Bygones Worth Remembering Volume Ii Part 3

Mr. Cowen's father was a tall, handsome man of the Saxon type, which goes steadily forward and never turns back. He always described himself as a follower of Lord Durham, and was out on the Newcastle Town Moor in 1819, at great meetings in support of the Durham principles. His mother was quite different in person, both in stature and appearance; somewhat of the Spanish type--dark, and mentally capable of impa.s.sable resolution. Her son, Joseph, with whom we are here concerned, had dark, luminous eyes which were the admiration of London drawing-rooms--when he could be got to enter them. His eldest sister, Mrs. Mary Carr, was as tall as her father, with the complexion of her mother. I used to compare her to Judith, the splendid Jewess who slew Holofernes. She used to say her brother Joseph had her mother's spirit, and that a "Cowen never changed." Her brother never changed in his purpose of ascendency, but when inspired by resentment he could change his party to attain his end--as I have seen done in the House of Commons many times in my day.

This is why I have said that in the early part of Mr. Cowen's life he was his father---placid but purposeful. In the second half he was his mother--resentful and implacable when affronted by non-compliance where he expected and desired concurrence. But I have known many excellent men who did not take dissent from their opinions in good part.

How fearless Mr. Cowen was, was shown in his conduct when a dangerous outbreak of cholera occurred in Newcastle. People were dying in every street and lane, but he went out from Blaydon every morning at the usual time, and walked through the infected streets and pa.s.sages into Newcastle, to his offices on the quay, being met on his way by persons in distress, from death in their houses, who knew they were sure of sympathy and a.s.sistance from him. The courage of his unfailing appearance in his ordinary way saved many from depression which might have proved fatal to them. When a wandering guest fell ill at his home, Stella House, Blaydon, he was sure of continued hospitality until his recovery. Mr. Cowen's voice of sympathy and condolence was the tenderest I ever heard from human lips.

A poor man, who lived a good deal upon the moors, was charged with shooting a doctor, and would have been hanged but for Mr. Cowen defending him by legal aid. He thought the police had apprehended him because he was the most likely, in their opinion, to be guilty. He was poor, friendless, and often houseless. The man did not seem quite right in his mind. After his acquittal, Mr. Cowen took him into his employ, and made him his gardener. The garden was remote and solitary. I often pa.s.sed my mornings in it, not without some personal misgiving. Mr.

Cowen eventually enabled the man to emigrate to America, where a little eccentricity of demeanour does not count.

In the political estrangements of Mr. Cowen, it must be owned he had provocations. A party of social propagandists came to Newcastle, whom he entertained, as they had never been entertained before, at a cost of hundreds of pounds, and was at great expense to give publicity to their objects. They left him to defray some bills they had the means of paying. Years later, when they came again into the district, he did no more for them in the former way. He had conceived a distrust of them.

Another time he was asked by persons whom he was willing to aid, to buy some premises for them, as they would be prejudiced at the auction if they appeared in person. Mr. Cowen bought the property for 5,000. They changed their minds when it was bought, and left Mr. Cowen, who did not want it, with it upon his hands. He did not resent it, as he might have done, but it was an act of meanness which would have revolted the heart of an archangel of human susceptibility.

When the British a.s.sociation first came to Newcastle, Mr. Cowen spent more than 500 in giving publicity to their proceedings. He brought a railway carriage full of writers and reporters from London, that the proceedings of every section should be made known to the public He had personal notices written of all the princ.i.p.al men of science who came there, and when he asked for admission of his reporters, he was charged 19 for their tickets. As I was one of those engaged in the arrangements, I shared his indignation at this scientific greed and ingrat.i.tude. In all the history of the British a.s.sociation, before and since, it never met with the enthusiasm, the liberality and publicity the _Newcastle Chronicle_ accorded it.

In the days of the great Italian struggle, little shoals of exiles found their way to England. Learning where the great friend of Garibaldi dwelt, they found their way to Newcastle, and many were directed there from different parts of England. Many times he was sent for to the railway station, where a number of dest.i.tute exiles had arrived. He relieved their immediate wants and had them provided for at various lodgings, until they were able to get some situation elsewhere. I think Mr. Cowen began to tire of this, as he thought exiles were sometimes sent to him by persons who ought to have taken part of the responsibility themselves, but who seemed to consider that his was the purse of the Continent.

