It was over this redistribution question that I had the only difference of opinion I ever had with Forster. He was an ardent supporter of the single-member constituency, or scrutin d'arrondissement, as the French call it, in opposition to scrutin de liste. I, on the other hand, foresaw that the new system would break up the powerful political associations in our great towns, and thus destroy a political force which I believed to be of great value. I fought strenuously in the Leeds Mercury against what I styled the vivisection of the great boroughs; but I need not say that I fought in vain. I had many a good-humoured argument with Forster on the subject, but he would never admit that I was right, though after twenty years' experience and observation I am only now strengthened in my original opinion.
Before this time I had aroused Forster's anger—anger which never hurt—by the action I had taken, in common with some of my Liberal friends in Leeds, with regard to the School Board election. We found that the cumulative vote in a large constituency was almost unworkable. It had resulted in Leeds in the election, at the head of the poll on one occasion, of a mere demagogue of no account. In order to obviate any further misfortune of this kind my friend Mathers, the honorary secretary of the Liberal Association, devised a plan under which the town was divided by the Liberals into different divisions. To each of these divisions we allotted certain candidates, and we asked the electors who sympathised with us to vote only for the candidate allotted to the division in which they lived. The plan proved a brilliant success, for we carried all our candidates at that election, and this method of getting over the difficulties of the cumulative vote was afterwards adopted in all large towns, including London. Forster was greatly wroth at the time, and told me that he looked upon the scheme as a dishonest attempt to evade an Act of Parliament.
Those were the years of the dynamite outrages. Certain desperate Irish societies, chiefly financed and recruited from the United States, were seeking to advance the Home Rule cause by terrorising the people of England. "Holy dynamite," as that powerful explosive was christened, was the weapon employed, and some very daring outrages were committed in London and other places. The most notable of these were the simultaneous attempts to wreck the House of Commons, Westminster Hall, and the Tower of London. These audacious crimes were committed on a Saturday afternoon. I spent the whole of the next morning reading and analysing the telegrams in which full details of the occurrences were given, and in writing an article for Monday's Mercury on the subject. In the afternoon I went over to Wakefield to keep an engagement I had made to dine and sleep at Thorns, the residence of my friends Mr. and Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell. I well remember the scene when I entered the beautiful library at Thorns, about five o'clock. There was a large party there, including the Duke and Duchess of St. Albans, Mr. and Mrs. Goschen, and Mr. W B. Beaumont, of Bretton.
When I was announced, Gaskell jumped up from his seat, saying, "Now we shall have news!" and instantly the whole party flocked round me, eager to know the truth as to the wild rumour which was all they had as yet heard of the devastation wrought by the dynamiters in London on the previous day. My morning's work had, of course, qualified me to satisfy their curiosity, but the questions they poured in upon me were so numerous and so eager that I was at last obliged to ask them to sit down, and let me tell the story in my own fashion, which I accordingly proceeded to do amid the breathless attention of my auditors. The scene is worth recording as a characteristic incident of life in England in those days. We had an enemy, subtle, daring, and dangerous, actually waging war upon us within our own gates; and though the invincible courage of our race enabled us to pursue our own way in spite of the new terror that had arisen amongst us, we were none of us, as this scene in the library at Thorns proved, insensible to the horror of the situation, and the deadly character of the weapons used against us.
At this time all the leading members of the Liberal Government were under police protection, and Forster, as being the special object of Irish animosity, was also treated in this respect as though he were still a Minister. Some Ministers, it was asserted, not only enjoyed, but desired, the constant companionship of armed detectives, and amusing stories were told of the way in which they arrived at Mayfair dinner-parties accompanied by "stern-faced men" with revolvers in their pockets. I shall not repeat these stories, for I cannot bring myself to believe that any English statesman has been the victim of physical cowardice. Others, among whom Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Forster were conspicuous, loathed the presence of the police agents dogging their footsteps, and keeping watch at their doors, and tried in every possible way to evade them. Mr. Gladstone, with the collar of his overcoat turned up to his ears, used suddenly to dash out of the garden door at the back of Downing Street, and attempt, by running across the parade at full speed, to get rid of his bodyguard. Occasionally he succeeded, but I am told that as a consequence he had so severe a wigging from the Home Secretary and the Chief Commissioner of Police that he was at last compelled to abandon his efforts to secure his unfettered liberty of action. Forster managed to obtain exemption from the obtrusive services of a bodyguard, but a policeman kept watch and ward by day and night in front of his house in Eccleston Square, not only to his disgust, but to that of one of his neighbours, who quitted his abode rather than continue to live near so dangerous a character. "I often wonder," said Forster to me one day, "what I shall do if I find an infernal machine on my doorstep when I come home some night. I know what it is my duty to do. I ought to take it up, and throw it into the middle of the square, but I am terribly afraid that I shan't have the pluck, and shall simply turn round and run away." Nobody who knew Forster could believe that he would ever have acted in any such fashion.
