This determined speech and its thunderous endorsement silenced for the moment all hostile criticism. Some of Lord Randolph’s colleagues expressed to him their disapproval of the attacks upon him from within the Conservative ranks. Others assured him of their agreement. Even the Lord Chancellor was satisfied. ‘I have just finished reading your speech at Bradford,’ he wrote (October 27). ‘There is not a word that is not sound, good Toryism—aye, and old Toryism, too. The truth is that the enemy have been so long dressing up a lay figure which they have invested with their notions of what a Tory ought to be, that they do not recognise the genuine article when they see it.’
It is a pity not to end the story here. Lord Randolph Churchill seems at this time to have been separated only by a single step from a career of dazzling prosperity and fame. With a swiftness which in modern Parliamentary history had been excelled only by the younger Pitt, he had risen by no man’s leave or monarch’s favour from the station of a private gentleman to almost the first position under the Crown. Upon the Continent he was already regarded as the future master of English politics. His popularity among the people was unsurpassed. He was steadily gaining the confidence of the Sovereign and the respect and admiration of the most serious and enlightened men of his day. His natural gifts were still ripening and his mind expanding. The House of Commons had responded instinctively to the leadership of ‘a great member of Parliament.’ Alike in the glare and clatter of the platform and in the silent diligence of a public department he was found equal to all the varied tasks which are laid upon an English Minister. If he were thus armed and equipped at thirty-seven, what would he be at fifty? Who could have guessed that ruin, utter and irretrievable, was marching swiftly upon this triumphant figure; that the great party who had followed his lead so blithely, would in a few brief months turn upon him in abiding displeasure; and that the Parliament which had assembled to find him so powerful and to accept his guidance, would watch him creep away in sadness and alone?
Still, for an interval the sun shone fair. The clouds were parted to the right and to the left, and there stepped into the centre of the world’s affairs—amid the acclamations of the multitude and in the hush of European attention—the Grand Young Man.
CHAPTER XV
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER
‘Those who live to the future most always appear selfish to those who live to the present.’—Emerson.
AT the Treasury the appointment of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer had been received with no little apprehension. Every great department has an atmosphere and identity of its own. No politician, however popular in the country or influential in Parliament, can afford to be indifferent to the opinion formed of him by the Civil Servants through whom and by whom he works. Concealed from the public eye among the deeper recesses of Whitehall, seeking no fame, clad with the special knowledge of life-long study, armed with the secrets of a dozen Cabinets, the slaves of the Lamp or of the Ring render faithful and obedient service to whomsoever holds the talisman. Whatever task be set, wise or foolish, virtuous or evil, as they are commanded, so they do. Yet their silent judgments of their masters and their projects do not pass unheeded. Although the spell still works, it loses half its potency if these spirits are offended or alarmed; and padded walls of innumerable objections, backed by the masonry of unanswerable argument, restrain the irreverent or unworthy from the fullest exercise of the powers they may have won by force or favour.
Over all public departments the department of finance is supreme. Erected upon the vital springs of national prosperity, wielding the mysterious power of the purse, the final arbiter in the disputes of every other office, a good fairy or a perverse devil, as ‘My Lords’ may choose, to every imaginative Secretary of State, the Treasury occupies in the polity of the United Kingdom a central and superior position. No school of thought is so strong or so enduring as that founded on the great traditions of Gladstonian and Peelite finance. Reckless Ministers are protected against themselves, violent Ministers are tamed, timid Ministers are supported and nursed. Few, if any, are insensible to the influences by which they are surrounded. Streams of detailed knowledge, logic and experience wash away fiscal and financial heresies; and a baptism of economic truth inspires the convert not merely with the principles of a saint but—too often—with the courage of a martyr.
To many who had spent their lives at the Treasury, Lord Randolph’s arrival was a shock. They regarded him, we are told, as ‘an impossible man,’ as ‘one whose breath was agitation, and whose life a storm upon which he rode.’[57] They had instinctively resented the assaults he had delivered against Mr. Gladstone, ‘the best friend the Civil Service ever had.’ They remembered that, not long before, Lord Randolph had made himself the mouthpiece of a harsh attack upon one of their number. He was known to have expressed privately a candid opinion that they were ‘a knot of damned Gladstonians.’ Lastly, they had read his Fair Trade speeches; and, notwithstanding the reputation he had made at the India Office as a departmental chief, he still appeared in the eyes of Treasury officials as a Minister who would ride roughshod over their habits and violate all their most cherished financial canons.
This mood was short-lived. The disquieted officials found a Minister assiduous and thorough in work and scrupulously patient and quiet in discussion. He possessed the very rare gift of keeping his mind exclusively devoted to the subject in hand, and impressed on all those with whom he worked the idea that the business on which they were employed was the only one of interest to him. No time spent with the Chancellor of the Exchequer was ever wasted. No interruption of any sort was suffered. No one ever left his room after an interview without having at any rate gained a clear knowledge of his views and intentions. Around all played an old-fashioned ceremony of manner, oddly mingled with a sparkle of pure fun, which charmed everybody. In a month the conquest was complete. Every official worked with enthusiasm in his service and all their mines of information were laid open to his hand. It has often been said that Lord Randolph won his popularity among permanent officials by his subservience to their views. This is by no means true. If he cast away altogether as vicious and unpractical the Fair Trade opinions which he had urged, and which commanded so much support among the Tory democracy, it will also be seen that he was able to enlist the interest and positive support of his subordinates in schemes far outside the orthodoxy of the official mind. His stay at the Treasury was short; but his memory was long respected. He left behind him golden opinions and dearly treasured reminiscences. He took away with him friendships which lasted him his life.
‘Our anxiety,’ wrote Lord Welby in 1896, ‘as to our new chief was soon dispelled. He met us from the outset with perfect frankness, which soon became cordiality; and I cannot recall a word or a line of his during his autumn office which I should have wished unspoken or unwritten. Not that he was an easy or an unexacting chief. He expected subjects to be laid before him fully, clearly and intelligently; and he was keen to mark default. He was, in short, a Minister of the type that Civil Servants appreciate. He ruled as well as reigned. He had a mind, and made it up; a policy, and enforced it. He was quick in acquiring information, quick in seizing the real point, quick in understanding what one wished to convey to him, impatient in small matters and details and contemptuous if one troubled him with them. Above all, he was accessible; ready and willing to hear what one had to say, whether it accorded with his own views or not. Doing business with him was most interesting. Not being a respecter of persons he criticised freely and pointedly men and matters.... In "chaff" he was unsurpassed. He was singularly free from affectation of knowledge he did not possess. Could one fail to take an interest in a chief "who always showed us sport"?’