Once when Mr. Cowen attended a political conference in Leeds, he received as he entered the room marked attention, as he was known to be the leader of the Liberal forces of Durham and Northumberland. But Mr.

W. E. Forster, who was present, took no notice of him, though Mr. Cowen had rendered him great political service. When Mr. Bright saw Mr. Cowen he cordially greeted him. Immediately Mr. Forster, seeing this, stepped up also and offered him compliments, which Mr. Cowen received very coldly without returning them, and pa.s.sed away to his seat. Mr. Cowen's impression was that as Mr. Forster had suffered him to pa.s.s by without recognition, he did not want to know him before that a.s.sembly; but when Mr. Forster saw Mr. Bright's welcome of his friend, he was willing to know him. Mr. Forster, as I had reason to know afterwards, was capable of such an action, where recognition stood in the way of his interests,*

but it was not so on this occasion. Mr. Forster was short-sighted, and simply did not see Mr. Cowen when he first pa.s.sed him. But it happened that he did see him when Mr. Bright stepped forward to speak to him, and there was no slight of Mr. Cowen intended. Yet from that hour Mr. Cowen entertained a contempt for Mr. Forster, and would neither meet him nor speak to him. One day Mr. Cowen and I were at a railway station, where Mr. Forster appeared in his volunteer uniform. We had to wait some time for the train. Mr. Cowen asked me to walk with him as far as we could from where Mr. Forster stood, that we should not pa.s.s near him. Some years later, at the House of Commons, Mr. Forster asked Mr. Cowen to walk with him in the Green Park, as he wished to speak with him. After two hours Mr. Cowen returned reconciled. He never told me the cause of it, which he should have done, as I had taken his part in the long years of resentment I relate the incident as showing how personal misconception produces political estrangement in persons and parties alike.

* But only where ambition was stronger than his habitual sense of honour. See chapter lxxix, "Sixty Years."

CHAPTER XXVIII. CHARACTERISTICS OF JOSEPH COWEN

II

But the act which most wounded him occurred at the Elswick works of Lord Armstrong. Mr. Cowen was returning one day in his carriage at a time of political excitement. Some of the crowd threw mud upon his coach, and, if I remember rightly, broke the windows. Just before, when the workmen were on strike, they went to Mr. Cowen--as all workmen in difficulties did. He found they did not know their own case, nor how to put it He employed legal aid to look into the whole matter and make a statement of it. Mr. Cowen became their negotiator, and obtained a decision in their favour. The whole expense he incurred on their behalf was 150. Services of this kind, which had been oft rendered, should have saved him from public contumely at their hands.

At that time Mr. Cowen was giving the support of his paper against Liberalism, which he had so long defended and commended, which was an incentive to the outrage. Still, the sense of grat.i.tude for the known services rendered to workers, which he continued irrespective of his change of opinion, should have saved him from all personal disrespect.

The subjection of the Liberals in Newcastle in the days of his early career, and the arrogant defamation with which it was a.s.sailed, were what determined him to create a defiant power in its self-defence.

He bought the _Newcastle Chronicle_, an old Whig paper. He published it in Grey Street, afterwards in St. Nicholas' Buildings, and then in Stephenson Place, on premises now known as the _Chronicle_ Buildings.

The printing machines at first cost 250 each, then 450. The _Chronicle_ Buildings were purchased for 6,000, and a similar sum was expended in adapting them for their new purposes. The site is the finest in Newcastle. The printing machines now cost 6,000 to 7,000. Each machine is provided in duplicate, so that if one side of the press-room broke down, the other side could be instantly set in motion. Once I made a short speech in the town, which was reported, set up, cast, and an edition of the paper containing the speech was on sale within little more than twenty minutes. The office above the great press-room, in which the public transact business with the paper, is the costliest, handsomest, Grecian interior I know of connected with any newspaper buildings. What perseverance and confidence must have animated Mr. Cowen in the enterprise, is shown in the fact that he had sunk 40,000 in it before it began to pay.* He made the _Chronicle_, as he intended to make it, the leading political power in Durham and Northumberland. The leaders he wrote in its columns after he left Parliament were unequalled in all the press of England for vividness, eloquence, and variety of thought. There could be no greater proof of the dominancy of Mr. Cowen's mind, than his establishment and devotion to the _Chronicle_.

