I have often noticed the effect produced in the libraries and committee-rooms, in the rooms assigned to those who dine and to those who smoke, when the news is passed round that Mr. Bryce is on his feet. A member who is reading up some subject in the library, or writing his letters in one of the lobbies, or enjoying himself in a dining-hall or a smoking-room, is not likely to hurry away from his occupation or his enjoyment in order to rush into the debating chamber merely because he is told that some leading member of the Government or the Opposition has just begun to address the House. The man who is addressing an audience in the debating chamber may hold an important office in the Government or may have an important place on the Front Bench of Opposition, but then he may be a personage who feels bound to take part in a debate merely because of the position he holds, and every one knows in advance what views he is certain to advocate and what line of argument he is likely to adopt, and our reading or dining or smoking friend may not think that there is any pressing necessity for his presence as a listener in the House. But there are some leading men on both sides of Mr. Speaker who are always sure to have something to say which everybody wants to hear, and Mr. Bryce is unquestionably one of that happily endowed order. When the word goes round that Bryce is up, everybody knows that something will be said on which he cannot exactly calculate beforehand, something to which it is important that he should listen, and there is forthwith a rush of members into the debating chamber. There can hardly be a higher tribute to a man's importance as a debater than the fact that his rising to address the House creates such an effect, and I have seen it created again and again whenever the news went round that "Bryce is on his legs." I have many a time heard Conservative members murmur, in tones not altogether expressing absolute satisfaction at the disturbing information, "Bryce is up—I must go in and hear what he has to say." The tribute is all the higher in this case because Bryce is not one of the showy and fascinating debaters whom everybody wants to listen to for the mere eloquence and fascination of their oratorical displays. Everybody knows that when he speaks it is because he has something to say which ought to be spoken and therefore ought to be heard. It is known that Bryce will not make a speech merely because he thinks the time has come when some leader of Opposition ought to take part in the debate, if only to show that the Opposition is attending to its business.
This command over the House Bryce has always held since he became one of its members, and no man can hold a more desirable and a more honorable position. It is all the more to his credit because he does not aim at mere originality and never makes it a part of his ambition to say something astonishing and thus to excite and delight the mere curiosity of his audience. There have been and still are many members of the House who have made a reputation of this kind and are therefore always sure to command a full attendance merely because everybody expects that when they rise to their feet they are sure to make the House "sit up," if I may use this somewhat colloquial, not to say vulgar, phrase. Take such a man, for instance, as the late John Arthur Roebuck, a man of great intellect, master of a peculiar style of eloquence, who made himself only too often a splendid specimen of what might be called in American phraseology "a crank." All that could be said with certainty beforehand of Roebuck was that whenever he rose to speak he would say something calculated to startle or to puzzle the House. There are men of the same order, if not perhaps of quite the same debating qualifications, in the House at present—men who always draw a rush of members when they rise to speak because nobody can tell in advance what side they are likely to advocate or what sort of bewildering paradox they may set up and make interesting if not convincing by the force of their peculiar style of eloquence. Bryce is emphatically not a man of this order. He is no lover of paradox; he has no desire to create a sensation; he merely wants to impress the House with what he believes to be the truth, and his great quality is that of a beacon and not of a flashlight. His arguments appeal to the intellect and the reasoning power; he speaks of what he knows; he has large resources of thought, experience, and observation to draw upon, and the listeners feel convinced beforehand that he will tell them something they did not know already, or will put his case in some new and striking light.
The House of Commons well knows that it would lose one of its most valuable instructors if Bryce were no longer to occupy a place on its benches or were to condemn himself to habitual inactivity and silence. When the Conservative Government under Lord Salisbury came into power, and more especially after the late general election which brought them back with added strength, many of the Liberal leaders seemed to have grown weary of the political struggle. Something worse than mere apathy appeared to have set in, something more than mere despondency and disheartenment. Men on whom the Liberals of England had long been wont to rely suddenly showed an apparent loss of faith in all the proclaimed principles of the party, and either relapsed into utter silence or spoke in language which suggested an inclination to cross over to the enemy's camp. The two principal impulses to this mood of mind were the South African war and the Irish Home Rule question. The majority in the constituencies had become inflamed with the spirit of Jingoism, and could think of nothing but the war and the Imperial glory of annexing new territory. Feeble-hearted and weak-kneed Liberals began to think that the party could never hope for a return to power unless it too could blow the Imperial trumpet. Other Liberals made it manifest that they were becoming alarmed by the unpopularity of the Home Rule question, and were repenting the enthusiasm which had carried them too far along the path marked out by the genius and the patriotic resolve of Gladstone. A species of dry-rot appeared to have broken out in Liberalism. Before long a new section of Liberalism was formed, the principle of which appeared to be that its members should call themselves Imperial Liberals, and at the same time should support the Tories on the only important questions then under discussion—the policy of the South African campaign and the Irish National claim for Home Rule. Some of the men who had held high office when Gladstone was in power, who had made themselves conspicuous by the ardor and the eloquence with which they supported his policy of peace abroad and justice to Ireland, now openly avowed their renunciation of his great principles. There were others among the foremost Liberals in the House of Commons who, if they did not thus openly take the renegade part, kept themselves quietly out of the active political field and allowed the movement of reaction to go on without a word of protest. Three at least among the Liberal leaders took a very different course. Three of them, at least, not merely nailed their colors to the mast, but stood resolutely in fighting attitude beneath the colors and proved themselves determined to maintain the struggle. These three men were Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, John Morley, and James Bryce. There were others, too, it must be said, who stood up manfully with these three in defense of that losing cause of Liberalism which they could never be brought to regard as a lost cause. But the dauntless three whom I have just mentioned were the most prominent and the most influential who went forth against that great array of Toryism and Jingoism. Bryce was in his place as regularly as ever during the whole of that depressing time, and he never failed to raise his voice when the occasion demanded his intervention on behalf of the true principles and practices of Liberalism. During that long, dreary, and disheartening season when despondent men were often disposed to ask whether there was any longer a Liberal party, Bryce made some of the ablest speeches he has ever delivered in arraignment of the Jingo policy, of the War Office maladministration, and the rule of renewed coercion in Ireland. The Liberal cause in England owes a debt that never can be forgotten to the three men whom I have named, for their unflinching resolve and activity in the House of Commons; and of the three none did better service than that which was rendered by James Bryce.
