I have a public meeting, probably the last, to-morrow night in Kidlington. The election will be on April 2, but much work is needed for the proper preparation and organisation for polling day, so that the Liberals may this time get their ‘quietus.’
I hope you liked my speech at Woodstock. I was prepared for a row, but though I had no one with me to help, and although the other Party was there in great force, helped by a preacher and stump orator, they heard me with the greatest patience for forty minutes. The preacher asked some questions and made some remarks, but I am told that what I said on the Foreign Policy and Home Questions pleased them much, and that I was considered to have had the best of the preacher.
I feel so sorry for all this expense coming on at such a time, but I hope things are going to mend this year. The weather has been perfect—fine, bright, cold days, worth pounds to the farmers, who are cleaning their fields with great activity and advantage. A good harvest this year will do much to set things going; but the serious part of the matter is that the farmers are so much worse off in point of capital, and in addition the land is four years to the bad, suffering from weeds and reduced manure. I fear that even with good harvests the future is full of difficulties to the landlords.
The outlook here at the outset was very alarming, but it is clearing rapidly. I think I must attend more regularly this session. Hall hit me rather hard on account of my slack attendance. I think the Party will keep a fair majority, but they cannot expect to have quite so many as they had nor do I think it would be a good thing. I am afraid you will think I have become rather Jingo, but any lukewarmness at such a moment would be most dangerous.
The election at Woodstock took place on the second day of the polling (April 1), and Lord Randolph Churchill was returned—in a total electorate of 1,060—by 512 votes to the Liberal candidate’s (Mr. W. Hall, of Lancing, Sussex) 452. Thus Woodstock was snatched from the burning; but throughout the kingdom general disaster overwhelmed the Conservatives. In the first four days the Conservative majority had been destroyed by their losses in the boroughs. The counties endorsed and even emphasised the decision. When the returns were complete, Mr. Gladstone had obtained a Liberal majority of 54 over all other sections in the House. The dissolved Parliament had numbered 351 Conservatives, 250 Liberals, and 51 Home Rulers. The new Parliament assembled with 353 Liberals, 237 Conservatives, and 62 Home Rulers.
In two chapters two-thirds of Lord Randolph’s life have been described. Starting with many advantages, he was still at thirty-one obscure. Four or five speeches in as many years had made no particular impression, and the House of Commons had scarcely formed an opinion about him. Stirred on the one hand by liberal and pacific sentiments and restrained on the other by affection for the Conservative party, to which he was bound by so many ties of friendship and tradition and above all by respect for his father, he was prevented during those years from taking any clear or decided action which might have enlisted sympathy or commanded attention. Out-of-doors among the people he was unknown. Adverse social influences denied the recognition of such ability as he had shown. His party was now humbled in the dust. His own family borough lay under the shadow of an approaching Reform Bill. New Ministers and new measures occupied the public mind. Grave and violent dangers beset the State and no one troubled to think about an undistinguished sprig of the nobility. Nevertheless his hour had come.
CHAPTER III
THE FOURTH PARTY
His birth, it seems, by Merlin’s calculation,
Was under Venus, Mercury, and Mars;
His mind with all their attributes was mixt;
And, like those planets, wandering and unfixt....
His schemes of war were sudden, unforeseen,
Inexplicable both to friend and foe;
It seemed as if some momentary spleen
Inspired the project and impelled the blow.
Hookham Frere, The Monks and the Giants.
GREAT expectations were entertained of the Parliament of 1880 by the Liberal members who assembled at Westminster after the election. Indeed, the position of their party was one of immense strength and advantage. The Government enjoyed the support of a majority in the House of Commons who outnumbered the Conservatives and the Irish combined by more than 50 votes and amounted for practical purposes to between 100 and 130. In the House of Lords they could count upon the wealth and talents of the great Whig houses, the influence of the Cavendishes and the Russells, the experience of Lord Granville, and the eloquence of the Duke of Argyll. They were led by the finest Parliamentarian of this or any other age, whose incomparable powers had won him an almost superstitious veneration; and around him were gathered a band of men of distinguished ability, well known to the country, practised in public affairs and yielding ready subordination to the genius of their chief. Upon the Treasury Bench were seated statesmen like Mr. Bright, Mr. Forster, and Lord Hartington. Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain represented the growing Radicalism and the future hope of their party. And when the view was extended from the walls of Parliament to the larger arena of the electorate no less powerful resources were displayed. The tendency of the day was strongly progressive. The ability and authority of the Press—whether Metropolitan, provincial, or local—were ranged in overwhelming preponderance upon the Liberal side. Scotland and London, almost all the great cities, nearly every centre of active political thought—Edinburgh, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Bristol—sent their representatives in vast majority to uphold the new Administration; and a Reform Bill promised an almost equal advantage in the counties. Many active and vigilant societies and a multitude of political clubs stimulated the energies of the rank and file; and the whole was bound together and directed to a common end by a formidable and opulent organisation.
The position of the Conservative party, upon the other hand, was weak and miserable in the extreme. The sympathies and the intellect of the nation were estranged. Lord Beaconsfield, the only man who could touch the imagination of the people, was withdrawn from the popular assembly. Many of the Tory strongholds—family boroughs and the like—were threatened by approaching Redistribution. The Front Opposition Bench, cumbered with the ancient and dreary wreckage of the late Administration, was utterly unequal to the Government in eloquence or authority. The attendance of Conservative members, as in all dispirited Oppositions, was slack and fitful.