I am ashamed of myself for worrying you with this interminable MS. It is only the critical condition of our party prospects which enables me to do it.
Yours very sincerely,
Randolph S. Churchill.
‘I concur very much,’ wrote Lord Salisbury in answer to this lengthy appeal, ‘in your estimate of the evil; and your idea of surrounding the Sultan with a body of Janissaries under Sir M. Beach is likely to be very effective if vigorously carried out. I will gladly do anything I can to help, but always with one reservation. I am bound to Sir S. N.—as a colleague—by a tie, not of expediency, but of honour; and I could not take part in anything which would be at variance with entire loyalty to him. But what you propose will rather take the form of assistance than supersession. I think that, properly managed, your jeune garde may do great things and acquire considerable practical authority. I will talk the matter over with Beach whenever I can see him. But he must abandon agriculture.’
The Conservative party had repented of their enthusiasm by May 4, when the Committee stage of the vote of credit was again set down for discussion. The decision to abandon the Soudan altogether and admit defeat in that quarter of the world had soaked in. They now learned, besides, that—vote of 11,000,000l. notwithstanding—Anglo-Russian differences were to be submitted to arbitration—‘surrender disguised as arbitration,’ as Lord Randolph Churchill called it. They were indignant at what they considered a betrayal. But how to show their displeasure? Sir Michael Hicks-Beach protested against the vote of credit being proceeded with in the altered circumstances without further delay. Lord Randolph, who had a speech all ready, intimated meekly that, unless the vote of credit was forthwith debated, he would obstruct the passage of Supply. The Government, anxious to get their business through, and uncertain which section in the Opposition would prove the more recalcitrant, proposed a compromise. Lord Randolph waved it aside and remained obdurate. The vote of credit came on at once.
The speech which he then delivered was a speech of minute detail, but of accurate detail. In twenty-four hours he had mastered an enormous Blue Book. No one could contradict him at any point. ‘So far as I know,’ said Lord Salisbury later, ‘that description [of Russian proceedings] is historically unimpeachable.’ Into the entanglements of General Komaroff’s action, of the strategic value of Merv, of the opinions of Baron Jomini, or of the territorial rights of the Amir in the disputed regions of the Murghab and Khushk rivers it is not, fortunately, necessary to enter. But one episode in Lord Randolph’s second speech on May 11 is worthy of record. The complacency with which the Government, and particularly the Prime Minister, had abandoned, in the Soudan, enterprises for the sake of which so many lives, British and Arab, had been sacrificed, had excited general wonder and even disgust.
‘I was reading in the Times this morning,’ said Lord Randolph, dropping his voice and buttoning up his coat—‘does the Prime Minister ever read the Times?’ Mr. Gladstone tossed his head disdainfully. ‘It is a pity, because if the Prime Minister had read the Times this morning he could not have failed to notice the review of a very interesting book—"The Home Letters of Lord Beaconsfield"—edited by Mr. Ralph Disraeli, who is, I believe, a friend of the Prime Minister’s.’ (‘Nothing of the sort,’ said Mr. Gladstone.) ‘Lord Beaconsfield, it appears, went many years ago to Yanina, where he had an interview with a very celebrated Minister—Redschid Pasha. There had recently been a great insurrection in Albania which had been put down by the Turks. This is Lord Beaconsfield’s account of the interview: "I bowed with all the nonchalance of St. James’s Street to a little, ferocious-looking, shrivelled, careworn man, plainly dressed, with a brow covered with wrinkles and a countenance clouded with anxiety and thought. I seated myself on the divan of the Grand Vizier (‘who,’ the Austrian Consul observed, ‘has destroyed in the course of the last three months—not in war—upwards of four thousand of my acquaintance’) with the self-possession of a morning call. Our conversation I need not repeat. We congratulated him on the pacification of Albania. He rejoined that the peace of the world was his only object and the happiness of mankind his only wish."’ Here there was a long pause, intensified by the hush with which the House awaited the delayed conclusion. ‘There,’ cried Lord Randolph, raising his voice suddenly, hissing his words and pointing savagely across the House at Mr. Gladstone—‘there, upon the Treasury Bench, is the resuscitated Redschid Pasha.’
I have tried to revive the spirit of this attack as some of those who listened describe it, for Hansard reduces it to a very bald account. But, although Lord Randolph Churchill never commanded the surge and majesty of Mr. Gladstone’s oratory, he held the House docile and responsive in his grip. Whatever liberties he chose to take, they chose to cheer. So through a speech of an hour and a half, all devoted to a pitiless reproach of ‘that policy of base and cowardly surrender to Russia which marks your daily life.’ Was it wonderful that party newspapers and party men rallied to this bold champion of their grievances? ‘Why was it left to Lord Randolph Churchill,’ they asked, ‘alone to raise a protest against Mr. Gladstone’s treacherous conduct? Where were the occupants of the Front Opposition Bench? Have they resigned their functions? If so, let them resign their position’; and so forth. The next day Lord Granville took occasion to refer to this speech at length in the House of Lords. He declared that he had marked no less than nine passages, ‘some of them inaccurate and some exactly opposed to the truth.’ Lord Randolph rejoined, through the columns of the Times, in a celebrated—or perhaps I should write ‘notorious’—letter. He accused Lord Granville, among other things, of showing ‘the petty malice of a Whig’; ‘of his usual shamelessness’; and of ‘sneaking down to the House of Lords to make without notice a variety of deliberate misrepresentations, deliberate misquotations, and false assertions which were quite in accordance with the little that was known about the public career of Earl Granville, Knight of the Garter, and, to the misfortune of his country, Her Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.’ The Times was so horrified at this that, not content with printing the letter in a column of its largest type, it devoted another column and a half to repeating, for the purpose of dissociating itself from, its insults, and rebuking the bad taste of the author.
