Sketches in the House: The Story of a Memorable Session (1893)

by T. P. O'Connor

Mr. Sexton.

The resignation of Mr. Sexton, early in June, seemed to point to one of those disastrous splits in the Irish ranks which have always come at the wrong moment to spoil the chances of the Irish cause. There were many whose memories were brought back by the event to that trying and strange time when Mr. Parnell fought his desperate battle for the continuance of his leadership. But then there were many modifications of the position, and the chief of these was the much greater tranquillity with which the affair was regarded; and the general faith that the Irish members would be wise enough to settle their differences satisfactorily. Still there were some very ugly moments.

A Conservative opportunity.

Nothing could be more galling, for instance, to those who had charge of the Home Rule Bill, than to look across at the Irish Benches and see a vast and aching void in the places where the representatives of the people mainly concerned are accustomed to sit. The Tories were not slow to utilise the moment; and if things had been different—if the Home Rule cause had not got so far—they would probably have been able to stop progress with the measure altogether. But fortunately the Home Rule Bill was in committee—and whether men like it or not, it is impossible for them to avoid something like business discussion when a Bill is in committee. There is the clause under discussion; there are the amendments to it, which stand on the paper; the clause and the amendments have to be spoken to; and it is impossible, within the limits of a discussion so defined, to introduce a subject so extraneous as a domestic difficulty in the Irish ranks. But, at the same time, the opportunity was too tempting to be altogether passed without notice. Sir John Lubbock has taken a prominent part at times in opposing the Home Rule Bill. Sir John is a most estimable man, has written some very entertaining books, and in the City has appropriate rank as both an erudite and a rich banker. But he does not shine in the House of Commons. His voice is thin and feeble, and his arguments, somehow or other, always appear wire-drawn. And then the House of Commons is a place, above all others, where physical qualities go largely towards making success or failure. A robustious voice and manner are the very first essentials of Parliamentary success; and no man who is not gifted with these things has really much right to try Parliamentary life. However, Sir John Lubbock was not strong enough to withstand the temptation of making capital out of Irish misfortunes; and he pointed to the Irish Benches, with their yawning emptiness, as a proof that the Irish members took no interest whatsoever in the Home Bale Bill.

Irish objections to divorce.

Meantime, in the House itself the Home Rule Bill was crawling slowly along. The Unionists were at their sinister work of delaying its progress by all kinds of absurd and irrelevant amendments. For instance, one Unionist wished to restrict the Irish Legislature as to the law of marriage and divorce. Mr. Gladstone has over and over again pointed out that, as the Irish have one way of looking at these things, and the English another, it would be absurd not to allow the Irish Legislature to settle such a matter in accordance with Irish feeling. Curiously enough, the Unionists did not receive much encouragement on this point from the Irish branch of the enemies of Home Rule. Mr. Macartney, an Irish Orangeman, proclaimed on the part of his co-religionists that the Irish Protestants had nearly as much objection to divorce as the Irish Catholics; and, so far as that part of the amendment was concerned, he had no desire to see it pressed. What he apprehended was a change in the law for the purpose of prejudicing mixed marriages—marriages between Catholics and Protestants. Mr. Gladstone, it is well known, on the question of divorce is a very sound and very strong Conservative. The sturdy fight he made against divorce still lives in Parliamentary history, and has often been brought up—sometimes in justification of equally stubborn fights—against him. It is one of the points on which he does not seem to have much modified his opinions, in spite of the advance of time, and all that has taken place in the long stretch of years between now and the day when an unbelieving and pagan minister like Lord Palmerston enabled men and women to get rid of adulterous spouses. But Mr. Gladstone declined to be drawn.

Disestablishment.

On June 18th, Mr. Bartley proposed an amendment to a restriction in the Bill with regard to the establishment and endowment of any church. By the Bill—as is pretty well known—the Irish Parliament are forbidden to confer on any church the privilege of State establishment and State endowment. To this restriction no Irish member has ever raised the least objection. It was reserved for Mr. Bartley—one of the most vehement opponents of Irish nationality and an Irish Parliament—to declare that such a restriction would make the Parliament unworthy of the acceptance of a nation of freemen, and to propose that accordingly it should be removed. The position, then, in which the Irish opponents of the Bill were placed, was this—that while denouncing the supremacy and encroachments of the Catholic Church as one of the main objections against the Bill, they proposed that the Irish Parliament should have the right to establish and endow that very Church. Mr. Balfour perceived—under the light thus borne in upon him—that this was not an amendment which the Tory party could safely support; and he accordingly advised Mr. Bartley to withdraw it. Mr. Gladstone made a few scornful observations; and, without a division, the proposal was huddled out of sight. It was almost a pity. It would have been such an instructive spectacle to see the whole Tory party voting that the Catholic Church in Ireland should have the right to be endowed and established; and some of the Irish members felt this so much, that they were very much inclined to force the Tories to a division. But they let the incident pass.

The triumph of the tweed coat.

It is one of the curious things about Parliamentary life in England, that the smallest detail of personal habit attracts the all-searching gaze of the entire world. Let a man change the shape of his hat, the colour of his clothes, the style even of his stockings, and the world knows it all before almost he is himself conscious of the change. And then, though the House of Commons consists for the most part of men well advanced in middle life—men who have made their pile in counting-house or shop, before devoting themselves to a Parliamentary career—it is also a House where wealth and fashion are very largely represented. It is often a very well-dressed body; and in this House of Commons, in particular, there is a very large proportion of well-tailored and well-groomed young men—especially, of course, on the Tory side. The consequence is, that you are able to trace the transformations of fashion, the processions of the seasons, the variety of appropriate garbs which social and other engagements impose, as accurately in the House of Commons as in Rotten Row.