The Address was disposed of in the first week of September and the House plunged at once into Supply. Forthwith obstruction became patent and flagrant. A select, determined and well-organised band, among whom Mr. Labouchere was the best known, took charge of national interests. They did not disdain trifles, however small; nor grudge study, however laborious. It was the last chance of a minority under the unreformed procedure. No Supply Rule, automatically fixing limits, regulated the votes. No Closure aided the Minister. The Committee debated to their hearts’ content, and on after that till they were sick and weary. Business crawled forward on its belly in the small hours of the morning. Any attempt on the part of the Leader of the House to accelerate its passage was met by alternate motions to report progress and to adjourn. Lord Randolph was teased with mischievous satisfaction upon all the former manœuvres of the Fourth Party. It was a severe, if appropriate, expiation. Nothing but imperturbable temper and physical endurance availed. The Leader of the House was always in his place. He listened to all the discussions. He defended every detail of the Civil Service Estimates himself. On warlike stores, on public accounts, on salaries in the House of Lords, on secret service and town holdings and polluted rivers, on poor ratepayers and gold coinage, he was found suave, adroit, and well informed.
‘The Chancellor of the Exchequer,’ observed the Times, not always a friendly critic (September 17), ‘is making great progress in the art of so answering questions as to keep the House in a good temper. This he does sometimes by judicious concessions, sometimes by a sly turn of humour, sometimes by a touch of good-natured irony.’ Indeed, he used every Parliamentary art and all the resources of his many-sided character. Sometimes he coaxed and sometimes he complained. Sometimes he resisted with vehemence only to make surrender an hour or two later more valued. Once, as has been shown, he appealed earnestly and with success to the House. Once he rapped out that the tactics of the obstructionists were ‘not conceived in the public interest,’ and after an angry debate made a reconciliation with them and secured incidentally some progress. He knew the House in all its moods. He humoured it and offended it and soothed it again with practised deliberation. Yet he always appeared to be its servant. Ministers and Governments were but the respectful stewards of the public service. Parliament had rights and authority over them, to which, however capriciously asserted, they must bow: ‘My own opinion,’ he said when his attention was roughly drawn to a criticism of the Public Accounts Committee on some departmental practice, ‘is that the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee, acting together, ought to be a superior authority to the Treasury; and that, if they distinctly lay down a rule as to the expenditure of money, it is the business of the Treasury to acknowledge that authority as superior to their own.’ The member, Mr. Arthur O’Connor, who had complained, was so contented with this soft answer that, after congratulating the Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘upon the breadth of view with which he always looks at matters of this kind,’ he withdrew his motion for the reduction of the vote. Thus, inch by inch, Supply crept forward.
The Irish members watched Lord Randolph hourly. He and they had obstructed so often together that both sides knew enough of each other’s ways not to be deceived by blandishments or manœuvres which would captivate the innocent spectator. Soured and indignant as they were—not unnaturally—by the turn of events, in their hearts they nourished a certain secret sympathy for the conqueror. They enjoyed seeing the game played scientifically, and they realised how different their new antagonist was from the prosaic authoritarians who chafe the hearts of Celtic peoples. At last the Estimates were done. ‘It is due to the Chancellor of the Exchequer,’ said the Times (September 16), ‘to say that no Leader of the House of Commons in recent years has met obstruction, open and disguised, with more exemplary patience.’
The general satisfaction of the Conservative party at Lord Randolph’s management of the House of Commons found expression in much solicitude for his health. ‘Don’t worry yourself and get knocked up,’ wrote Mr. Chamberlain (September 1). ‘I do not believe that the Irish will keep you sweltering very much longer.’ ‘You really must take more care of yourself,’ Mr. Balfour insisted. ‘Now that the main business of the Address is got over, I cannot see why you should spend so much time in your place in the House.’ And Lord Salisbury on the 14th: ‘I am afraid your work is getting intolerably hard. Don’t sit up too much.’
‘I am particularly commanded,’ said Lord Iddesleigh, writing from Balmoral on the 16th, ‘by the Queen to say that Her Majesty was greatly amused by the contents of your box last night. I suppose you won’t understand this message without the gloss—there was a sprinkling of tobacco in it.
‘Her Majesty is very sympathetic over the sufferings of our friends in the House of Commons. You have indeed a very hard task and it is not very clear how it is to be lightened.’
Only Mr. Parnell’s Bill remained after the Estimates were passed. Two days (September 20 and 21) were occupied in its discussion. The Bill was badly drawn. Mr. Gladstone supported it in principle; but was forced to object to nearly every detail. Lord Hartington was severe in his condemnation. The Government declared they would have nothing whatever to do with it. Mr. Morley alone was fortunate in his advocacy. It was rejected by 297 to 202. Ministers were much advantaged by having persuaded their opponents to expose themselves to the perils of constructive policies.
Lord Randolph Churchill ended the session amid golden opinions. Congratulations and goodwill flowed in upon him from all sides. He himself was in high spirits. ‘You must find it very hard work,’ said an admirer, ‘leading the House and at the same time being at the Exchequer.’ ‘Not half such hard work as it was getting there,’ was the droll answer. The party newspapers were loud in their praises. All doubts about his tact and patience were dispersed, and Conservative members hurried off to the country feeling that a great man had arisen among them, and that ‘Elijah’s mantle’ had lighted upon no unworthy shoulders. The Sovereign wrote him an autograph letter of exceptional favour:—
Balmoral Castle: September 22, 1886.
Now that the session is just over, the Queen wishes to write and thank Lord Randolph Churchill for his regular and full and interesting reports of the debates in the House of Commons, which must have been most trying.