I had been a party several years to negotiating with candidates to stand for Newcastle, whose public expenses Mr. Cowen paid. I obtained the consent of the Liberals of York, that Mr. Layard, whom they considered pledged to them, should become a candidate at Newcastle. "Why should you?" I said one day to Mr. Cowen, "incur these repeated costs for the candidature of others, when you can command a seat in your own family for three generations. If you will not be a candidate, why should not your father?" The conversation ended by his agreeing that I might persuade his father to go to Parliament if I could.

* Unwilling that his father or banker should surmise how much he was exhausting his personal resources, he directed me at one time to borrow 500 or 1,000 in London. It was advanced by a personal friend.

It was in vain that I a.s.sured him that the seat was open to him, but he did not believe, nor wish to believe it. I several times saw his father at Stella Hall. He thought himself too old. I told him there were fifty gentlemen in the House of Commons, willing to become Prime Minister, and some of them waiting for the appointment, who were fifteen years older than he, and would be disappointed did not the chance come to them. He found this true when he at length entered the House. His objection was that he could not ask his neighbours, among whom he had lived all his days, to elect him. "Suppose they signed an undertaking to vote for you in case you came forward?" That he consented to consider.

A requisition signed by 2,178 electors was sent to him. Then another difficulty arose. His son said: "I cannot support my father in the _Chronicle_."* Then I said, "Let me edit it during the election, and no line shall appear commending your father to the electors. But whatever pretensions his adversaries put forth, we will examine." My proposal was agreed to. It was alleged by the rival candidate, that the requisition was signed out of courtesy to a popular townsman, and did not mean that those who signed it had pledged their votes. To this I answered that when Chambers appeared on the Thames, bookmakers said, "Chambers is a Newcastle man, who never sells the honour of his town, but will win if he can." Is it to be true that a Newcastle elector would not only give his promise, but write it, without intending to keep it? Will he be true on the Thames and false on the Tyne? All the requisitionists save a few, whom sickness or misadventure kept from the poll, voted for Joseph Cowen, senior, who was elected by a large majority.

* This diffidence of appearing as the advocate of his father was carried to excess. When a local paper made remarks upon his father's knighthood, which ought to have been resented, I set out late one night to Darlington, arriving a little before midnight, and wrote a vindicatory notice, which, by the friendship of Mr. H. K. Spark, was inserted in the _Darlington Times_ that night. It was quoted afterwards in the _Newcastle Chronicle_.

The great services to the town of the new member by his arduous chairmanship of the Tyne Commission, would have insured his election, but his majority was no doubt increased by the popularity of his son.

This did not escape the comment of local politicians, and Mr. Lowthian Bell said, "How is it, Mr. Cowen, that everybody votes for your father for your sake?" "I suppose it is," was the answer, "that while you have been sitting on winter nights with your feet on the rug by the fireside, I have been addressing pitmen's meetings in colliery villages, and finding my way home late at night in rain and blast; and it happens that they are grateful for it." This was the only time I knew Mr. Cowen to make a self-a.s.sertive reply.

When Mr. Cowen's father was in the field, and Mr. Beaumont began his canva.s.s, in one street he met with forty-nine refusals to vote for him.

"Why will you not vote for me?" he asked. "We are going to vote for Mr.

c.o.o.n, now," as his name was p.r.o.nounced at the Tyneside. "But you have two votes," Mr. Beaumont said; "you can give me one." "No! if we had twenty votes we should give them all to Mr. c.o.o.n. When Chambers and Clasper make a 100 match for the honour of the Tyne, and we cannot make up the money, Mr. c.o.o.n always makes it up for us, and when we win and go to repay him, he gives it to us." This was not a patriotic reason to give for voting for "Mr. c.o.o.n," but it showed grat.i.tude, as well as Mr.

