The position of the Conservative party had been very ill-defined on the question of Parliamentary Reform ever since 1867. Mr. Disraeli’s action had deprived them for ever of the right to oppose large extensions of the franchise on principle. Tory Democracy, especially in Lancashire, though hostile to the Government, looked with favour on their proposal. Reform was a national as well as a party movement. Yet, on the other hand, some of the strongest and most unyielding forces in the Tory ranks—the county members in the House of Commons and Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords—were prepared to offer a stubborn resistance to the change.
Nor, indeed, were they without grave reason from their point of view. Hitherto the county Conservatives had been mainly, if not entirely, selected and returned by farmers and landowners. The great labouring population had been altogether excluded from political power. Now that the franchise was offered to them, they welcomed it with greater earnestness and enthusiasm than they have ever displayed on any other question. Social reforms were good enough in their way but it was the vote on which they had set their hearts. There was a temper among them that no one who understood county politics, could mistake and that filled the Conservative representatives of a hundred seats with a profound dismay. The overwhelming electorate that was to be, regarded the interest of the farmer and landlord as fundamentally antagonistic to their own. Any representative or candidate who was agreeable to the farmer, must therefore be an enemy of theirs. Gratitude for the boon which was offered, threw them still more completely on the Liberal side; and the country party, once all powerful, long predominant, always exercising enormous influence, now looked political extermination in the face.
Lord Randolph Churchill’s course through this memorable controversy is not marked by that clearness of view or consistency of action which may be claimed for him during his whole life upon so many important questions. In a letter written some years afterwards he speaks of it as ‘the only sharp curve’ revealed by his published speeches. But, in truth, the forces which he employed, as well as those with which he was contending, were complex and uncertain to a degree beyond description. Tory Democracy wanted to pass the Bill, yet wanted to destroy the Government. The Conservative party, as a whole, hated the Bill, hated the Government, yet were unable to agree upon uncompromising opposition. These perplexities were multiplied by the struggle for mastery which was proceeding between the rival Parliamentary groups upon the Council of the National Union and by the varying relations of Lord Randolph Churchill towards Lord Salisbury and the official party leaders. The Fourth Party was fated to perish amid this intricate confusion. Its members criticised and even attacked one another and, though they still all sat together in their old places, their old comradeship was utterly destroyed.
It was known during the autumn of 1883 that the question of Reform was occupying the Cabinet and would probably issue in a Bill. On December 19, 1883, when Lord Randolph was delivering his ‘trilogy’ at Edinburgh, he had dealt among other matters with the question of Reform. Attacking the Government, he was easily led into attacking their project. As the representative of a small agricultural borough he could not, as he himself said afterwards, be expected to look upon a measure for the extinction of Woodstock ‘with any very longing eye.’ The divided state of opinion in the Conservative party had not then been disclosed. He believed that they would insist upon fighting the Bill to the death and he was willing to stand with them in such a struggle. He therefore spoke against Reform—not, indeed, in principle—but on the ground of (1) the inopportuneness of the moment chosen and the far more urgent character of other questions; (2) the obvious risk of any large addition to the Irish electorate; (3) the transparent design of the Government to divert public attention from foreign affairs; (4) the absence of any indication, on the part of the unenfranchised masses, of any great desire for the voting privilege.[22] His words, though listened to with attention and respect, were plainly not acceptable to the audience of Scotch artisans. They wanted to cheer the Tory Democrat: but they also wanted Reform. A more surprising incident followed. Mr. Balfour and Lord Elcho, who were on the platform, both thought it necessary then and there to declare themselves in favour of the assimilation of the county and borough franchise. Before Parliament assembled the utter lack of unanimity in the Conservative party against the Bill was evident and all chance of resisting it consequently perished.
The attempt to overthrow the Government on their Egyptian policy having failed, the Reform Bill was introduced. Lord Randolph proposed to meet it on the second reading by moving the previous question—‘that the question be not now put.’ This form of opposition asserted most of the objections he had stated at Edinburgh, without committing anyone who might support it to resistance to Reform on principle. He secured precedence for his motion. But the Conservative leaders, who were also unable to meet the Bill squarely, attempted a parry of their own. They declared that they could not agree to the extension of the franchise unless it were coupled with provision for a redistribution of seats. A motion in this sense was placed upon the paper by Lord John Manners in the name of the Opposition. In so far as this motion allowed it to be assumed that the leaders of the Conservative party were favourable to the extension of the franchise, if only it were accompanied by redistribution, it was plainly a pretence. But there was one element of grim reality about it. A dissolution upon the extended electorate before redistribution had taken effect would have been peculiarly injurious to Conservative interests both in town and country. At Sir Stafford Northcote’s request Lord Randolph Churchill removed his motion of ‘the previous question’ from the paper and issue was accordingly joined upon the motion of Lord John Manners. Even this modified and rather meaningless form of resistance did not secure the support of the entire Conservative party. At the beginning of the session the Government majority had fallen to 17. They carried the second reading of the ‘Bill for the Representation of the People,’ as it was officially styled, by a majority of 130 (340-210).
