Sketches in the House Part 1

Sketches In The House (1893).

by T. P. O'Connor.

CHAPTER I.

OPENING OF A HISTORIC SESSION.

[Sidenote: Memories.]

There is always something that depresses, as well as something that exhilarates, in the first day of a Session of Parliament. In the months which have elapsed, there have been plenty of events to emphasize the mutability and the everlasting tragedy of human life. Some men have died; figures that seemed almost the immortal portion of the life of Parliament have disappeared into night, and their place knows them no more; others have met the fate, more sinister and melancholy, of changing a life of dignity and honour for one of ignominy and shame.

[Sidenote: The irony of the seats.]

But no such thought disturbed the cheerful souls of some of the Irish Members; in the worst of times there is something exuberant in the Celt that rises superior to circ.u.mstance. This was to be an Irish Session; and the great fight of Ireland's future government was to be fought--perhaps finally. But there was another circ.u.mstance which distinguished this Session from its predecessors. The question of seats is always a burning one in the House of Commons. In an a.s.sembly in which there is only sitting accommodation for two out of every three members, there are bound to be some awkward questions when feeling runs high and debates are interesting. But at the beginning of this Session, things had got to a worse pa.s.s than ever. The Irish Party resolved to remain on the Opposition side of the House, true to their principle, that until Ireland receives Home Rule, they are in opposition to all and every form of Government from Westminster. The result was the bringing together of the strangest of bedfellows in all sections in the House. There is none so fiercely opposed to Home Rule as the Irish Orangeman. But the Orangemen are a portion of the Opposition as well as the Irish Nationalists, with the inconvenient result that there sat cheek by jowl men who had about as much love for each other's principles as a country vicar has for a Northampton Freethinker. On the other hand, a deadlier hatred exists between the regular Liberal and the Liberal Unionist than between the ordinary Liberal and the ordinary Tory. But by the irony of fate, the action of the Irish Party compelled the Unionists to sit on the Liberal benches again, with the result that men were ranged side by side, whose hatreds, personal and political, were as deadly as any in the House.

[Sidenote: Watchers for the dawn.]

As a result of all this, there occurred in the House on Tuesday morning, January 31st, a scene unparalleled since the famous day when Mr.

Gladstone brought in his Home Rule Bill in 1886. Night was still fighting the hosts of advancing morn, when a Tory Member--Mr.

Seton-Karr--approached the closed doors of the House of Commons, and demanded admission to a seat. For nearly an hour he was left alone with the darkness, and the ghosts of dead statesmen and forgotten scenes of oratory, pa.s.sion, and triumph. But as six o'clock was striking, there entered the yard around the House two figures--similar in purpose--different in appearance. Mr. Johnson, of Ballykilbeg, is by this time one of the familiar types of the House; and, from his evident sincerity, is, in spite of the terrible and mediaeval narrowness of his creed, personally popular. Mr. Johnson is an Orangeman of Orangemen. Now and then he delivers a speech, in which he declares that rather than see Home Rule in Ireland, he and his friends will line the ditches with riflemen. The Pope disturbs his dreams by night and stalks across his speeches by day; and there is a general impression about him that he is resolved, some time or other, to walk through a good large stream of Papist blood. He is also a violent teetotaller; and is so strong on this point that he is ready to shake hands, even with the deadliest Irish opponent, across the back of a Sunday Closing Bill. Like most Parliamentary fire-eaters, he is a mild-mannered man. Time hath dealt tenderly with him. But still he is well on to the seventies: his hair, once belligerently red, is thin and streaked with grey; and he walks somewhat slowly, and not very vigorously. Dr. Rentoul is a man of a different type. What Johnson feels, Rentoul affects. He is a tall, common-looking, heavily-built, bl.u.s.tering kind of fellow; great, it is said, on the abusive Tory platform, almost dumb and utterly impotent in the House of Commons. These were the vanguard of the Orange army, and they proceeded to appropriate the first and best seats they could lay their hands upon.