Cowen's influence, and what a hold his kindness to the people had given him upon their affection. Thus they voted for the father from regard for the son. For in those days the son had no idea of Parliament himself, and votes were not in his thoughts.

Nothing could be more open or gentlemanly than Mr. Cowen in the contests to which he was a party. Mr. Somerset Beaumont was member for Newcastle, and he impressed Mr. Gladstone with a high sense of his capacity in Parliament. One morning, as Mr. Beaumont and Mr. Cowen came into Newcastle in the same train, Mr. Cowen said to him, "You know, Mr.

Beaumont, we all like you personally, but you do not go far enough for us. We want a more Radical representative for Newcastle. We shall prevent your election next time if we can, but only if we have a more advanced candidate. Otherwise we will countenance no opposition to you."

Who could foresee the day would come when--save Mr. Cowen--the n.o.blest candidate Newcastle ever had (Mr. John Morley) would be opposed by Mr.

Cowen in the interests of Toryism? Or that, after withstanding at the hustings when he became a candidate, and defeating furious collusions between Tories, Conservatives, Moderates, publicans, and all who had vicious interests to serve or spite to gratify, Mr. Cowen himself would one day be found aiding or abetting the same parties by taking their side against Liberalism.

When in Parliament, his father had misgivings touching Mr. Gladstone, who, he thought, pa.s.sed him at times without recognition. He had conducted Mr. Gladstone down the Tyne in triumph, and his son had a.s.sembled 200,000 persons on the Moor, who were addressed from twenty platforms in support of Mr. Gladstone, and provided reporters and published all the speeches. The cost of this was one of a hundred contributions he made in the interest of Liberalism. I used to explain that Mr. Gladstone, intent upon great questions (he was always intent upon something) he had to explain to the House--he, self-absorbed, would pa.s.s by his friends without seeing them, expecting, as he had a right to expect, that devotion to the great trust of the State would be taken to palliate his seeming inattention to friends.

But Mr. Gladstone was not unmindful of the service rendered to him at Newcastle, and when, some time later--no one else thinking of it--I made representations, through Mr. (afterwards Sir) James Stansfeld--without knowledge of Mr. Cowen or his son--I was instructed to inform Mr. Cowen, sen., that a baronetcy would be placed at his acceptance. Mr. Cowen, jun., objected entirely on his own part. His father therefore only accepted a knighthood, which Her Majesty, from consideration of his years, kindly ordered to be gazetted, obviating his attendance at Court.

All the same, it was Mr. Gladstone's intention to recognise the services of the son as well as the father.

Honours were not much accessible in those days, especially in uncourtly quarters. My representation, in suggesting what I did, was, that as personal distinction was conferred upon persons who had made 100,000, something was due to one who may be said to have given that sum to the public.* His chairmanship of the Tyne Commission extended over a period of twenty-four years, during which the Tyne was converted from a creek into a navigable river.

* Sir Joseph Cowen was appointed by Act of Parliament, 1850, chairman for life of the Tyne Improvement Commission, an unpaid office. There was then only six feet of water on the bar at low water spring tides, and twenty-one at high water.

In 1870 there was a depth of twenty feet at low water, and thirty-five at high water; the deepening extending nine miles from the bar. In twenty years ending 1870 there had been raised thirty-eight million tons. In 1870 the tonnage of the Tyne had risen from two and a half millions to more than four and a half millions, exceeding by one million that of the Thames. In 1865 there entered the Tyne port for refuge 133 vessels. In 1870 558 vessels fled there from the storms of the North Sea.

The time and a.s.siduity thus devoted to the service of navigation and trade would have added 100,000 to his fortune. That his knighthood might be justified in the eyes of his neighbours and his own, I supplied the facts which authorised it to Mr. Walker, who was then editor of the _Daily News_, and which appeared in his leader columns. My reason for taking the step I did was a sense of duty to the public, who should see as far as possible that those who rendered service should find acknowledgment of it I was of Coleridge's opinion:--

"It seems a message from the world of spirits, When any man obtains that which he merits, Or any merit that which he obtains."

On the death of the father, his son, Mr. Joseph Cowen, was elected in his place, as a member for Newcastle; and Parliament being dissolved shortly after, he was again elected by a triumphant majority.

