He spoke again three days later in the debate on the Address, following, as it happened, in succession to Mr. Bradlaugh. Preserving throughout a jaunty air of independence, he nevertheless made it perfectly clear that he intended to remain a supporter of the Union and of the Conservative Administration. He derided the Plan of Campaign, and defended and eulogised, with humour and effect, the policy of the Chief Secretary, who had been, as usual, assailed by the violence of one Irish party and by the suspicions of the other, and who was, moreover, suffering from the severe affection of the eyes which was soon to necessitate his retirement. He pointed out that the Procedure proposals, for which he had been personally so much attacked, were in precisely the same form as when he resigned, and that the legislative programme of the gracious Speech ‘bore a strong family resemblance to that set forth in a certain speech made in Kent not long ago.’ He noticed the revival of the old paragraph that the Estimates had been framed with due regard to economy and efficiency. ‘They must have been greatly altered,’ he observed, ‘since I left the Cabinet.’ He spoke, in characteristic words—the truth of which has not been unpaired by time—of the difficulties which the House of Commons encounters in any attempt to control or even criticise expenditure.
But the passage of greatest significance referred to the Chamberlain overtures and negotiations with the Gladstonian Liberals, which were at that time taking the form of the celebrated Round Table Conference. ‘I notice,’ he said, ‘a tendency of the party of the Union to attach too much importance to precarious Parliamentary alliances, which are as transient and uncertain as the shifting wind, and too little to the far more important question how to keep the English people at the back of the party of the Union. When I was in the Government I made it my constant thought and desire to make things as easy as possible for the Liberal Unionists, to introduce such measures as they might conscientiously support as being in accordance with their general principles, and to make such electoral arrangements as might enable them to preserve their seats. But I frankly admit that I regarded the Liberal Unionists as a useful kind of crutch, and I looked forward to the time, and no distant time, when the Tory party might walk alone, strong in its own strength and conscious of its own merits; and it is to the Tory party, and solely to the Tory party, that I looked for the maintenance of the Union.’ He went on to say that Mr. Chamberlain, in these negotiations, was pursuing ‘an erroneous and mistaken course.’ ‘The Tory party will, I think, never follow a line of policy which by any reasonable construction can create in Dublin anything in the nature of an Irish Parliament. That is our clear position, from which, under no pretence of local self-government, shall we depart; and it would be well for the right honourable gentleman the Member for Birmingham, who is now indulging in such extraordinary gyrations, to recognise that, whatever schemes of Home Rule for Ireland may commend themselves to him, they are not, under any circumstances, likely to commend themselves to members on this side of the House.’
These somewhat discursive observations were in themselves brilliantly successful and were heard by the House with keen pleasure and attention. ‘Very many thanks for last night,’ wrote Beach; ‘you are a good friend.’ But in spite of this, and although the intervention attracted so much notice from subsequent speakers as to excite the remark that the debate proceeded less upon the Queen’s Speech than upon Lord Randolph Churchill’s, it cannot be called well conceived. The weak, and at the same time the strong, point was the ‘crutch.’ Those who were independent of such support laughed and laughed again; but the Liberal-Unionist members, and those who owed their seats to Liberal-Unionist votes, were at once offended and alarmed. Although intended in a spirit of sober candour, it had about it a suspicion of reckless mischief, which his many opponents were not slow to turn to profit. Mr. Chaplin belaboured him vigorously in reply. The Unionist newspapers adopted uniformly an attitude of solemn rebuke; and while Government speakers in a long succession denounced or deplored such disrespect of loyal allies, Mr. Jennings alone among his friends was able to offer an effective defence. Moreover, the Liberal Unionists at this stage of their transition were the natural and legitimate associates of a Democratic Tory. They looked to the progressive elements in the Conservative party to make the Unionist alliance easy in Parliament and to give them countenance in the constituencies. Their leaders were far from being unsympathetic to the cause of economy; and Chamberlain especially, who had shown himself willing and anxious to co-operate in various ways, and whose position at this time was difficult, delicate and insecure, had, it must be admitted, good grounds for his complaint.
Mr. Chamberlain to Lord Randolph Churchill.
Private.
40 Prince’s Gardens, S.W.: February 2, 1887.
My dear Churchill,—Why will you insist on being an Ishmael—your hand against every man? Why did you go out of your way on Monday to attack me?
You know that I am the mildest of men, but I have a strong inclination to hit out at those who strike me, and my experience teaches me that no private friendship can long resist the effect of public contest.
You and I have plenty of enemies. Is it not possible for us each to pursue his own way without coming into personal conflict?
Surely we shall have our hands fully occupied without tearing out each other’s eyes.