[Sidenote: Dr. Tanner and his waistcoat.]

Dr. Tanner, soon after this, appeared blazing on the scene; and sorrow came upon him that any of the enemy should have forestalled him. Like Mr. Johnson, Tanner is a Protestant--but, unlike him, is as fiercely Nationalist as the other is Orange; and, whenever the waves are disturbed by the Parliamentary storm, Tanner is pretty sure to be heard of and from. Viewing the scene of battle strategically, Tanner struck on an idea which was certainly original. Accounts differ as to whether he was the possessor of one hat or several; but tradition would suggest that he had more than one. It is certain, however, that he did take off his coat and waistcoat; and stretching these across the unclaimed land of seats, did thereby signify to all mankind that the seats thus decorated were his. But the novel form of appropriation--it suggests a wrinkle to prospectors in mining countries--was held to be illegal; and the poor doctor had to content himself with using the hat, or hats, as a means of securing seats.

[Sidenote: Colonel Saunderson.]

Colonel Saunderson--another of the Orange army of fire-eaters--was early at the trysting-place; and this brought about one of the curiosities of the sitting. On the first seat below the gangway sat Dr. Tanner; on the very next seat, as close to him as one sardine to another in a box, sat Colonel Saunderson. Not for worlds would these two men exchange a syllable; indeed, it was a relief to most people to find that they did not break out into oaths and blows. What rendered the situation worse, was that Dr. Tanner has a fine exuberant habit of expressing his opinions for the benefit of all around him. At his back sat William O'Brien, with his keen thin face, his eyes full of latent fire, his stern, set jaw--his gla.s.ses suggesting the student and philosopher, who is always the most perilous and fierce of politicians; and to William O'Brien, Tanner made a running and biting commentary on the speeches--a commentary, as can easily be guessed, from the extreme National point of view. This was the music to which the Orange Colonel had to listen through the long hours that stretched between his early morning arrival and midnight. How men will consent to go through all this travail is, to easy-going people, one of the curiosities of political struggle.

[Sidenote: The Chamberlain Party.]

Meantime, there had been another and an equally important descent. Mr.

Chamberlain made his son the Whip of the Unionist Party. The resemblance between father and son is something even closer than that usually noticed between relatives. The son looks a good deal more gentlemanly than the father. But the single eyegla.s.s--which no man can wear without looking more or less of a sn.o.b--is even less becoming to the youthful Austen than to the parent; and gives him even a coa.r.s.er air. There is a suspicion that young Chamberlain also came to the House armed with a goodly supply of hats; at all events, he and his friends managed to secure a large number of seats for the Unionists. Chamberlain and his friends sat together on the third bench below the gangway--a position of 'vantage in some respects--from which they could survey the House. The first seat was occupied by Mr. Chamberlain; next him was Sir Henry James, and then came Mr. Courtney, in a snuff-coloured coat and drab waistcoat; for all the world like an old-fashioned squire who has not yet learned to accommodate himself to the sombre garments of an unpicturesque age. The dutiful Austen left himself without a seat, and was content to kneel in the gangway, and there take sweet counsel from his parent.

[Sidenote: Enter the G.O.M.]

Mr. Gladstone, as everybody knows, was not technically a member of the House of Commons when it met at the beginning of the Session. He had to be sworn, and the first business of the House was to witness this ceremony. I remember the first day I was a member of the House, and saw a similar spectacle--it was in 1880. Then the House was crowded, and there was a tremendous demonstration; but on the opening day of the Session just ended, the ceremony came off a little earlier than had been expected, and the House was not as full as one would have antic.i.p.ated.

