For Jimmy was leader.
For this was what it had come to in the House of Commons. It was Jimmy Lowther against Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Balfour occasionally dropped in a perfunctory word; now and then even tried to raise the standard of revolt against Mr. Lowther; and, of course, had finally to accept the consequences of Mr. Lowther's acts. Joe was there too; much more active in sympathy with Jimmy than Mr. Balfour. With all his faults, there is a certain saving refinement in Mr. Balfour—it is not a refinement that has restrained him from being cruel with the hysteric violence of the effeminate, but it is a refinement that preserves him from the mere Newmarket horseplay of Jimmy Lowther, and the thin rancour of a Brummagem drummer. Joe, I say, was there, ready to back up Jimmy in his worst exploits, but, after all, Jimmy was the leader. In this mighty struggle—not merely for the reconciliation of England and Ireland, but for the existence of Parliamentary institutions—the stakes are no smaller—the gentlemen of England were represented by Mr. Lowther, and the rude democracy by Mr. Gladstone. Democrats need not feel much ashamed of the contrast.
The apotheosis of Jimmy.
But there Jimmy Lowther was, gulping and obstructing, obstructing and gulping. The deadly and almost animal dulness of the performance I must insist on again and again. Mr. Lowther does not speak—he is as inarticulate as one of the prize bulls which, I doubt not, he delights to view at Islington what time the Agricultural Hall opens its portals to fat men and fat beasts. He cannot stand on his legs for five minutes together without saying half-a-dozen times, "I repeat what I have already said;" he has no ideas, no language, nothing except sheer bull-headed power of standing on his legs, and occupying a certain amount of time. Everybody knows that Lowtherism reached its climax on Saturday, March 11th. On that day, men, who had held high office, were not ashamed to resort to so mean and palpable an obstructive expedient as to put on paper twenty-two questions to their successors in office. The previous Friday had been bad enough. That was the day which tried Mr. Gladstone more, perhaps, than any day for many a year; and, indeed, it tried others as much as he, though not everybody bore it with the same iron and inflexible courage. There were large absences—some of the Irish away at conventions in Ireland, others without that legitimate excuse; there were Liberal absentees as well. Obstruction, meantime, stalked triumphantly; and when the divisions came, our strength sank down to almost invisible figures. Ah! it was saddening to look at Mr. Gladstone's face throughout that long morning sitting of Friday, March 10th. There are some days that live in one's memory, not so much as days as nights—with the ghastly spectres of darkness—nightmares—hauntings of a hideous past—anticipations of a joyless future. Such that Friday remains in my memory—with Mr. Gladstone's face standing out from the surrounding figures—pale, remote, pained.
The G.O.M. as a lecturer.
The announcement of the following Monday came only as a surprise to those who had not been fully behind the scenes. There were few, who knew the impression that the Friday had made, who did not feel sure that the game of pushing the Home Rule Bill on before Easy Easter was up, and that Mr. Gladstone had been beaten by the sheer brutality of Obstruction. But still hope springs eternal in the Irish breast, and there was still the lingering feeling that Mr. Gladstone would make a further and more desperate effort to break down one of the most shameless crusades of Obstruction on which a great party had ever entered. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone himself was responsible for a rise in the temperature of his own party on the very evening of that fateful and fatal Friday morning, when obstruction and the abandonment of their own friends had so nearly driven the Government out of office. I could scarcely believe my eyes when at nine o'clock on that day I came down to the almost empty House—in these evening sittings the House always looks about as cheerful as a theatre at mid-day—and saw Mr. Gladstone on the Treasury Bench, almost radiant, and evidently full of speech, go, and spirit. There wasn't really the smallest necessity for his presence. Nothing stood on the paper save one of those harmless, futile motions which are discussed with about as much interest by the House generally, as "abstract love"—to use a bold figure of Labby in a recent debate. It was a motion which complained that private members did not get sufficient time. Considering that private members had used their privileges for some two weeks previously to destroy the very foundation of all representative Government—namely, that the majority shall prevail—the complaint seemed a little audacious. Anyhow, a debate upon it could lead nowhere. But the moment the resolution was proposed, up stood the Grand Old Man, and delivered a bright, sparkling little academical address, for all the world like the lecture of a very spirituel French professor to a parcel of boys from the Quartier Latin. For the moment you could actually imagine that the Old Man had forgotten that there were such things in the world as Home Rule, Obstruction, Newmarket Lowther, and Brummagem Joe. And all the time here were we, who could be his sons, grinding our hearts in despair—in futile anger—in melancholy retrospect.
An hour of gloom.
With the Monday, however, came a biting frost. The news that Mr. Gladstone had been struck down from the fray, was sufficient to prepare anybody for the final announcement. With him leading the Liberal hosts, one could feel that obstruction could finally be beaten, however obstinate might be its resistance—for he has the faith that moves mountains. Then came the announcement that the second reading of the Home Rule Bill had been postponed till after Easter. The Tories and the Unionists were apparently taken by surprise; so much so that they did not seem to have the power of yelling forth their delight at the triumph of their policy with that full chorus which one would have expected. Altogether, the announcement came upon the House, and passed the House, with a quickness and a greater quietness than one might have expected. The consequences were too serious to be grasped immediately; and men were almost anxious to get to the lobbies for the purpose of discussing it in all its bearings.
The rest of the week was but a poor falling-off after the heroic and tragic fever of its opening, and of the week which preceded it. One could see that in the Liberal ranks there had succeeded to the fierce fighting spirit of the previous days a certain lassitude and disappointment. What their faces told in the House their lips more freely uttered in the lobbies. For a time, indeed, there was a feeling of almost unreasoning despair, and that full, frank, unsparing criticism to which every Government is subject from its friends when the winds blow and the waves are high. It was said that the Government had committed the mistake of making too many targets at once; that they had first infuriated the Church by the Welsh Suspensory Bill; that they had followed this up by infuriating the publicans and the brewers by the Veto Bill; that, meantime, there was very little chance of their being able to obtain the compensatory advantage of getting these Bills passed into law. There were grumblings about the Registration Bill; in short, nothing and nobody were spared in this hour of gloom and disaster.
"Herr Schloss."