At the end of July Lord Carnarvon’s opinions were so far advanced that he sought an interview with Mr. Parnell. The famous ‘empty house’ meeting was arranged. In a drawing-room in Grosvenor Square, dismantled and deserted at the end of the London season, the representative of the Queen in Ireland and the executive head of the Irish Government met the man whom the mass of the English people, high and low, had been taught during five years, by the leaders of both political parties, to regard as guilty at least of high treason and probably of complicity in murder. From the accounts which have since been made public, the conversation that ensued seems to have been interesting and agreeable. Lord Carnarvon carefully explained that he spoke for no one but himself, that he sought for information only, and that as the Queen’s servant he could listen to nothing inconsistent with the Union of the two countries. After this formality had been assented to by Mr. Parnell, the two rulers of Ireland—coroneted impotence and uncrowned power—rambled discursively over such topics as self-government and national aspirations, Colonial Parliaments and a central legislative body which might, it appeared, possess—a remarkable licence—the right of protecting Irish industries. Altogether a very instructive afternoon!
When Lord Carnarvon first explained this incident in the House of Lords (June 10, 1886) he stated emphatically that he had had no communication with the Cabinet on the subject either before or after the interview took place and that he had received ‘no authorisation’ from the Cabinet. Not until two years more had passed (May 3, 1888) did he reveal the fact that he had acted throughout with Lord Salisbury’s consent. ‘I should have been wanting in my duty if I had failed to inform my noble friend at the head of the Government of my intention of holding that meeting with Mr. Parnell, and still more should I have failed in my duty, if I had not acquainted him with what had passed between us at the interview, at the earliest possible moment. Accordingly, both by writing and by words, I gave the noble Marquess as careful and as accurate a statement as possible of what had occurred within twenty-four hours after the meeting and my noble friend was good enough to say that I had conducted that conversation with perfect discretion.’[32]
Lord Salisbury, however, kept this matter entirely to himself. No one of his colleagues, not even the Leader of the House of Commons, was made aware of the incident until the fact was declared in Parliament. Lord Randolph Churchill was subsequently both astonished and offended at this concealment of such an important political event from Cabinet Ministers by the head of the Government.
The fact that Lord Carnarvon met Mr. Parnell and, with the knowledge and assent of the Prime Minister, discussed at large with him projects of Home Rule, has been held by many people to prove that the Tory Cabinet was considering such a policy in the autumn. But, as Lord Salisbury never apprised his colleagues of this interview, the inference is obviously incorrect. No Home Rule proposals were ever submitted to the Cabinet of 1885. Had proposals of this kind been submitted, taking the form of the establishment of a Parliament in Ireland, the Cabinet would inevitably have rejected them. If Lord Salisbury had been a convinced Home Ruler he could not have imposed his view upon his colleagues. Principle, prejudice, obstinacy, conviction, would each and all together have paralysed him. Apart from the Irish Viceroy, the two Ministers who might have been expected—according to prevailing impressions and suspicions—to give the most favourable consideration to such proposals were Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. It is certain that both Lord Randolph and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach would have resigned rather than support such proposals, still less be responsible for their conduct through the House of Commons; and in resigning they would have been followed by the great majority of their colleagues. If these two leading Ministers had agreed with Lord Salisbury upon a plan, the Cabinet would have broken in pieces; and even if the entire Cabinet had agreed, it is by no means likely that they would have succeeded in carrying the Conservative party with them.
What ground is there for believing that Lord Salisbury was ever inclined towards Home Rule, or contemplated, even in the vaguest terms, making proposals to the Cabinet? No one knew better than he the character of his party and the disposition of his Government. His method had always been to obtain and use power only through the party and by the party and no English statesman in the nineteenth century was less likely to split his party or to lead some forlorn, uncalculated crusade of enthusiasm or adventure. Certainly, if any idea had crossed his mind of making a settlement on Nationalist lines with Mr. Parnell, Lord Randolph Churchill would have been the Minister he would earliest have approached. Lord Salisbury was on intimate terms with Lord Randolph. They communicated with the greatest freedom and fulness almost every day and almost always by letter. In all the extensive correspondence that remains no trace can be discovered which suggests even remotely the existence or the recognition of such an idea. The Prime Minister’s letters to Lord Randolph, so far as they relate to Ireland, proceed on the fundamental assumption that they are leagued together to resist Home Rule. They speak of the ‘onslaught that is impending.’ They examine the resources with which it can be met. But that either or both could join the attacking forces is a suggestion in itself so widely improbable, of such inherent absurdity and unimagined remoteness, that it is not even mentioned for the purpose of being dismissed. The same may be said generally of the correspondence of the 1885 Cabinet of which Lord Randolph’s archives contain an extensive store.
