The whole situation—already delicate, uncertain and seemingly critical—could not fail to be profoundly influenced by the course of events in Ireland. The winter of 1886 was accompanied by a widespread, though by no means general, refusal or inability to pay rents. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had never been too enthusiastic in his sympathy with the Irish landowner, and during the winter he had endeavoured to mitigate the severities of the time by the exercise of a kind of ‘dispensing power.’ Landlords were given to understand that the whole machinery of the Executive would not necessarily be at their disposal for the purpose of enforcing against their tenants claims which, in the opinion of the Chief Secretary, were harsh or unjust. This rough-and-ready method was heartily supported by Sir Redvers Buller, and to its adoption the comparative crimelessness of the winter was largely due. But, however satisfactory its results in practice might be, it was easily and justly assailable in principle; and after the Lord Chief Baron Palles had authoritatively declared that the attempt to withdraw the police from supporting the legal claims of private persons was altogether unjustifiable, the ‘dispensing power’ had to be abandoned, and the law took its regular course. The consequence of the numerous and, in some cases, ruthless evictions which followed was a formidable agrarian conspiracy. The tenants on different estates joined themselves together to offer to the landlord whatever rent they considered just, and where it was refused as insufficient they deposited the whole sum with a managing committee to be used for the purposes of resistance. This movement, known to history as the ‘Plan of Campaign,’ was the immediate result. The secondary, though not less direct, result was the advent in the House of Commons of a Land Bill and a Coercion Bill, both of which must expose to uncalculated strains the composite forces on which the Government depended.
But now and in the years that were to come the far-seeing statecraft with which the Conservative leaders had stimulated and sustained the schism in the Liberal party and had dealt with the crisis of the General Election was to be vindicated. They had built far stronger than they knew. Underneath the smooth words of the Liberal-Unionist leaders towards their former friends, and behind all the generous emotions of the Round Table Conference, stubborn brute forces were at work which, though they did not necessarily conduce to the stability of the Conservative Government, were inevitably fatal to Liberal reunion. The Liberal-Unionist members who had come back safely to Westminster, having broken with their party organisations and defied the Grand Old Man, were very particular to call themselves Liberals and to deny that they had severed themselves in any degree from the principles and traditions of Liberalism. They banned Tory colours and Tory clubs. When they attended public meetings they took care that the complexion of the platform should be Liberal Unionist. Even Mr. Goschen, after taking office in a Conservative Government, thought it necessary to assert in his election address his unaltered and unalterable character as a Liberal, and to apologise to the Conservative electors for the strain put upon their natural partisanship by his candidature. And there is no doubt that they were perfectly honest in their belief. They were not conscious of any abandonment of principle. They declared that they agreed with the Liberal party on every other question except the Irish Question, and even in regard to Ireland there was agreement on three points out of four. The Conservatives had exacted no pledges from them. They did not feel themselves divorced from one body of doctrine and engaged to another. They remained in political opinion on all the great contested questions of the day exactly where they had been when Parliament met in January 1885, and they sat in the same places and among the same party.
But, in fact, one change had taken place in their character of more practical importance than all the symbols and nomenclature of party, and counting more in political warfare than any change of principles, however sudden or sweeping: they had changed sides. Abstract principles and party labels might be the same, but whereas in January 1886 they wished and worked for a Liberal victory and a Conservative defeat, in January 1887 they wanted to see the Conservatives win and the Liberals beaten. Otherwise no change! No disagreement, outside Ireland, with the Liberal party—except that they sought its overthrow; no difference except the one difference which swallows up all others—the difference between alliance and war. And this difference, be it noted, was not founded on any passing mood of anger or caprice which smooth words and fair offers might dispel. It was fundamental and innate. It was the basis of the election of these seventy members. They had stood as opponents of Mr. Gladstone and all the forces he directed. They were elected for the very purpose of preventing his return to power by electors nine-tenths of whom at least were Conservatives. While they opposed Mr. Gladstone, they responded to the constituent bodies by whom they were returned. If they made friends with him—no matter upon what terms—they ceased to represent nine-tenths at least of their electorates.
Moreover, few men go through the experience of an internecine quarrel, with its taunts and charges of treachery and ingratitude exchanged between old comrades who know each other well, and with all the wrenching and tearing asunder of friendships and associations, without contracting a deep and abiding antagonism for those from whom they have broken. Sir George Trevelyan—unembarrassed by a constituency—indeed went back; but he went back alone. The rest remained to justify, by their consistent action, the wisdom of Conservative tactics; to prove, as the years went by, the most trustworthy supporters of the Conservative party, and in the end to secure the main control of its policy. From that strange pilgrimage—‘that bitter pilgrimage,’ as Mr. Chamberlain calls it (was it so very bitter, after all?), there could be no turning back after the first decisive steps were taken.