Then there was a great deal of work to be done; every section of the House was busy with the attempt to get an opportunity of bringing in Bills. The Irishmen are always to the front on these occasions, with the list of a dozen Bills, which they seek to bring forward on Wednesdays--the day that is still sacred to the private member anxious to legislate. The Welsh members have now taken up the same lesson; the London members are likewise on the alert. Now, in order to get a chance of bringing in a Bill, it is necessary to ballot--then it is first come, first served. To get your chance in the ballot, you must put your name down on what is called the notice paper, where a number is placed opposite your name. The clerks put into the balloting-box as many numbers as there are names on the notice paper--they approached 400 on the day in question--and then the number is drawn out, and the Speaker calls upon the member whose number has proved to be the lucky one. A whole crowd of members were standing waiting their turn to do this the very moment when the Old Man walked up the floor of the House to take the oaths, and there was a great deal of noise and confusion; but his advent was noted instinctively and rapidly, and there was a mighty cheer of welcome.

[Sidenote: How he looked.]

Mr. Gladstone walks down to the House, unless on great occasions. Then there would be an obvious danger, from the enthusiasm of his admirers, if he were on foot. Whenever there is any chance of a demonstration, accordingly, he comes down in an open carriage, with Mrs. Gladstone at his side. On that 31st of January, the enthusiastic love of which he was the object, had several times overflowed; it had brought a huge crowd to Downing Street, and it had dogged the footsteps of the Prime Minister wherever he was seen. With bare head--with eyes glistening--with a cheek whose wax-like pallor was touched with an unusual gleam of colour--the Grand Old Man came down to his greatest Session, amid a thicket of loving faces and cheering throats. I fancy one of Mrs. Gladstone's heaviest tasks is to look after the clothes of her ill.u.s.trious husband.

He manages to make them all awry whenever he gets the chance. He may be seen at the beginning of an evening with a neat black tie just in its proper place; and towards the end of the evening the same tie is away under his jugular--as though he were trying experiments in the art of expeditiously hanging a man. But on these great occasions he is always so dressed as to bring out in full relief all the strange and varied beauty of his splendid face and figure. For nature--in the richness and abundance of her endowment of this portentous personage--has made him not only the greatest man in the House of Commons, but also the handsomest. He was dressed in the solemn black frock coat which he always wears on great occasions, and in his b.u.t.tonhole there was a beautiful little boutonniere of white roses and lilies of the valley.

The waxen pallor was still relieved by the glow caused by his enthusiastic reception from the people, as, with his son Herbert on the one side and Mr. Marjoribanks, the chief Liberal whip, on the other, he walked up the floor of the House.

[Sidenote: The new Ministry.]

One after another, the new Ministers followed--their receptions varying with their popularity--and at last they were all seated on the Treasury Bench. In their looks there was ample indication of the intellectual supremacy which had raised them to that exalted position. Mr. Gladstone had Sir William Harcourt--his Chancellor of the Exchequer--on his right, and on his left sat Mr. John Morley, with his thin face and smile, half ascetic, half kindly. Then came the newest man of the Government, that fortunate youth to whom power and recognition have come, not in withered or soured old age, but in the full prime of his manhood. Mr. Asquith takes his seat next Mr. Morley; and it is, perhaps, the close proximity which suggests the strong physical likeness between the two. Both are clean shaven; both have the long narrow profile that is called hatchet-faced; in both there is the compression of lips that reveals depths of strength and tenacity; both have the slightly ascetic air of the philosopher turned politician; both look singularly young, not only for their years, but for the dazzling eminence of their positions.

[Sidenote: Other groups.]

Meantime, there are other groups in the House that are gradually forming, and that have since played a momentous part in this great Session. Mr. Labouchere sits in his old place below the gangway--a seat which has become his almost by right of usage, but which he has to secure still every day, by that regular attendance at prayers which is so sweet to a devout soul. Next him sits Mr. Philipps--one of the younger generation of Radicals; and then comes Sir Charles Dilke--very carefully dressed, looking wonderfully well--rosy-cheeked, and altogether a younger-looking and gayer-spirited man than the haggard and pale figure which used to sit on the Treasury Bench in the days of his glory. John Burns is up among the Irish and the Tories, in visible opposition to all Governments. There is something breezy about John Burns that does one good to look at. He wears a short coat--generally of a thick blue material, that always brings to one's mental eye the flowing sea and the mounting wave. A stout-limbed, lion-hearted skipper--that's what John Burns looks like. There is plenty of fire in the deep, dark, large eyes, and of tenderness as well; and all that curious mixture of rage and tears that makes up the stern defender of the hopeless and the forlorn and weak. On the opposite side, in the Liberal ranks, sits Sam Woods--the miners' agent, who was sent from the Ince Division of Lancashire instead of an aristocrat of ancient race; also a remarkable man, with the somewhat pallid face of the life-long teetotaller, and eyes that have the mingled expression of wrath and pity common among the leaders of forlorn hopes and new crusades. Mr. Wilson, the member for Middlesbrough, is restless, and moves about a good deal.