Why, then, did Lord Salisbury allow and authorise the Irish Viceroy to confer with Mr. Parnell? It is not for me to attribute motives to persons with whom this story is only indirectly connected; but the question cannot be avoided and certain interpretations of his action irresistibly obtrude themselves. It seems, in the first place, a reasonable assumption that Lord Salisbury allowed the Viceroy to meet Mr. Parnell because the Viceroy was anxious for such a meeting and because Lord Salisbury did not think that such a meeting would do any harm. If the officer responsible for the Government of Ireland thought that his task would be made easier by private consultation with any particular Irishman, why should the head of an Administration avowedly pursuing a conciliatory policy to Irish Nationalism and earnestly endeavouring to preserve order without a special Act, refuse to allow such consultation? Lord Carnarvon was warned to make it perfectly clear that he was acting for himself and by himself, that the communications were from his lips alone, that the conversation was with reference to information only, that no agreement or understanding—however shadowy—was in question, and that the Viceroy must neither hear nor say a word that was inconsistent with the union of the two countries. Lord Carnarvon always asserted that he had made these conditions perfectly clear. Mr. Parnell did not in all respects concur. He declared that he did not recollect that these conditions were made. The conflict of evidence was direct. Even if it were admitted that Lord Carnarvon failed to convey fully to Mr. Parnell these important preliminaries to their discussion, the fact that he honestly tried to do so to the best of his ability and believed that he had in fact done so, relieves him from any imputation of intentional bad faith as regards Mr. Parnell and clears à fortiori the Prime Minister—a person more remote from the transaction. But if Mr. Parnell chose to place upon Lord Carnarvon’s words a construction which they would not bear or to attach to them an authority which they did not possess; if he chose deliberately, or through natural inclination, to magnify the importance of the whole incident, to treat it as a formal negotiation of a treaty, was Lord Salisbury to blame for that? And if Mr. Parnell thought fit for his own purposes to convey a detailed and highly-coloured account of his interview to Mr. Gladstone and other Liberal leaders, was Lord Salisbury responsible for that? And if Mr. Gladstone jumped at conclusions upon insufficient and questionable evidence, was Lord Salisbury responsible for that? Could he foresee these possible consequences of the permission he had given to Lord Carnarvon? Ought he to have foreseen them; and if he had foreseen them, ought he to have refused to allow the meeting to take place? These are questions which it is difficult to answer here. A sufficient explanation is that Lord Salisbury allowed the interview to take place in order to pacify the Viceroy and soothe Mr. Parnell and that he did not communicate the fact to his colleagues because he thought the matter would make more trouble in the Cabinet than it was worth. Mr. Parnell’s biographer has explained with ingenuous candour the delicate and elaborate manœuvres in which his hero was at this time engaged. ‘The course of the Irish leader,’ he tells us, ‘was perfectly clear. He had to threaten Mr. Chamberlain with Lord Randolph Churchill, and Mr. Gladstone with both, letting the whole world know meanwhile that his weight would ultimately be thrown in the scale that went down upon the side of Ireland.’ Tactics like these, though perfectly legitimate for a public object earnestly cherished, are not of a character to entitle those who adopt them to any special consideration.
