It would be out of place to enter into any speculation as to what Hicks-Beach's own views may have been with regard to the whole policy of the war. It is now well known that Queen Victoria was entirely opposed to that policy, although she did not feel that her position as a constitutional sovereign gave her authority to overrule it by a decision of her own. There is very good reason to believe that peace was brought about at last by the resolute exercise of King Edward's influence. It is at least not unlikely that a man of Hicks-Beach's intellect and temperament may have been opposed at first to the policy which brought on the war, but may have, nevertheless, believed that his most patriotic course would be to remain in the Government and do the best he could for the public benefit. He soon found himself compelled to perform as disagreeable a task as an enlightened financial statesman could have to undertake—the task of extracting from the already overburdened taxpayers the means of carrying on a war of conquest with which he had little sympathy. It was perfectly evident that the needed revenue could not be extracted from the country without some violation of those financial principles to which Hicks-Beach had long been attached. There was no time for much meditation—the money had to be found somehow—and a great part of it could only be found by the imposition of a duty on foreign imports. We now know from public statements made by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach himself that while the war was going on he became impressed with the conviction that the whole administration of the military department was grossly mismanaged, and that the money of the nation was thrown away when the War Office came to spend it. The conviction thus forced upon him could not have tended to make the task of providing means for such further expenditure any the more agreeable to him. We may assume that he saw no other course before him than to make the best of a bad job and try to find in the least objectionable way the amount of money necessary to carry on the business of the State. It was evident to him that the principles of free trade must be put aside for the present, and he found himself driven to the odious necessity of imposing a duty on the importation of foreign corn, a duty which in fact amounted to a tax on bread. Hicks-Beach well knew that no tax could be more odious to the poorer classes of the British Islands; but we may presume that in his emergency he could see no other way of raising the money, and he accepted the situation with a dogged resolve which made no pretense at any concealment of his personal dislike for the task. His manner of delivering the speech in which he set forth his scheme of finance was that of a man who has to discharge an odious duty, or what he finds himself by the force of circumstances compelled to regard as a duty, but will utter no word which might seem to make out that he has any excuse other than that of hateful necessity. The substance of Hicks-Beach's explanations on this part of his budget might be summed up in such words as these: "We have got to pay for this war, and we have no time to spare in finding the money; we must cast aside for the time the principles of free trade; but do not let us further degrade ourselves by hypocritical attempts to make out that what we are doing is in accordance with the free-trade doctrine." I remember well that on reading Hicks-Beach's budget speech I became deeply impressed with the conviction that his task was becoming so intolerable to him that we might expect before long to see a change in the composition of the Government. But it appeared to me that, as the debate went on and the days went on, the position of Hicks-Beach was becoming more and more difficult. Some of the members of the Cabinet became to all appearance suddenly possessed with an inspiration that the time had arrived for a bold movement of reaction against the long-accepted doctrines of free trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had already receded so far from the established policy as to propose the imposition of a tax on the imported materials for making bread; and why, therefore, should we not take advantage—thus at least I construed their ideas—of this tempting opportunity to introduce a system of preferential duties and an imitation Zollverein for England and some of her colonies, and to break away from the creed and dogmas of men like Gladstone, Cobden, and Bright? These proposals must have opened to the eyes of Hicks-Beach a vista of financial heresies into which he could not possibly enter. He probably thought that he had gone far enough in the way of compromise when he consented to meet immediate emergencies by the imposition of a bread-tax. Is it possible that he may have felt some compunctious visiting because of his having yielded so far to the necessities of the moment? However that may be, I take it for granted, and took it for granted at the time, that Hicks-Beach found the incompatibility between his own views as to the raising of revenue and the views beginning to be developed by some of his colleagues becoming more and more difficult to reconcile.
Let me venture on an illustration, although it be not by any means photographic in its accuracy, of the difficulty with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer found himself confronted. Let us suppose Hicks-Beach to be the leader of a pledged society of total abstainers. At a moment of sudden crisis he feels called upon to relax so far the rigidity of the society's governing principle as to allow one of its members who is threatened with utter physical prostration a few drops of alcoholic stimulant. He finds his course cordially approved by some of his most influential colleagues, and at first he is proud of their support. But it presently turns out that they regard his reluctant concession as the opening up of a new practice in their regulations, and they press upon him all manner of propositions for the toleration and even the encouragement of what my friend Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the great English champion of total abstinence, would term "moderate drunkenness." Fancy what the feelings of Sir Wilfrid Lawson would be if by some temporary and apparently needful concession he found himself regarded by those around him as an advocate of moderate drunkenness! Such, I cannot help thinking, must have been, in its different way, the condition to which Sir Michael Hicks-Beach felt himself brought down, when he discovered that his introduction of an import duty on foreign grain was believed by his principal colleagues to be but the opening of a reactionary movement against the whole policy of free trade.
