At a much earlier period of my acquaintance with him the Duke gave another example of his good nature and want of fussiness. When the split came in the Liberal party and the Liberal Unionist organisation was created under his leadership and that of Mr. Chamberlain, I was chosen as I have related elsewhere to act as Editor of the party organ, The Liberal Unionist. Each number was to contain an article by some man of importance, so I naturally asked Lord Hartington, as he then was, to supply the signed article for the first number. I was entirely new to the task of editing, and the Duke had never, oddly enough, written anything before for publication, though, of course, he had made plenty of speeches. The Duke was old-fashioned in his ways and did not have a typewriter or a secretary, but wrote with his own hand. It was a very good handwriting, but not quite printer-proof. Like all first numbers mine was late. The proofs of the Duke's article were not sent out early enough, with the result that we had to go to press without getting back a corrected proof from the Duke. The result was one or two bad misprints; the Duke was not angry—only sad, for he thought it might make him look ridiculous. I was told, however, by excited members of the Committee that I had made an awful blunder and must go and apologise for so bad a beginning. Naturally, I was eager to express my regret, and went down at once to the House of Commons and sent in for him. Now, as ill-luck would have it, he was in the middle of an important debate on Home Rule and just on the point of rising to speak when he received my message. However, in the kindest way he came out, to see, as he said, whether he could do anything for me, and apologised most profusely for having kept me waiting for ten or twelve minutes. It was not, indeed, till these apologies had been got over that I was able to make my apologies, which he received in the most delightful way. If he had been a pompous prig, he might so easily have lectured me (for I was not 26) on how important it was for a young man just entering political life, etc., etc. Of course, he had no thought of making me his special adherent by his good temper and easiness. Such things never entered his head. All the same, his courtesy, consideration, and evident determination not to take advantage of my slip, made a deep impression on me. A final example of the Duke's inability to realise that it mattered to anybody else what he did was shown when he let Mr. Balfour, then Prime Minister, persuade him to remain in the Unionist Ministry in 1905 when the rest of his Free Trade colleagues resigned. I felt none of the amazement mixed with indignation felt by some of the Liberal Unionists, because I knew my man, I felt, indeed, quite sure that what had happened was that the Duke imagined that nobody would misunderstand him and that perhaps, as he said, it was a pity when so many people were resigning that he should resign also. He wouldn't be missed and so why should he not just remain where he was? I felt equally sure, however, that in a very little time he would come to understand the importance of clearing up his position.
I was on manoeuvres and riding with the Hampshire Yeomanry at a great sham fight on the Wiltshire downs, when I heard of the Cabinet crisis. I well remember that on a hill-top, which was finally carried by our side, I met the present Lord Middleton, then Mr. St. John Broderick, Secretary of State for War and learned from him what had happened. That night I went home to write on the crisis. When I got home I said to my wife, "The Duke has not resigned, but it is all right. I will write an article in The Spectator which, while perfectly sympathetic, will set forth the situation in a way which will be certain to bring the Duke out." The result was as I expected.
I was interested some time afterwards to hear from one of his relatives that my article was largely instrumental in determining him to follow his followers in the matter of resignation. Almost the last time I saw the Duke of Devonshire affords another example of his good-nature, of his plain-spokenness, of his humanity, and of his public spirit. I had always been, and still am, deeply concerned in the housing question. We cannot be a really civilised nation unless we can get good houses and cheap houses for the working-classes. Not being a philosopher, I had always supposed that one way of getting good and cheap houses was to find some improved form of construction. I have been informed, however, by my Socialist friends that this is an entire mistake and that there are much better ways. Though admitting that this was possible, and hoping that it might be, I was always inclined to add, though I made no converts,—"However good the other scheme, cheap construction, granted it is also adequate construction, must be a desirable premium upon any and every other scheme, financial or rhetorical, of getting good houses." Therefore, I advocated and carried out by the joint action of The Spectator and another paper I then owned, The County Gentleman, a scheme for an exhibition of good cottages, in which a prize was given for the best cottage. The novelty of my plan was that the exhibits were not to be models of cottages, but were to be real cottages. The Garden City were almost as glad to lend me their ground as I was to avail myself of it, and by a well thought out arrangement we were able, as it were, to endow the Garden City with some L20,000 worth of good cottages without their having to put their hands into their pockets. It was quite easy to guarantee to find purchasers or hirers of the cottages put up by competitors. The competitor, therefore, could not lose his money or tie it up for very long, and he was very likely able to win a prize in one of the various categories. The greater number of cottages were planned for competitions in which the cost was limited to L150, for that was my ideal of the price for a cottage; and if a competitor was sure to get his L150 back and might also get a prize either of L150, or L100, or L50, he was in clover. But I am not out to describe the success of the Cheap Cottages Exhibition, but only to throw light on the character of the Duke of Devonshire. I asked the Duke to open the Exhibition for me, and this he did in a speech full of excellent good sense. He obeyed ex animo my direction of "No flowers by request." I remember, however, being somewhat disconcerted as we went down in the special train by a remark which he made to one of the Directors of the Garden City, who was saying, very properly, the usual things about how pleased the Company had been to help with my scheme. The Duke, with a loud laugh, replied with what was meant to be a perfectly good-tempered joke, "And a jolly good advertisement for your company you must have found it. Ha! Ha!" The Director, as was perhaps not to be wondered at, looked somewhat flabbergasted at this sally. Fortunately, I overheard it and was able to prevent any risk of wounded feelings by explaining how helping to spread information in regard to the good work being done by the Garden City was a thing which I and those who were helping me were specially glad to do. If we had been able to provide a useful advertisement for the Company we should feel almost as well pleased as by the success of our own venture. The Duke at once fully assented, but I don't think he in the least realised that his original way of putting the remark might easily have given umbrage. If it had been said to him and not by him it would not have caused any annoyance and he no doubt assumed that other people would feel as simply and as naturally as he did.