He has resolved to bring in a Bill to improve the wretched condition of "Poor Jack," in whose company he spent many years of his own hard life; and there is a gleam of triumph as an Irish member, in accordance with a previous arrangement, gives notice of a Bill for that purpose when the hazard of the ballot gives opportunity.

[Sidenote: Mover and Seconder.]

It is an honourable but a painful distinction to have either to move or to second the reply to the Speech from the Throne. One of the silly survivals of a feudal past still obliges men who have to perform this duty to make perfect guys of themselves, by wearing some outlandish uniform. Even the st.u.r.diest Radical has to submit to this process; though I hope when John Burns comes to figure in that honourable position he will insist on retaining his breezy pea-jacket and his billyc.o.c.k hat. It was very late in the evening when Mr. Lambert--the victor in the great South Molton fight--had the opportunity of rising; and it was even still later when Mr. Beaufoy rose. I must pa.s.s over their speeches by saying that both speakers did extremely well. Even Mr.

Balfour had to compliment them; and the Old Man almost went out of his way to express his gratification.

[Sidenote: Mr. Balfour.]

It was everywhere remarked that most of the leaders of parties began the Session in excellent fighting trim. Mr. Morley has been living in the pleasant green meadows and fields of the Phoenix Park, and looks five years younger than he did last year. The Old Man astounded everybody by his briskness; and Mr. Balfour also entered on the fray with every sign of being in excellent health and spirits. There had been a great roar of triumph when he came into the House, and throughout his speech--clever, biting, and adroit--his party kept up a ringing and well-organized chorus of pointed cheers. The speech was a significant departure from the ordinary stamp--a fact which Mr. Gladstone, who is notably a great stickler for tradition, did not fail to notice. For the almost unbroken tradition of the House of Commons is that the first night shall be one of almost loving-kindness between the one side and the other. I remember well _Punch_ indicated this once by representing Mr. Gladstone and Mr.

Disraeli beginning a Session by presenting each other with roses, while behind their backs was a thick bundle of whips.

[Sidenote: The fray opens.]

But Mr. Balfour is independent of tradition, and demonstrated it at once with a speech almost vehement, in part, in its attack. He had a whole host of flings at Mr. Justice Mathew and the Evicted Tenants'

Commission--his. .h.i.ts, though sufficiently obvious, and almost cheap, being rapturously received. Altogether, it must be said the Opposition were in excellent form, and cheered their man with a l.u.s.tiness which did them infinite credit. The Liberals, on the other hand, with forces somewhat scattered--the round Irish chorus being especially so, in the remote distance--did not seem equally well-organized from the point of view of the _claque_. With the dynamite prisoners Mr. Balfour dealt so gingerly that it was evident he knew the weakness of the Tory case, and was very apprehensive that Mr. Matthews would be found to have sold the pa.s.s. The ex-Home Secretary, meantime, was still disporting himself around the Red Sea or in the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb; and Mr. Balfour, who has notoriously a bad memory, was left groping in the cobwebs of his brain, trying to recollect which of the dynamitards it was Mr. Matthews intended to retain and which to release. Attacking the action of Mr.

Morley with regard to the liberation of the Gweedore prisoners, Mr.

Balfour brought upon himself a series of sharp interruptions from Mr.

