In truth, at this crisis in their fortunes the Conservative party were rescued in spite of themselves. A very little and they would never have won the new democracy. But for a narrow chance they might have slipped down into the gulf of departed systems. The forces of wealth and rank, of land and Church, must always have exerted vast influence in whatever confederacy they had been locked. Alliances or fusions with Whigs and moderate Liberals must from time to time have secured them spells of office. But the Tory party might easily have failed to gain any support among the masses. They might have lost their hold upon the new foundation of power; and the cleavage in British politics must have become a social, not a political, division—upon a line horizontal, not oblique.
There are, without doubt, some who will be inclined to think that no element of the heroic enters into these conflicts, and that political triumphs are necessarily tarnished by vulgar methods. The noise and confusion of election crowds, the cant of phrase and formula, the burrowings of rival Caucuses, fill with weariness, and even terror, persons of exquisite sensibility. It is easy for those who take no part in the public duties of citizenship under a democratic dispensation to sniff disdainfully at the methods of modern politics and to console themselves for a lack of influence upon the course of events by the indulgence of a fastidious refinement and a meticulous consistency. But it is a poor part to play. Amid the dust and brawling, with rude weapons and often unworthy champions, a real battle for real and precious objects is swaying to and fro. Better far the clamour of popular disputation, with all its most blatant accessories, hammering out from month to month and year to year the laboured progress of the common people in a work-a-day world, than the poetic tragedies and violence of chivalric ages. The splintering of lances and clashing of swords are not the only tests by which the natural captains and princes among men can be known. The spirit and emotions of war do not depend upon the weapons or conditions of the conflict. A bold heart, a true eye—clear, plain, decided leading—count none the less, although no blood is spilled. ‘To rally the people round the Throne,’ cried Lord Randolph Churchill, ‘to unite the Throne with the people, a loyal Throne and a patriotic people—that is our policy and that is our faith.’ Much of the work that he did, was turned to purposes very different from his own. His political doctrines were not free from error and contradiction. But he accomplished no mean or temporary achievement in so far as he restored the healthy balance of parties, and caused the ancient institutions of the British realm once again to be esteemed among the masses of the British people.
CHAPTER VII
THE PARTY MACHINE
‘There is rarely any rising, but by a commixture of good and evil arts.’—Bacon.
IN the spring of 1883 Lord Randolph Churchill had invited Lord Salisbury to come forward and head the Tory Democratic movement. In the autumn he determined to persevere alone. The enterprise which he had matured during his retirement at Blenheim was perhaps the most daring on which he ever embarked. It has been stated that he cherished no smaller design than the ‘wholesale capture of the Conservative party organisation.’ How far in his secret heart he was determined to go cannot be known; but it is certain that he now set to work deliberately upon a twofold plan—first, to obtain the control of the National Union of Conservative Associations; and secondly to secure for that body substantial authority and financial independence.
Nothing but Lord Randolph Churchill’s undisputed predominance in debate and his unequalled popularity in the country could have sustained him against the forces which he had determined to engage. From one motive or another, from conscientious and perfectly intelligible distrust, from vulgar jealousy, from respect for discipline and authority, from a dull resentment at the disturbance he created, nearly all the most influential Conservatives in the House of Commons and the Carlton Club were leagued against him. Lord Salisbury was hostile to him. Sir Stafford Northcote had good reason to be so. All the old men who had sat in the late Cabinet, were alarmed; all the new men who hoped to sit in the next, were envious of his surprising rise to power. Scarcely a name can be mentioned of those who had held office in the past or were to hold it in the future, which was not at this time arrayed against him. And with all of them he was now to come into violent collision.
With the beginnings of this intricate conflict around the party machinery the Fourth Party entered upon its final phase. It had grown out of a House of Commons comradeship amid the Bradlaugh debates. It had soon become the centre and soul of opposition to Mr. Gladstone’s Government. It had next been drawn into a vehement effort to displace Sir Stafford Northcote from his primacy in Conservative councils and instal Lord Salisbury in his stead. In all this Mr. Balfour may be said to have worked with the Fourth Party more or less formally and to have sympathised generally and even cordially with their aims. But in the process of fighting several unexpected things had happened. A new political situation was created; new forces had been awakened; a new leader was at hand.
Mr. Gorst and Sir Henry Wolff declared themselves ready to follow Lord Randolph Churchill further. Mr. Balfour immediately diverged. Although during the fight for the party machine he continued nominally to act with the Fourth Party and remained on friendly terms with its members, he now began to oppose Lord Randolph Churchill. He spoke against him in the House of Commons. He canvassed against him in the National Union Council. It has been suggested[17] that Mr. Balfour’s course at this time was open to the reproach of disingenuousness. Certainly Lord Randolph Churchill’s correspondence lends no support to such a charge. He liked Mr. Balfour as a companion. He did not consider him formidable as an opponent. He was delighted to bear the evils of his antagonism for the pleasure of his society. Moreover, he saw quite clearly that Mr. Balfour’s main political sympathy was inseparably attached to Lord Salisbury. To come into conflict with Lord Salisbury was to come into conflict with Mr. Balfour. The difference was natural, inevitable, and legitimate; and no doubt, while it lasted, Lord Randolph was careful to confine his conversation with his friend only to those subjects upon which they were still able to cooperate.
After the electoral disaster of 1880 a meeting had been held at Bridgewater House, under the auspices of Lord Beaconsfield, to examine the causes of defeat. A committee, formed chiefly of members of the Carlton Club, had been appointed to consider various methods of reforming, popularising, and improving the party organisation. This committee was never dissolved. It continued to exist, and under the title of the ‘Central Committee’ assumed the direction and management of all party affairs and controlled the large funds subscribed for party purposes. The National Union of Conservative Associations, upon the other hand, was a body formed on a basis of popular representation. Its branches had spread all over the country and its membership included many of the more active local leaders of the Conservative party in the great towns. It was, however, deprived of all share in party government by the Central Committee and jealously excluded from possessing any financial independence. Mr. Gorst was already its Vice-President and had long exercised an influence sustained by an unrivalled knowledge of party machinery. Sir Henry Wolff was one of its original members. But Lord Randolph Churchill’s election by co-optation to a seat upon that body in 1882 had led to an unprecedented division of opinion. His personal antagonists had banded themselves together and attacked him upon various ingenious pretexts. One gentleman undertook to prove from elaborately prepared and complicated statistics that the member for Woodstock was a Fenian. Another endeavoured to convince the Council that he was a devoted slave of Mr. Chamberlain—apparently on the curious ground that he had voted against a plan for making a Channel Tunnel. When the Council had divided, the numbers for and against him were exactly equal. The duty of giving a casting-vote fell upon the Chairman. Although consistently hostile to Tory Democracy in all its forms and representatives, Lord Percy refused to use his vote to exclude a distinguished opponent and Lord Randolph Churchill had thus been elected.
The three faithful members of the Fourth Party were thus brought together. They were not alone or unsupported. The discussions of a year had disclosed unmistakable discontent on the part of a powerful section of the National Union. Many active local politicians—men claiming to speak upon the Council in the name of some of the greatest cities in England—were profoundly dissatisfied both with the conduct of the Opposition and the organisation of the party. They resented their utter lack of influence over either. Themselves above, or at least outside, the jealousies and cabals of the House of Commons, they regarded the free-lances below the gangway as the best fighting men in the Conservative ranks and they looked with enthusiasm to Lord Randolph Churchill as the one man who could revive the failing fortunes of their party and beard the majestic authority of the Prime Minister. It was by the unwavering support of a majority of these gentlemen that Lord Randolph’s power upon the Council was maintained through the struggles that followed.