He told a story of Major O'Gorman. A professed Roman Catholic, he was dining in the House one Friday on a devilled chicken, when his parish priest was announced. "Waiter," he said, "take away the devil, and show in the priest."
When Sir Charles first took office, he was cautioned by his colleague, Lord Tenterden, not to read the newspapers: "If you do, you will never distinguish between what you know and what you have just read."
He mentioned ——. I said that his elaborate manners and bridegroom dress marked him out as natus convivio feminali, meant by nature to be a guest at ladies' tea-tables. Dilke assented, adding that he was less bland to men than to women. "Tommy" Bowles said of him in the House: "The right honourable gentleman answers, or, rather, does not answer, my questions with the pomposity of a Belgravian butler refusing twopence to a beggar."
He spoke of the decadence in costume characteristic of the present day. I said that, according to Wraxall, we must go back for its beginnings to Charles Fox, who came down to the House in boots. I added that, when I first went up to Oxford, a frock-coat and tall hat were imperative in walking out; that a "cut-away" coat, as it was called, would have been "sconced" in Hall; that men even kept their boating-dresses at King's or Hall's, changing there; that a blazer in the High would have drawn a crowd. He said that till very lately—he was speaking in 1907—the custom of dress in Parliament had been equally rigid; that Lord Minto had recently scandalized his peers by wearing a straw hat; that when, some years before, a member whose name I forget had taken the same liberty in the Commons, the Speaker sent for him, and begged that he would not repeat the offence.
In February, 1908, we talked of the Sweating Bill. Two years before, he said, it could command so little support that, having obtained for it the first private members' night, he withdrew it. Now it was accepted with enthusiasm, and the second reading passed without a division—the change, he added, entirely due to the Women's Trade-Union League.
He expressed satisfaction with the stiffening procedure rules of April, 1906, but added that they would make great Parliamentary orations impossible. I said: "All the better, we want business in the Commons; for oratory there are other occasions." He said how transient is the public interest in men and questions; the community is like a kitten playing with a cork: so soon as it is tempted off by something else, the cork becomes dead to it. He instanced Rosebery; the Aliens Act; Tariff Reform, in spite of Chamberlain's galvanizing efforts. Of Campbell-Bannerman, then alive and well, he said that all his work was done for him by his subordinates: "he had only to read novels, prepare jokes, look inscrutable and fatherly."
In July, 1909, he attended the memorial service for Lord Ripon at the Roman Catholic Cathedral. Knowing that the leading statesmen on both sides, Protestant to a man, would be present, the ecclesiastics made the show as fine as they could, bringing out all their properties. All the monks and priests in London attended; the Archbishop, in gorgeous attire, sat on a stool, with two boys behind holding up his train. The music was exquisite; Sir Charles had never heard anything so sweet as the warbling of the Requiem by the chorister boys. But the whole was palpably a show, the actors intent on their acting, never for a moment devotional; where changes in the service involved changes in position, they were prepared while the part before was still unfinished, so that the stage might never be empty nor the transformations lag: the whole thing a Drury Lane pageant; while the richly decorated catafalque in the centre, on which the ceremonial supposed itself to converge, was empty— sepulchri supervacuos honores—the body being at Studley. Of Ripon himself, whom everyone loved, he spoke affectionately.
Of talks on miscellaneous topics I recall the following. We spoke of the Tilsit Secret Articles, revealed mysteriously to the English Government. Sir Charles thought the informant was a Russian officer, betraying it with or without the connivance of the Tsar. Evidence has since come out connecting the disclosure with a Mr. Mackenzie, who is supposed to have obtained the secret from General Benningsen. Or Canning may have learned it through the Russian Ambassador in England, who was his intimate friend, and strongly adverse to his master's French policy. [Footnote: See for a recent discussion of the evidence J. Holland Rose's Life of Napoleon, ii. 135-140.] Sir Charles went on to say that in history lies find easier credit than truth. All the books have said and say that England refused to buy Delagoa Bay from Portugal. He always denied this alleged refusal; and now Lord Fitzmaurice has caused search to be made, and finds no confirmatory evidence. Again, he maintained in Paris, against all the experts, that Nigra engineered the Franco-Prussian War. His words were repeated to the Empress Eugénie, who said, "Yes, he is right: Nigra was a false friend."
He talked of the Japanese, whom he had known in England and lived with in Japan…. Their only religion is patriotism, and their prayers to the Emperor are formal merely, yet they are reckless of life and eager to die for Fatherland; indeed, so incapable of retreating before an enemy as sometimes seriously to damage strategic plans. Were they launched against the West, they would go through any European army.
He spoke of the durability of the Third French Republic. It will be unbroken while peace lasts. War may bring a temporary Dictatorship, but the republic will of necessity revive again. The immense majority of Frenchmen are opposed unalterably to a monarchy.