The Government of Lord Salisbury seemed to be in the highest good spirits at the prospects before them. Mr. Chamberlain in especial seemed to believe that the time had come for him to develop an entirely new system of his own for the adjustment of import and export duties. For many weeks the English newspapers were filled with discussions on Mr. Chamberlain's great project for the new British Imperial Zollverein, of which England was to be the head. Numbers of Mr. Chamberlain's Conservative admirers were filled with a fresh enthusiasm for the man who thus proposed to reverse altogether the decisions of all modern political economy laid down by Liberal statesmen and Radical writers. Stout old Tory gentlemen representing county constituencies began to be full of hope that the good old times were coming back.
That was the crisis—so far at least as the official career of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was concerned for the time. What may have happened in the private councils of the Government we of the outer world were not and are not permitted to know. All that we actually do know is that Lord Salisbury resigned his place as Prime Minister, that Arthur Balfour was called to succeed him in office, and that a new administration was formed in which the name of Hicks-Beach did not appear. There were other changes also made in the administration, but with these I shall not for the present concern myself. The important fact for this article is that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was no longer Chancellor of the Exchequer. All manner of conjectures were made as to the reasons why Lord Salisbury so suddenly withdrew from the position of Prime Minister, and why he could not be prevailed upon to hold the place even nominally until after King Edward's coronation. I do not suppose that the resignation of Lord Salisbury had anything to do with the fact that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach ceased to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. The vacancies were not made simultaneously, nor did there appear any reason to believe that Hicks-Beach was so closely identified with the political fortunes of Lord Salisbury as to be unable to remain in office when his leader had ceased to hold the place of command. So far as an outsider can judge, it must have been that Hicks-Beach could not get on with the new administration, or that the new administration could not get on with him. My own theory, and I only offer it to my readers as the theory of a mere observer from the outside, is that Hicks-Beach could not stand any more of the reaction towards protection principles—thought he had gone quite as far as any sense of duty to his party could exact from him, and made up his mind that if his colleagues were anxious to go any farther in what he believed to be the wrong direction they must do so without any help or countenance from him.
This theory has taken a firmer hold than ever of my mind since I read the report of a speech lately made by Hicks-Beach weeks and weeks after he had ceased to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That recent speech might have been made by a member of the Liberal Opposition. Certainly in some of its most important and striking passages it enunciated opinions and laid down doctrines which might have come from almost any of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's colleagues on the front Opposition bench. It denounced extravagant war expenditure at a time when Imperialist politicians were calling out for something very like military conscription, and it insisted that the defense of England by the strength of her navy ought to be the main consideration of English statesmanship. That is a doctrine which used to be proclaimed in distant days by such men as Cobden and Bright, which soon became an accepted principle among all genuine Liberals, but has lately been repudiated by all Imperialists, Liberal or Tory, who seem to think that the one great business of English statesmanship is to turn England into a military encampment. The natural and reasonable conclusion to be drawn from such a speech is that during the last session or two of Parliament Hicks-Beach found it impossible to put up any longer with the reign of Jingo principles in the Cabinet, and made up his mind to set himself free from such a domination. The Tory Government has lost its ablest financial administrator, and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach has regained his position of independence.
The future must tell the story of Hicks-Beach's remaining career. That he has yet an important career before him may be taken for granted if only the fates allow him the ordinary length of man's life. Nothing but absolute retirement from Parliamentary work could reduce such a man to a position of complete neutrality, or could prevent him from having an influence which the leaders of both political parties must take into consideration. He is too strong in debate, too well trained in the business of administration, and too quick in observing the real import of growing political changes, and in distinguishing between them and the mere displays of ephemeral emotion, not to make his influence felt at any great crisis in the conditions of political parties. I hold, therefore, to the hope expressed at the opening of this article, that il reviendra—that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach will come back before long to an important place in some administration. The House of Commons could not afford just now to lose the services of such a man, and I take it for granted that Hicks-Beach could not remain long in the House of Commons without being called upon to accept an official position. He is beyond question one of the very ablest men on the side of the Government in that House, and his integrity, his moderation, his capacity to understand the significance of new facts, and his disinterestedness have won for him the respect of all parties in Parliament and outside it. We are, to all appearance, on the eve of great changes in the composition of our political parties. With the close of the war has come to an end that season of Jingoism which brought so many weak-minded Liberals into fascinated co-operation with the Tories. The reaction against Toryism must come, and it will probably bring with it a reconstitution of both parties on the principles which each may consider essential to its character at a time when peace at home gives our legislators a chance of studying the domestic welfare of the people in these islands. It will not be enough then for a public man to proclaim himself Imperialist in order to win the votes of a constituency, or to denounce his rival as a pro-Boer in order to secure defeat for that unlucky personage. The constituencies will begin to ask what each candidate proposes to do for the domestic prosperity of our populations at home, and to demand an explicit answer. Under such conditions, whatever be the reconstitution of parties, I am strongly of opinion that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach will before long begin a new administrative career.
Photograph copyright by Elliott & Fry
JOHN E. REDMOND