All this was, however, either unknown or imperfectly appreciated in 1887; and even if the Liberal-Unionists’ mind had been thoroughly understood, the uncertainty of the political situation would not have been by any means concluded. For, although there never was any real chance of Liberal reunion, there were repeated possibilities of a Conservative collapse. The Liberal Unionists were resolved to do nothing that would bring Mr. Gladstone back to power. Apart from imperilling the cause of the Union, that process would probably involve the political extinction of most of their party. But, subject to that dominant proviso, they could not feel any particular affection for Lord Salisbury’s Government. They disliked much of its action, they did not agree with its general views, and they could not be impressed by the Parliamentary exposition with which they were favoured. Their leaders were not desirous of office for its own sake; but they were gravely disquieted by the policy adopted towards Ireland, and more than once drawn to the conclusion that a wide reconstruction of the Cabinet would be necessary to maintain the reputation of the Unionist party in Parliament and the country. In view of their evident power to change the Government at any moment by a vote, the passage of the Irish Bills through the House of Commons was attended with extreme danger to the Ministry. On more than one occasion its life depended upon a single hand, and once it was decided that that hand should be withdrawn.
About Ireland and all that concerned her Lord Randolph cared intensely. He felt responsible in no small degree for the denial of Home Rule. As to that he had no doubts; but he had always intended, and had been allowed, with the full sanction of the Cabinet, to declare that the counterpart of the assertion of the Union was a generous, sympathetic, and liberal policy towards the Irish people in regard to religion, self-government, and land. Intimately acquainted as he was with many shades of Irish opinion, he was both grieved and angered at the temper displayed by the conquerors in the years that followed their victory. To Coercion, indeed, so far as it should be necessary to maintain the law, he had made up his mind before he left the Cabinet, and he had no thoughts of going back on that; but the Bill and its enforcement stirred all the latent Liberalism in his character. He discovered, as time went on, that special legislation was not regarded by the Government as a hateful necessity; but as something good in itself, producing a salutary effect upon the Irish people and raising the temper of the Ministerial party. He was offended by the calm assumption of social and racial superiority displayed, as a matter of course, by Ministers towards their Irish opponents, and the studied disregard of Nationalist sentiments and feelings which, even when no public object was to be gained, marked these dark years of Unionist policy; and with all his determination never in any degree weakened to maintain the Union, it was in the conduct of Irish affairs from 1887 to 1890 that he realised most acutely his differences with the Government, and out of which his open quarrel with the Conservative party ultimately sprang.
The retirement of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach from the Irish office on account of his eyesight was the first blow.
‘I waited till I got home,’ Lord Randolph wrote on March 30, ‘before writing to you, as I did not know where a letter might find you: but I feel sure no letter from me was needed for you to be convinced how profoundly grieved I was at your having to give up official work, and at the cause. I knew you had trouble before you, but was in great hopes that it might have been for long delayed. I saw Roose yesterday, and it was very pleasant to hear him assert with confidence that you would be as strong and well as ever before the close of the year. Indeed, you are a great loss to Ireland and to the party and to me. Now that you are gone, there is no one in the Government I care a rap about.... I should so much like to see you and have a long talk. I have as yet seen none of my late colleagues, nor do I want to. Don’t trouble to answer this; but believe that there is no one who more truly and earnestly wishes for your renewed health and strength.’
The Land Bill opened various difficulties. Many of the Liberal Unionists thought it inadequate, and both Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Randolph had decided opinions of their own upon several of its most important clauses. All through the summer of 1887 these two disinherited chiefs of democracy drew closely together. They were both, as Mr. Chamberlain describes it, ‘adrift from the regular party organisations.’ Yet each possessed great influence in Parliament and the country. It was natural that the idea of some Central party should present itself to their minds in a favourable light. And, indeed, the increasing weakness of the Government in the House of Commons and the apparently uncertain character of its majority made such speculations very reasonable. On at least two occasions a defeat in Committee on the Land Bill appeared certain; and in that emergency only a coalition headed by Lord Hartington and strengthened by both Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Randolph Churchill could have prevented the return of the Home Rulers to power, with a disastrous election to follow. In many letters and in several speeches the idea of a ‘National party’ recurs. In July the situation appeared so critical and the prospects of a collapse so imminent that Lord Hartington himself seems to have regarded the reconstruction of the Government as inevitable. In that event it was known that the two democratic leaders stood together and that neither would enter any Cabinet without the other.
The crisis passed, and with it the agreement. With the best will in the world Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Randolph Churchill found it very difficult to work in close accord. Their opinions were nearly alike, but their political positions were different. They had similar aims, but divergent antagonisms. The disputes within a party are always fiercer than those between regular political opponents and their rage burns long in the breast. Mr. Chamberlain had resigned from Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet, and his attitude tended to become mainly one of opposition to him. All other political leaders, of whatever complexion, stood more or less in shadow. Lord Randolph, on the other hand, had resigned from Lord Salisbury’s Cabinet and the differences which most concerned him were those which separated him from the ‘old gang.’ Hence that strenuous alliance which was the necessary foundation of the National party was, from the very outset, subjected to perilous strains. Further difficulties arose from the topography of the House of Commons. The two friends sat on opposite sides of the House. No intercourse in the Chamber was possible without exciting notice and perhaps remark. On the other hand, the shifting course of the debates made constant consultings indispensable to harmonious action. Without them misunderstandings and disagreements were bound to arise. Both men formed strong and immediate opinions on every small point that arose. Both spoke with dangerous facility. Both had sharp tongues and some readiness to use them when provoked. During the long-drawn session of 1887 several petty disagreements, taking the form of public expression, arose.