We shall lay your letter and copy of this reply before the Council at its meeting to-morrow and shall move the Council that they adhere substantially to the report already adopted, in obedience to the direction of the Conference at Birmingham; that they take steps to provide themselves with their own officers and clerks; and that they continue to prosecute with vigour and independence the task which they have commenced—namely, the bonâ fide popular organisation of the Conservative party.
It may be that the powerful and secret influences which have hitherto been unsuccessfully at work on the Council, with the knowledge and consent of your Lordship and Sir Stafford Northcote, may at last be effectual in reducing the National Union to its former make-believe and impotent condition; in that case we shall know what steps to take to clear ourselves of all responsibility for the failure of an attempt to avert the misfortunes and reverses which will, we are certain, under the present effete system of wire-pulling and secret organisation, overtake and attend the Conservative party at a General Election.
I have the honour to be
Yours obediently,
Randolph S. Churchill.
Draft of Lord Randolph Churchill’s letter resigning his
candidature for Birmingham.
Dear Mr. Satchell Hopkins,—You will not be surprised, after what passed yesterday at the Council of the National Union, to receive a communication from me with reference to the electoral contest which the Conservative party in Birmingham intend to wage at the General Election, and to the part in that contest which I have been invited to take. It will be within your recollection that in last November, when you first inquired of me whether I would be willing to have my name submitted to the Conservative party in Birmingham as one of the candidates for the Parliamentary representation of the town, I hesitated greatly before complying with your very flattering request. My hesitation was not due to any great fear of defeat, but rather to doubts which I entertained as to whether the political principles, both as regards foreign and domestic affairs, which I held to and which I should advocate as candidate for Birmingham, were in any degree coincident with the political principles of the present leaders of the Tory party or would be adopted by them if they came into power. You are also aware that shortly before I went to Birmingham at Easter for the purpose of addressing public meetings at the Town Hall I again expressed to you those doubts, which had been rather confirmed than dissipated by various circumstances which had marked the interval between April and November last. It is within your knowledge that the Council of the National Union has been since its election by the Conference of Associations at Birmingham in October 1883 engaged in a struggle to acquire for itself a large share in and control over the organisation of the Tory party throughout the country, to become the principal centre and source of organising energy, and to transform itself from a thoroughly sham and artificial into an active and powerful body. The Council in undertaking this effort was acting in obedience to the positive direction of the delegates at the Conference. The principles of political organisation which animate the Council are the encouragement, extension and formation of popular Associations combining all classes and electing a representative and responsible executive in electoral districts for the carrying-on of all business relating to Parliamentary elections. This is the form of political organisation which has been widely and successfully adopted by the Liberal party, which is the only form of political combination suitable to the present vast electorate but which as far as the Conservative party is concerned is solely confined to some of the most populous constituencies of Great Britain. I would also add that this is the only form of organisation which can bring the Parliamentary action of the Conservative party into harmony and sympathy with the masses of the people in the country who are inclined to support the principles of that party. A popular organisation and a popular policy follow naturally the one upon the other, and without the former you will not have the latter. The efforts of the Council from the outset met with the strongest opposition from those who have great influence with the leaders of the party, who at present control such organisation as exists, and dispense in irresponsible secrecy the considerable funds subscribed for party purpose.
To thwart the efforts of the Council every pretext of delay was seized upon, promises and menaces being freely resorted to. The Council, however, succeeded in procuring from the leaders a document recognising largely the legitimacy of their demands and conceding much of that which they claimed; but so soon as they embodied its substance in a report for the purpose of immediate action, an attempt was first made to prohibit this step, and when the Council had the independence to persist, the National Union received a prompt notice to quit the premises it had so long shared with the agents of the party leaders. Thereupon the Council were careful not to communicate this hostile measure to the Associations in the country, ever hoping that a conciliatory spirit might yet avert a public rupture. Unfortunately no corresponding spirit restrained those who had been opposed to the Council. Independents in the Conservative party could not be brooked for a moment, and a circular was hurriedly issued from the Central office to every Association and agent in the country intimating that the National Union was an outcast, and that a small Committee nominated by the leaders themselves, in whose appointment the Associations had no voice, would conduct all the functions for the discharge of which the National Union was originally constituted. Notwithstanding the issue of this document, which threw local bodies and local leaders into the greatest confusion and embarrassment, the Council of the National Union continued their efforts to bring about an arrangement which, while preserving their independence and usefulness, would enable them to act harmoniously with all authorities in and sections of the party.
These efforts proved unavailing, and on the 2nd instant the majority of the Council was induced under great pressure to recede from the line of action which it had for six months adopted, and a Committee was appointed to supersede the Chairman and the Executive Committee.
The advocates of popular control on the Council were suppressed, the inchoate work of invoking energy and co-operation among the Associations was abruptly stopped, and the Council has been in effect reduced to the position of dependence and unreality from which the delegates at the Birmingham Conference had directed it to emancipate itself.
Such is the summary of the abortive effort of the National Union to infuse a popular element into the organisation and policy of the Tory party. The jealous guardians of aristocratic privilege have proved for the time too powerful for those who would base the strength of the Tory party upon the genuine and spontaneous attachment of the masses of our people. The interests of the many are still to be sacrificed to the love of power and interested ambition of a favoured few.
These things being so, I have arrived at the irresistible conclusion that it would be impossible for me, consistently even with the lowest standard of political honesty, to solicit the suffrages of the citizens of Birmingham in support of the obsolete policy still adhered to by the Tory party; basing my solicitations upon those principles of government, whether domestic or foreign, which I endeavoured to set forth in your Town Hall at Eastertide; knowing, as I know now, beyond all doubt of contradiction, that notwithstanding the immense changes effected by the Reform Bill of 1867, and about to be effected by the Reform Bill of 1884, those principles are inexpressibly repugnant to the authorities of the party and would never be carried into effect by the Tory party under their guidance.