Confronted with such evidences of the impossibility of further resisting the measure as a whole, Lord Randolph Churchill now abandoned altogether his opposition. He thought that if the Conservative party were not prepared to fight the Bill, there was no reason why they should incur the odium and the hazards, without the satisfactions of war, or the hope of victory. Moreover, he had in the meanwhile accepted the invitation to contest Birmingham at the General Election, and in exchanging a large democratic constituency for a family borough he was naturally freed from those special reasons connected with Woodstock which had previously influenced him.
These arguments were no doubt fortified by the progress of the debates in the House of Commons. It soon became certain that the Bill would pass and that the Conservative party could offer it no united and general resistance. It became, moreover, evident that the most bitter opponents of Lord Randolph Churchill personally and of Tory Democracy as an idea, were also the most bitter opponents of Reform. The line of cleavage between the New and the Old Tories ran through the whole question. The very fact that the ‘old gang’ were obstinately against the measure influenced Lord Randolph powerfully in its favour and he was not the man to allow a single precipitate speech to separate him from those progressive forces in the Conservative party whose representative he was. ‘An unchanging mind,’ he observed on one occasion, ‘is an admirable possession—a possession which I devoutly hope I shall never possess.’ He declared publicly that he now regarded Reform as inevitable, and that the principles of the assimilation of the county and borough franchise and of equality of political rights between England and Ireland must henceforth govern Conservatives as well as Liberals. The Fourth Party therefore, after the second reading, became the friends of the Reform Bill and genuinely and materially assisted its passage.
While the Bill was passing through Committee the quarrel in the National Union was at its height, and Lord Randolph and his handful of friends became increasingly hostile to the Conservative leaders and consequently more favourable to Reform. He and Mr. Gorst voted and Sir Henry Wolff spoke against Sir R. Cross’s amendment which affected the principle of the Bill. The question of the date at which the Reform Bill should come into force, exercised the Conservative party and was vital to the position of conditional resistance they had perforce adopted. Sir Henry Wolff, in the name of the Fourth Party, made a motion which would have had the effect of postponing the decision upon this point until a later stage. His suggestion was willingly accepted by Mr. Gladstone in the interests of a compromise. Colonel Stanley, however, proposed from the Front Opposition Bench at once to insert words delaying the operation of the Franchise Bill until Redistribution had been effected. Lord Randolph Churchill on this said bluntly that he had changed his mind since the beginning of the session and he argued that while it might have been possible to fight the Bill with a united party, it was foolish to incur popular displeasure by futile attempts to wreck it. Colonel Stanley’s amendment was dismissed by a large majority (276-182).
The tactics of the Fourth Party were supported by a few independent members, but the serious cleavage in the Tory ranks was revealed more evidently by the number of Conservatives who failed, during various divisions in Committee, to sustain the Opposition leaders in the Lobby. Lord Randolph’s refusal to fight provoked indignant complaints from those old-fashioned country Tories who, faced by political ruin in their seats, naturally wished to offer the Bill an unyielding resistance, no matter at what cost to party interests in general; and, as may be imagined, they did not neglect to quote Lord Randolph’s Edinburgh speech against him. To charges of inconsistency which were not indeed denied, Lord Randolph and his supporters retorted by accusing the Conservative leaders of being secretly anxious to kill a measure they did not dare openly to assail. During these debates the separation of Mr. Balfour from the rest of the Fourth Party became notorious. Lord Randolph, reproached with having abandoned his attitude of strong opposition to Reform, adroitly attributed his conversion to Mr. Balfour and Lord Elcho, who had proclaimed at Edinburgh their dissent from his earlier opinion. Mr. Balfour replied with some acidness that ‘his noble friend’s efforts to be in perfect accord with the Conservative party, numerous and well-intentioned as they were, did not seem to be crowned with success.’ Through the ineptitude of some of their leaders and the perversity of others the Opposition, alike above and below the gangway, cut a poor figure during the debates on the ‘Bill for the Representation of the People.’
Perhaps the most direct divergence occurred on Mr. Brodrick’s amendment to omit Ireland from the scope of the new franchise. We have seen how Lord Randolph, as a young man in the Parliament of 1874, had first supported and later on—when circumstances had changed—opposed the extension to Ireland of electoral privileges similar to and simultaneous with those enjoyed in Great Britain. His speech at Edinburgh had laid emphasis on the danger of any large accession to the Irish vote. Only a few days before the question was discussed he had been re-elected, as described in the last chapter, to the chairmanship of the Council of the National Union. It was popularly assumed that he had come to terms with Lord Salisbury, and their reported reconciliation had been ostentatiously paraded in the party press. But when Lord Randolph resumed the debate on May 20, it soon appeared that he was still recalcitrant. Amid an ominous silence on the Conservative benches he asked Mr. Brodrick to withdraw his amendment, and declared that he had made up his mind to vote against it if it were carried to a division. He then declared once and for all in favour of the equal and similar treatment of Ireland in all matters of electoral reform; and this principle of ‘similarity and simultaneity,’ as it came to be called, has since been commonly identified with his name. One passage in this speech was at the time greatly admired and applauded. Mr. Smith during the autumn had argued that no votes should be given to Irish peasants who lived in mud-cabins, and the ‘mud-cabin’ argument had become a very prominent feature in the debate. Lord Randolph dealt with this contention in his most polished Parliamentary style.