I had my own small experience at this time of trial. Threatening letters were flying about, and I received a fair share of them, for I was at that time very obnoxious to the Irish party in Leeds. One evening, on going down to my office, which I entered from a narrow thoroughfare called Bank Street, I was startled by being suddenly called upon to halt when near the office door, whilst a policeman's lantern was flashed in my face. One of our workmen explained my identity to the officer, and I was allowed to pass. I then learned that the Leeds police had received information of a plot to blow up the Mercury office, and they had, accordingly, posted guards round the building. I was in the habit of driving home every night, or rather every morning, to my residence at Headingley, and the police suggested that I should be accompanied by an officer; but I did not believe in my danger, and desired no such protection. In the depths of one winter's night, when a thaw was dissolving a heavy fall of snow, I had a great fright. I had left my cab, which had driven away, and was mounting the steps leading to the porch of my house, when I suddenly saw, lying on the half-melted snow against the door itself, a large bundle wrapped in sacking. I drew near it cautiously, and heard a curious ticking sound proceeding from it. "An infernal machine!" I exclaimed to myself, and I confess I was horribly frightened. The outer door of the porch was unlocked, and, opening it, I bounded inside, carefully avoiding the object which I suspected. I unlocked the inner door, and, entering the house, locked and barred it behind me.
Then, when I got into my dining-room, reason asserted itself, and I felt heartily ashamed of my panic. If the thing were an infernal machine, it would certainly do a great deal of damage if it exploded where it lay. I strung my nerves up to the sticking-point, went out, unlocked the door, seized the mysterious package in my hands, and flung it as far as I could into a little shrubbery in the garden. There was no explosion such as I had expected. Nothing, indeed, happened; but when I got back to my dining-room, and saw my face in a mirror, I found it was as white as a sheet. The next morning I went out to look for the infernal machine. It was a coarse sack, filled with blocks of wood and sawdust, and I have a strong suspicion that it had been placed where I found it as a practical joke. The ticking which I had heard, and which had convinced me that I had to deal with an infernal machine, was evidently produced by the drip, drip of water from the bag on the step beneath it. Such were features in the lives of men more or less before the public eye in the years of the dynamite terror.
In the summer of 1885, along with many others, I met with a great loss. This was the death at Vichy of my dear old friend, Lord Houghton. No kinder friend than he man ever had. The world was inclined to laugh at his peculiarities, which lay upon the surface, and to ignore the sterling qualities that formed the basis of his character. If it is right to speak of a man as you find him, then I am entitled to say that there never lived a kinder or more generous man, or a truer friend, than Monckton Milnes. To me he was all this. I have told already the story of our first acquaintance in 1870, and of the debt which I very soon owed him. I could fill a volume with reminiscences of his talk, as I used to hear it during my frequent visits to Fryston, and of the warmth of his sympathy with one who had no claim upon him. I have made many friends in the course of my life, and looking back upon the list I am constrained to say that I have made more friends through the mediumship of Lord Houghton than through that of any other man.
Among those whom I first met at his house, I must not omit Edward, fourteenth Earl of Derby, better known in his time as the Lord Stanley who served as Foreign Secretary under the premiership of his brilliant father, the thirteenth Earl. Lord Derby—the man of whom I speak—was one of the great misunderstood figures of his generation. Men slandered him as freely as they slandered Mr. Gladstone, and, unlike the great Liberal leader, he did not possess that strong following of ardent adherents who stood by their chief, no matter how sternly Fortune might frown upon him. Lord Derby was one of the shyest of men, and, as a consequence, he was really known, even when he was in the thick of his political work, by only a few men and women. Those who did know him held him, however, in the highest esteem. There was no better judge of character than Lord Houghton, and often he would remark upon the fact that Lord Derby was almost as unpopular as his father had been the reverse. He cited this as a proof of the incapacity of the public for forming correct estimates of character. I had been in confidential correspondence with Lord Derby long before I first met him at Fryston, and in 1879 I wrote an article in Macmillan's Magazine dealing with his career at the Foreign Office, and with his reason for resigning his post in Lord Beaconsfield's Administration. This article was written on information which he supplied, and he himself corrected the proof-sheets. Yet these facts did not prevent some of the cocksure critics of the Press from announcing that I was wholly mistaken in my account of Lord Derby's action and motive. I have found, however, that nothing is so certain to meet with an absolute contradiction in the Press as an indubitable fact which comes as a piece of unexpected news to the ordinary journalist.
When I met Lord Derby under Lord Houghton's roof he was far too shy to make any reference to our previous correspondence, yet when the first painful embarrassment had passed away, he proved a delightful companion, and his conversation was full of the charm derived from ample knowledge and marked intellectual power. No man was simpler than he in his intercourse with those whom he trusted. It was difficult when talking to him to realise the fact that you were speaking to one who had held the great office of Foreign Secretary. Instead of laying down the law upon foreign affairs he seemed anxious to elicit the opinions of other persons, and he displayed a modest simplicity of manner which was very striking. He has been described as the incarnation of common-sense, and the general public believed him to be as full of facts and as dry as a Blue Book. In reality he had a decided love of humour, and his conversation, which was illustrated by many good stories, had all the light and shade, the warmth and colour, that good talk ought to possess. He was amazingly frank in his criticisms upon men and upon current affairs.