Mr. Cowen had made more speeches at the Tyneside than any other resident ever did. But the town was unconscious of their merit. They were addressed mostly to working men, and to persons whom it was not thought necessary to report or take into account the speaker. When he became a candidate all cla.s.ses of persons were among the auditors. The town was astonished at the relevance and fire of his orations. I mention this circ.u.mstance to show how a man can be famous in one half of the town and not known in the other.

After his retirement from Parliament and platform he occasionally delivered orations on persons, at inaugurations, which surpa.s.sed all I have ever read of the kind, for aptness of phrase, variety of thought and vivid portraiture, which ought to be added to the record of English oratory.

It was not reasonable in him, after the change in his political views, to expect that his townsmen should adopt the new opinions he had begun to countenance, and which he had himself taught them to distrust. But this is what strong leaders do who suffer the pride of power to become imperious. A just ambition, which is patient, and will work for results, can as a rule succeed. It is ambition which is impetuous, and will not wait longer, which lapses into reaction from disappointment. With all his virtues, Mr. Cowen was impetuous. To desert a party because of the folly or excesses of portions of its members, would oblige a man to change his profession in politics and his creed in religion every twelve months.

In his earlier career it may be imagined that Mr. Cowen derived his principles from generous prejudices, in later days from indignant impulses.

Many persons hold by inheritance right principles into whose foundation they have never inquired. Investigation, if they entered upon it, would confirm their convictions, but not resting on examination, their n.o.bler prepossessions may be displaced by pa.s.sion. We all know in religion how vehemently adherents will vindicate questions of which they know only one side, and hold it to be sinful to inquire into the other. Such persons, when right, are unstable and liable to variableness under the glamour of unknown ideas. Mr. Cowen was well informed on Liberal principles and never took to Conservative views, and, save in antagonism, did not a.s.sist them.

The bent of his mind to paramountcy in ideas was shown in the extraordinary requirements he made, that Mr. Morley should disown the political friends who had invited him to Newcastle, and become the candidate of the _Chronicle_. Mr. Morley answered, "I will not do it, and that is flat" Then Mr. Cowen resolved that this refusal should cost him his seat, and ultimately he effected it, not from Conservative resentment, but from pride. Had Mr. Morley consented to this condition he would have remained member for Newcastle, supported with all the force of Mr. Cowen's splendid advocacy. Mr. Cowen always remained true to Home Rule for Ireland. But, as we have seen done in the case of others in Parliament, he a.s.sailed every one who held it not under his inspiration.

Mr. Cowen was naturally n.o.ble, and resentment never made him mean, but like any one to whom compliance with his essential convictions is a necessity of his mind, he was apt to regard non-concurring persons as better out of the way. He would not destroy them, but they were no longer objects of his solicitude.

Everybody who did not take this into account failed to understand Mr.

Cowen's career. He sought nothing for himself--he refused everything offered to him, office included, and accepted no overture made to him.

Whatever opinion he held, to whatever party he allied himself, he might, if he wished, have remained member for Newcastle all his life. He wanted no place in Parliament; all he wanted was his own way--compliance with his own opinions. He had no ambition in the ordinary sense--he had no sinister end to serve, and it was always his preference to promote liberty and progress, generosity and good faith in public affairs.

Conforming to no conventionality, never entering society, nor accepting any invitation to do it, in his attention to his collieries, his ships, his firebrick works, manufactory, newspaper and public meetings, he was occupied from early morning until late at night, without rest and without hurry. He was never exhausted and was never still. One evening he lay down on his sofa, fell asleep, and none around him knew that he was dead.

It would astonish the reader--were they all narrated--the considerable undertakings which he conducted and carried through at the same time.

He was a great man of business, and had the management of heaven been consigned to him as a pleasure resort, he would have made it pay eventually. He was an apostle, not an apostate, but his apostleship was of his own ideas. He was no apostate of his party. Had he been in the celestial world when Lucifer revolted, Mr. Cowen might have aided Satan, from motives of resentment at being denied, by certain dissentient cherubim, ascendency himself. But he would never have joined the fallen angels, nor, as we have seen other politicians do, officially engage in their work, or identify himself with them.