gladstone wrote to a near relative at the time, “my father had no more connection than the man in the moon, and until each event occurred, he knew no more of it than the man in the street.” Mr. Gladstone on the same day (Dec. 17) told the world by telegraph that the statement was not an accurate representation of his views, but a speculation upon them; he added that it had not been published with his knowledge or authority. There can be no doubt, whatever else may be said, that the publication was neither to his advantage, nor in conformity with his view of the crisis. No statesman in our history has ever been more careful of the golden rule of [pg 266] political strategy—to neglect of which Frederick the Great traced the failure of Joseph II.—not to take the second step before you have taken the first. Neither scheme nor intention had yet crystallised in his mind. Never was there a moment when every consideration of political prudence more imperatively counselled silence. Mr. Gladstone's denial of all responsibility was not found to be an explicit contradiction; it was a repudiation of the two newspapers, but it was not a repudiation of an Irish parliament. Therefore people believed the story the more. Friends and foes became more than ever alert, excited, alarmed, and in not a few cases vehemently angry. This unauthorised publication with the qualified denial, placed Mr. Gladstone in the very position which he declared that he would not take up; it made him a trespasser on ground that belonged to the government. Any action on his part would in his own view not only be unnecessary; it would be unwarrantable; it would be in the highest degree injurious and mischievous.[169] Yet whatever it amounted to, some of this very injury and mischief followed.
Lord Hartington no sooner saw what was then called the Hawarden kite flying in the sky, than he felt its full significance. He at once wrote to Mr. Gladstone, partly in reply to the letter of the 17th already given, and pointed with frankness to what would follow. No other subject would be discussed until the meeting of parliament, and it would be discussed with the knowledge, or what would pass for knowledge, that in Mr. Gladstone's opinion the time for concession to Ireland had arrived, and that concession was practicable. In replying to his former letter Mr. Gladstone had invited personal communication, and Lord Hartington thought that he might in a few days avail himself of it, though (December 18) he feared that little advantage would follow. In spite of urgent arguments from wary friends, Lord Hartington at once proceeded to write to his chairman in Lancashire (December 20), informing the public that no proposals of liberal policy on the Irish demand had been communicated to him; for his own part he stood to what [pg 267]