Bryce has, in face and form, the characteristics of a stalwart fighter. His forehead is high and broad, with strongly marked eyebrows, straightly drawn over deep and penetrating eyes. The features are all finely modeled, the nose is straight and statuesque, the hair is becoming somewhat thinner and more gray than it was when I first knew Mr. Bryce, but the mustache and beard, although they too show some fading in color, are still thick and strong as in that past day. The face does not look Irish; its expression is perhaps somewhat too sedate and resolute; but on the other hand, it does not seem quite Scotch, for there is at moments a suggestion of dreaminess about it which we do not usually associate with the shrewd North Briton. Bryce is a man of the most genial temperament, thoroughly companionable, and capable of enjoying every influence that helps to brighten existence. Always a student of books and of men, he is never a recluse, and I do not know of any one who seems to get more out of life than does this philosophic historian. Bryce's London home is noted for its hospitality, and his dinner parties and evening parties give much delight to his large circle of friends. Mr. and Mrs. Bryce are not lion-hunters, and do not rate their friends according to the degree of celebrity each may have obtained. But they have no need to engage in a hunt after lions, for the celebrities seek them out as a matter of course, and I know of no London house where one is more certain to meet distinguished men and women from all parts of the civilized world. Bryce's travels have made him acquainted with interesting and eminent persons everywhere, and an admission to his circle is naturally sought by strangers who visit London. Representatives of literature, science, and art, of scholarly research, of political movement, and of traveled experience are sure to be met with in the home of the Bryces. I had the good fortune to meet there, for the first time, many distinguished men and women whose acquaintance it was a high and memorable privilege to make. Among Bryce's especial recreations is mountain-climbing, and he was at one time President of the Alpine Club. He can converse upon all subjects, can give to every topic some illustration from his own ideas and his own experiences, and the intelligent listener always finds that he carries away something new and worthy of remembrance from any talk with him. Although his strong opinions and his earnest desire to maintain what he believes to be the right side of every great controversy have naturally brought him into frequent antagonism with the representatives of many an important case, I do not know of any public man who has made fewer enemies or who is more generally spoken of with respect and admiration. A man must have very high conceit indeed of his own knowledge and his own judgment who does not feel that he has a great deal to learn from conversation with a master of so many subjects. Yet Bryce never oppresses a listener, as some intellectual leaders are apt to do, with a sense of the listener's inferiority, and the least gifted among us is encouraged to express himself with frankness and freedom while discoursing with Bryce on any question which happens to come up. I think that among his many remarkable qualities is that sincere belief which was characteristic of Mr. Gladstone, and for which Gladstone did not always get due credit—the belief that every man, however moderate his intellectual qualifications, has something to tell which the wisest would be the better for knowing. We must all of us have met scholars and thinkers and political leaders whose inborn sense of their own capacity had an overbearing and even oppressive effect on the ordinary mortal, and made him shy of expressing himself fully lest he should only be displaying his ineptitude or his ignorance in such a presence. But there is nothing of this to be observed in the genial ways of James Bryce, and the listener finds himself unconsciously brought for the time to the level of the master and emboldened to give free utterance to his own ideas and opinions.
Bryce has been made a member of most of the great intellectual and educational institutions of the world, has held degrees and honors of various kinds from the universities of Europe and the United States, and could hardly travel anywhere abroad or at home without finding himself in recognized association with some school of learning in every place where he makes a stay. The freemasonry of intellect and education all over the world gives him rank among its members, and receives him with a welcome recognition wherever he goes. I presume that in the political sphere of action he is henceforward likely to find his congenial career, but he must always have the knowledge that, if for any reason he should give up his political occupation, he can at any moment return to some pursuit in which he has already won an established fame. There are not many political leaders of our time about whom the same could fairly be said. For myself I may frankly say that I hope James Bryce will henceforward devote himself especially to that political career in which he has accomplished such great things. English public life cannot well afford to lose his services just now or for some time to come. A man who can bring to political work such resources of thought and of experience, who can look beneath the surface and above the mere phrases and catchwords of political parties, who can see that Liberalism in its true sense must mean progress, and who can at the same time see clearly for himself what progress really means, and in what direction and by what methods it is to be made—such a man could ill be spared by the Liberalism of our generation. The historical work he has already done is, in its way, complete and imperishable. But the Liberal party has yet to recover its place and to regain the leadership of England's political life. Every effort the Conservatives in office have lately been making to hold their full mastery over the country has shown more and more clearly that they have not kept up with the movements of thought and are not able to understand the true requirements of the time. On the other hand, the limp and shattered condition of the existing Liberal party only shows the absolute necessity for the recognized leadership of men who understand the difference between the work of guiding the country and the ignoble function of competing for power by imitation and by compromise. In the new effort now so sorely needed to create once more a true Liberal party, the country requires, above all things else, the constant service of such men as James Bryce.
Photograph copyright by London Stereoscopic Co.
SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN