British Political Leaders

by Justin McCarthy

Photograph copyright by Elliott & Fry

HENRY LABOUCHERE

HENRY LABOUCHERE

Henry Labouchere is the most amusing speaker in the House of Commons. Eclipse is first and there is no second—to adopt the words once used by Lord Macaulay—at least, if there be a second, I do not feel myself qualified for the task of designating him. It is hardly necessary to say that whenever Labouchere rises in the House of Commons—and he rises very often in the course of a session—he is sure of an immediate hearing. He seldom addresses himself to any subject with the outward appearance of seriousness. He always puts his argument in jesting form; sends a shower of sparkling words over the most solemn controversy; puts on the manner of one who has plunged into the debate only for the mere fun of the thing; and brings his display to an end just at the time when the House hopes that he is only beginning to exert himself for its amusement. I do not know that he has ever made what could be called a long speech, and I think I may fairly assume that he has never made a speech which his audience would not have wished to be a little longer.

Now, I must say at once that it would be the most complete misappreciation of Henry Labouchere's character and purpose to regard him as a mere jester, or even a mere humorist endowed with the faculty of uttering spontaneous witticisms. Labouchere is very much in earnest even when he makes a joke, and his sharpest cynicism is inspired by a love of justice and a desire to champion the cause of what he believes to be the right. I heard him once make a speech in the House of Commons on behalf of some suffering class or cause, and when coming to a close he suddenly said: "I may be told that this is a sentimental view of the case; but, Mr. Speaker, I am a man of sentiment." The House broke into a perfect chorus of laughter at the idea thus presented of Labouchere as a man of sentiment. Probably many, or most, of his listeners thought it was only Labouchere's fun, and merely another illustration of his love for droll paradox. I have no doubt that Labouchere knew very well in advance what sort of reception was likely to be given to his description of himself, and that he heartily enjoyed the effect it produced. But, all the same, there was a good deal of truth in the description. I have always regarded Labouchere as a man of intensely strong opinions, whose peculiar humor it is to maintain these opinions by sarcasm and witticism and seeming paradox.

Certainly no public man in England has given clearer evidence of his sincerity and disinterestedness in any cause that he advocates than Labouchere has done again and again. I remember hearing it said many years ago in New York of my old friend Horace Greeley that whereas some other editors of great newspapers backed up their money with their opinions, Greeley backed up his opinions with his money. The meaning, of course, was that while some editors shaped their opinions in order to make their journals profitable, Horace Greeley was ready to sacrifice his money for the sake of maintaining the newspaper which expressed his sincere convictions. Something of the same kind might fairly be said of Henry Labouchere. He is the proprietor and editor of the weekly newspaper "Truth," in which he expresses his own opinions without the slightest regard for the commercial interests of the paper, or, indeed, for the political interests of the party which he usually supports in the House of Commons. I believe that, as a matter of fact, "Truth" is a most successful enterprise, even as a commercial speculation, for everybody wants to know what it is likely to say on this or that new and exciting question, and nobody can tell in advance what view Labouchere's organ may be likely to take. Labouchere has, however, given proof many times that he keeps up his newspaper as the organ of his individual opinions, and not merely as a means of making money or sustaining the interests of a political party. He has again and again hunted out and hunted down evil systems of various kinds, shams and quacks of many orders, abuses affecting large masses of the poor and the lowly, and has rendered himself liable to all manner of legal actions for the recovery of damages. If, because of some technical or other failure in his defense to one of those legal actions, Labouchere is cast in heavy damages, he pays the amount, makes a jest or two about it, and goes to work at the collection of better evidence and at the hunting out of other shams with as cheery a countenance as if nothing particular had happened. Fortunately for himself, and, I think, also very fortunately for the public in general, Labouchere is personally a rich man, and is able to meet without inconvenience any loss which may be brought upon him now and then by his resolute endeavors to expose shams.

Labouchere spent ten years of his earlier manhood in the diplomatic service, and was attaché at various foreign courts and at Washington. He had always a turn for active political life, and entered the House of Commons in 1865, and in 1880 was elected as one of the representatives for the constituency of Northampton. His colleague at that time in the representation of the constituency was the once famous Charles Bradlaugh. It would not be easy to find a greater contrast in appearance and manners, in education and social bringing up, than that presented by the two representatives of Northampton. Labouchere is a man of barely medium stature; Bradlaugh's proportions approached almost to the gigantic. One could not talk for five minutes with Labouchere and fail to know, even if they had never met before, that Labouchere was a man born and trained to the ways of what is called good society; Bradlaugh was evidently a child of the people, who had led a hard and roughening life, and had had to make his way by sheer toil and unceasing exertion. Bradlaugh as a public speaker was powerful and commanding in his peculiar style—the style of the workingman's platform and of the open-air meetings in Hyde Park. He had tremendous lungs, a voice of surprising power and volume, and his speeches were all attuned to the tone of open-air declamation. Most observers, even among those who thoroughly recognized his great intellectual power and his command of language, would have taken it for granted beforehand that he never could suit himself to the atmosphere of the House of Commons. Labouchere's speeches, even when delivered to a large public meeting, were pitched in a conversational key, and he never attempted a declamatory flight. His speeches within the House of Commons and outside it always sparkled with droll and humorous illustrations, and when he was most in earnest he seemed to be making a joke of the whole business. Bradlaugh was always terribly in earnest, and seemed as if he were determined to bear down all opposition by the power of his arguments and the volume of his voice. In Labouchere you always found the man accustomed to the polished ways of diplomatic circles; in Bradlaugh one saw the typical champion of the oppressed working class. Labouchere comes, as his name would suggest, from a French Huguenot family of old standing; Bradlaugh was thoroughly British in style even when he advocated opinions utterly opposed to those of the average Briton.

The House of Commons is, on the whole, a fair-minded assembly, and even those who were most uncompromising in their hostility to some of Bradlaugh's views came soon to recognize that by his election to Parliament the House had obtained a new and powerful debater. Both men soon won recognition from the House for their very different characteristics as debaters, and at one time I think that the college-bred country gentlemen of the Tory ranks were inclined, on the whole, to find more fault with Labouchere than with Bradlaugh. They seemed willing to make allowances for Bradlaugh which they would not make for his colleague in the representation of Northampton. One can imagine their reasoning out the matter somewhat in this way: This man Bradlaugh comes from the working class, is not in any sense belonging to our order, and we must take all that into account; while this other man, Labouchere, is of our own class, has had his education at Eton, has been trained among diplomatists in foreign courts, is in fact a gentleman, and yet is constantly proclaiming his hostility to all the established institutions of his native country. Even the Tory country gentlemen, however, found it impossible wholly to resist the wit, the sarcasms, and the droll humors of Labouchere, and whenever he spoke in the House he was sure to have attentive listeners on all the rows of benches.

Bradlaugh's actual Parliamentary career did not last very long. When he was first elected for Northampton, he refused to take the oath of allegiance, on the ground that he could not truthfully make that appeal to the higher power with which the oath concludes. He was willing to make an affirmation, but the majority of the House would not accept the compromise. A considerable period of struggle intervened. The seat was declared to be vacant, but Mr. Bradlaugh was promptly re-elected by the constituents of Northampton, and then there set in a dispute between the House and the constituency something like that which, in the days of Daniel O'Connell, ended in Catholic emancipation. Bradlaugh was enabled to enter the House in 1886, and he made himself very conspicuous in debate. His manners were remarkably courteous, and he became popular after a while even among those who held his political and religious opinions in the utmost abhorrence. His career was closed in 1891 by death.