The session had no sooner ended than the campaign in the country began. The Liberal party went down to the General Election of 1885 in a spirit of comfortable over-confidence. Their leaders occupied themselves more in correcting each other than in assailing the Conservative Government. Indeed, it would seem that in the fulness of their power, with all the prestige of the ‘Old Man’ and the ‘old cause’ and the expected reinforcement of ‘two million intelligent citizens,’ they believed sincerely that the future lay exclusively in their hands and that the only questions of real importance were those which divided the ranks of the predominant party. Of these questions, however, there seemed to be no lack. Mr. Chamberlain’s views upon Local Government, free education, graduated taxation and, above all, upon the transfer, tenure, and compulsory acquisition of land, set forth in a series of remarkable addresses, soon drew him into a lively controversy with Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen. Speech for speech they followed him about the country, until in the end he declared that he would accept office in no Government which ‘deliberately excluded’ the reforms he had advocated—in other words, in no Government of which they were members. Next came the question of Disestablishment, raised by stern Liberals, who found phrases about ‘the old cause’ and ‘the old ship’ soothing rather than satisfying in point of precision and substance. It was supported positively, as it appeared, by 374 Liberal candidates, and eagerly snatched at as a bone of contention by Wales and by English and Scotch Dissenters on the one hand and by Tory Churchmen and—let it be added—Tory politicians, on the other. In the last week of August Mr. Parnell demanded a national Parliament for Ireland. The whole press, Metropolitan and provincial, Liberal and Conservative, denounced his claim as destructive and impossible. ‘There was no sign,’ said the Manchester Guardian, ‘of any appreciable section of Englishmen who would not unhesitatingly condemn or punish any party or any public man who attempted to walk in the path traced by Mr. Parnell.’ Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain—differing so widely on all else—representing as they did the extreme limits of Whig and Radical opinion, rivalled each other in terms of prompt, explicit, and unqualified condemnation. Ministers were silent. Lord Randolph Churchill, speaking at Sheffield a few days later, ranged over many subjects, dwelt long upon the state of Ireland and the decision not to renew the Crimes Act, but made no reference of any kind to Home Rule.
Upon all these grave matters Mr. Gladstone was called to pronounce; and, like other party leaders under similar circumstances, he exerted himself rather to find a common basis of agreement between followers who fundamentally disagreed than to point a path of his own. He would apparently go as far with Mr. Chamberlain in domestic reform as he could carry Lord Hartington. Disestablishment, he observed cautiously, was a gigantic question, ‘and I am very far from saying that if I were twenty years younger, and circumstances were ripe for taking a matter of this kind in hand—either on the one side or the other—I should urge you not to give it the first place in your thoughts and actions.’ Upon Ireland and the future he was majestically mysterious and uttered stately phrases about the supremacy of the Crown, the unity of the Empire, and the authority of Parliament, mingled with aspirations towards ‘an equitable settlement’ and ‘another effort to complete a reconciling work.’ Mr. Gladstone’s utterances were officially declared to have united the Liberal party and, fortified by this assurance, all its sections resumed their warfare with ever-increasing turbulence, amid a babel of conflicting voices.
From this clamour and darkness the lines of battle slowly but surely ranged themselves much as Lord Randolph Churchill had expected and desired. The menace to the Established Church and to denominational teaching consolidated the Conservative party. It provided a new and perfectly unimpeachable bond of union between them and the Irish Nationalists. The cry of the ‘Church in danger’ rendered Lord Salisbury very tractable on all other questions. To preserve that sacred vessel, to him precious beyond all else in English life, there was scarcely any concession he was not prepared to make—no merchandise he would not jettison. At Newport (October 7) he showed in unmistakable language that he was ready to make common cause with Tory Democrats, though they were Radicals at heart, and with Irish Nationalists, who were rebels by profession, thereby the better to resist the onslaught of secularism and atheism. Viewed in this light, boycotting seemed to him a very small matter, probably intangible to the law, depending ‘on the passing humour of the population,’ ‘more like the excommunication or interdict of the Middle Ages than anything we know now’; and in fine his Conservative principles made shift to accommodate themselves to a political programme which was morosely admitted by friends and foes alike to be little less than the Gladstonian manifesto.
The Irish vote came over solid and unstinted into the Tory lines upon a Parnellite denunciation of Mr. Gladstone and all his works, which in tone and language might have been an extract from one of Lord Randolph’s speeches. ‘In 1880,’ ran this document,[33] ‘the Liberal party promised peace, and it afterwards made unjust wars; economy, and its Budget reached the highest point yet attained; justice to aspiring nationalities, and it mercilessly crushed the national movement in Egypt under Arabi Pasha. To Ireland more than to any other country it bound itself by most solemn pledges. It denounced Coercion, and it practised a system of Coercion more brutal than that of any previous Administration, Liberal or Tory.’