It would be impossible to give any account of the Duke and his character and actions without noticing his devotion to the Turf. It was that devotion which made Lord Salisbury once say with humorous despair that he could not hold a most important meeting "because it appears that Hartington must be at Newmarket on that day to see whether one quadruped could run a little faster than another." The Duke was quite sincere in his love of racing. There was no pose about it. He did not race because he thought it his duty to encourage the great sport, or because he thought it would make him popular, or for any other outside reason. He kept racers and went to races because he loved to see his horses run, though oddly enough I don't think he was ever a great man across country, or was learned in matters of breeding and trainers. He just liked racing and so he practised it and that is all that is to be said about it. In this combination of sport and high political seriousness he was extraordinarily English. Pope described the Duke's attitude exactly in his celebrated character of Godolphin; the words fit the Duke of Devonshire absolutely. They may well serve as a peroration to this chapter.
Who would not praise Patricio's high desert,
His hand unstained, his uncorrupted heart,
His comprehensive head! all interests weigh'd,
All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd?
He thanks you not,—his pride is in piquet,
Newmarket fame, and judgment at a bet.
But I am dwelling too much on the picturesque side of the Duke and so getting too near the caricature view of the man. What I want is to give in little a true picture of a really great man, for that is what he in truth was.
Instead of tracing the Duke's political actions and political opinions, I prefer to attempt an analysis of his political character. The first and most obvious fact about the Duke was his independence, and what I may call his inevitableness of action. Knowing the Duke's views on a particular subject, you could always tell in any given circumstance what would be his line of conduct. With most politicians explanations have to be found at some point of their career for this or that action. Everything seemed to point to their taking a particular course, and yet they took another. In the case of one man this was due to influence exerted over him by a friend. In that of another it was due to hostility to some colleague or rival. The personal element deflected the course of history. In the case of the Duke of Devonshire such explanations are unthinkable. It is impossible to imagine him a Home-ruler out of devotion to Mr. Gladstone, or a Free-trader out of jealousy or distrust of Mr. Chamberlain. The Duke had no dislikes or prejudices of this kind. Certainly he had none in the case of Mr. Chamberlain. All the efforts of the Tapers and Tadpoles and paragraph-writers in the Press failed to produce the slightest sense of rivalry between them. The Duke, to use a racing phrase, went exclusively on men's public form, and gave his contemporaries credit for the same public spirit which he himself showed.
He was the last man in the world to think that he had a monopoly of patriotism. His high-mindedness was, he assumed, shared by others. He never betrayed a colleague, and he never thought it possible that a colleague could think of betraying him. The result was that throughout his career he was never once the victim of any intrigue or conspiracy. He kept his mind fixed always on questions and not on men, and just as he always endeavoured to solve the real problem at issue rather than secure a party triumph, so his aim was to bring advantage to the nation, not to gain a victory over an opponent. I should be the last to say that in this the Duke of Devonshire was unique. What, however, was unique about his position was the fact that no one ever attributed to him unworthy motives or insinuated that he was playing for his own hand. If any one had ventured to do so, the country would simply have regarded the accuser as mad.
Another striking quality possessed by the Duke of Devonshire was his absolute straightforwardness of conduct and clearness of language. No one ever felt that he had a "card up his sleeve." He told the country straight out exactly what he thought, and his reticence—for reticent he was in a high degree—was due, not to the fact that he did not think it advisable at the moment to let the country know what he was thinking, but simply and solely to the fact that he had not been able to come to a determination. He did not like meeting questions half-way, but waited till circumstances forced them on his attention.
The late Duke of Argyll once said of him at a public meeting: "Oh, gentlemen, what a comfort it is to have a leader who says what he means and means you to understand what he says." Here in a nutshell was the quality which the country most admired in the Duke of Devonshire. They always knew exactly what he stood for, and whether he was a Unionist or a Home-ruler, a Free-trader or a Protectionist. He was never seeking for a safe point to rest on, one which, in the immortal language of the politician in the Biglow Papers, would leave him "frontin' south by north."