But the fate of the Government was not to be settled by anything arising out of the stormy events in the East. Another cause, nearer home and more intimately affecting party politics, was to operate decisively. The Crimes Act was to expire in August. Lord Spencer insisted upon its renewal and his demand was backed by most of the Whig Ministers. The Radical representatives, however, refused to associate themselves with such legislation and moderate Liberals were scarcely less reluctant to tar their hands with Coercion before presenting themselves to the electors as the champions of liberty. On May 15 Mr. Gladstone gave notice that the Government would propose what was, at any rate, a partial continuation of the measure. Five days later Lord Randolph Churchill, at the St. Stephen’s Club, struck what was, according to Mr. Morley, a mortal blow. He intimated that a Conservative Government would not think it necessary to renew the Act. His language was guarded and carefully chosen. He had to carry his audience with him and he knew with what satisfaction many of his colleagues in the House of Commons would repudiate his words if they thought their repudiation would be effective. He said, in short, that he was shocked that so grave an announcement as the renewal of a Coercion Bill should be taken as a matter of course. The state of Ireland must be much worse than was commonly supposed for the Radical members of the Cabinet to assent to such a proposal. What a comment it was on Liberal administration, and on the boasted Viceroyalty of Lord Spencer, that the Liberal party could not govern Ireland without that arbitrary force ‘which all their greatest orators have over and over again declared is no remedy for lawlessness!’ ‘I believe most firmly,’ he concluded, ‘that this ought to be the attitude of the Tory party—that while they are ready and willing to grant to any Government of the Queen whatever powers may be necessary, on evidence adduced, for the preservation of law and order, they ought to be anxious and careful beyond measure not to be committed to any act or policy which should unnecessarily wound and injure the feelings and the sentiments of our brothers on the other side of the Channel of St. George.’ That was all, but it was enough. The speaker was not disavowed. The Tory party remained mute. The words were observed and weighed both by the Irish Nationalists and the English Radicals. Within a few days Mr. Morley gave a notice of motion to oppose the renewal of the Crimes Act. The Radical members of the Cabinet stiffened their backs, and the days of the Ministry were numbered.
As the weakness and embarrassments of the Government and the dissensions in the Cabinet became glaring, it was evident the end could not be distant. But no one could tell when the moment would come; and the imminent possibility of a transference of power forced grave considerations into the minds of the chiefs of the Opposition. They hated the Government. They believed its continuance to be deeply injurious to the country. They were mortified by the dishonour which had been inflicted on British arms and British reputation. The cry of their supporters in the country for unceasing Parliamentary attack was vehement. They were bound to fight their hardest. But, upon the other hand, what if they succeeded? They could not dissolve, because of the Reform Bill. Until the new registers for the reconstructed constituencies had been prepared, and other indispensable mechanical details settled, a General Election was physically impossible. Could they, then, take office? Even if some Ministers were anxious to escape from power, willing to ride for a fall—and this was certainly not the disposition of the Prime Minister—the Government majority was enormous. The only chance of overturning the Gladstone Administration was by a division on some issue which should at once divide the Liberals and secure the Irish vote. No mere lukewarmness on the part of Ministerialists would suffice.
It was quite plain that an incoming Government, in a minority, without the power of dissolution, brought into office by Nationalist votes, could never carry a Coercion Bill through Parliament. But was a Coercion Bill necessary? Mr. Gibson on whom the Conservatives relied as their Irish authority, was of opinion that it would not be necessary. But certainly Mr. Parnell could make it necessary! The question was long and painfully debated. Clearly they had to fight. Not to do so was to discourage the whole party on the eve of the election. Clearly they might win. To refuse then to undertake the task, to admit that the Conservative party had neither the men nor the cohesion to carry on the Government, would equally injure them in the national estimation. It was a grim dilemma. But the decision did not lie altogether in the hands of particular men. Had it been possible for any one man to give orders which would be obeyed with military discipline, he could not have failed, were he a Conservative, to decide against any attempt to turn out the Government; and, conversely, a Minister must have sought for any decent pretext to resign. But the forces at work were not to be so nicely governed. It is in the nature of Ministries to survive in spite of their inclinations. It is in the nature of Oppositions to strive to win, even in spite of their interests. Borne along by the stream, the Conservative leaders determined to overthrow the Government if they could, and they solaced themselves with Mr. Gibson’s assurances that the state of Ireland did not require the renewal of the Crimes Act to protect the lives and liberties of Her Majesty’s lieges.