Morley; and there was some very pretty play, Mr. Balfour retorting now and then with considerable skill and readiness. Altogether it was an excellent fighting speech, and a good beginning. There were, in addition to what I have mentioned, plenty of shots about the foreign policy of the Government, especially in Uganda and Egypt; and it is needless to say that Mr. Balfour accused his successors of swallowing in office all the principles they had professed in Opposition.

[Sidenote: The Old Man rises.]

Mr. Gladstone had to stand silent for a few minutes in face of the thunderous welcome which he received from the Irish benches. Though the reception was gratifying, he seemed to be impatiently awaiting its termination, for he was full of vigour and eagerness for the attack, and never in his most youthful hours did he display a greater readiness to meet all a.s.saults half-way. Those who are accustomed to the Old Man are in the habit of noting a few premonitory signs which will always pretty well forecast the kind of speech he will make. If he starts up flurried and excited, it is ten chances to one that the speech will not remain vigorous to the end; that there will be a break of voice and a weakening of strength, and that the close will not be equal to the opening. But when the voice is cold--though full of a deep underswell at the moment of starting--when Mr. Gladstone moves his body with the easy grace of perfect self-mastery, then the House is going to have an oratorical treat. So it was in this initial speech. There was just a touch of hoa.r.s.eness in the voice, but it had a fine roll, the roll of the wave on a pebbly beach in an autumn evening; and he carried himself so finely and so flauntingly that there was no apprehension of anything like a loss or a waste of strength.

[Sidenote: A pounce.]

At once he pounced on a pa.s.sage in the speech of Mr. Balfour, who had made the statement that such a policy as Home Rule had always led to the disintegration and destruction of empires. He rolled out the case of Austria, which had been preserved from ruin by Home Rule; and when there was a sniff from the Tory benches, Mr. Gladstone, in tones of thunder, referred to the speech of Lord Salisbury in 1885, when he was angling for the Irish vote, and when he pointed to Austria as perhaps supplying some indication of the method of settling the Irish question. This was good old party warfare; the Liberals cheered in delight, and the old warrior glowed with all his old fire. There was a softer and more subdued tone when the Prime Minister referred to Foreign Affairs, speaking of these things with the slowness and the gravity which such ticklish subjects demand. But again Mr. Gladstone was in all the full blast of oratorical vehemence when he took up the attack that had been made on the Irish policy of Mr. Morley. Now and then prompted by that gentleman, and with an occasional word from Mr. Asquith, the Old Man gave figure after figure to show that Ireland has vastly improved since coercion had been dropped as a policy. Altogether it was a splendid fighting speech, and dissipated in a few moments all prophecies of gloom and forebodings of dark disaster which have been prevalent for so many weeks with regard to the health of the old leader. Thus in fire and fury began the Session, the leaders on both sides fully equal to their reputation and at their best, and all the dark and slumbering forces that lie behind them as yet an undiscovered country of grim and strange possibilities.

[Sidenote: Lord Randolph.]

But the solid and united ranks of the Tories were broken by one figure that was once the most potent among them all. I had been strangely moved at a theatre, a week or so before, as I looked at Lord Randolph Churchill. I remembered him twelve years ago--a mere boy in appearance, with clean-shaven face, dapper and slight figure, the alertness and grace of youth, and a face smooth as the cheek of a maiden. And now--bearded, slightly bowed, with lines deep as the wrinkles of an octogenarian, he sometimes looks like the grandfather of his youthful self. It is in the deep-set, brilliant eyes that you still see all the fire of his extraordinary political genius, and the embers, that may quickly burst into flame, of all the pa.s.sion and force of a violently strong character. For the moment he sits silent and expectant. He has even refused to take his rightful place among the leaders of the party on the Front Opposition Bench. Still he sits in the corner immediately behind, which is the spectral throne of exiled rulers. He has the power of all strong natures of creating around him an atmosphere of uncertainty, apprehension, and fear. Of all the many problems of this Session of probably fierce personal conflict, this was the most unreadable sphinx.

[Sidenote: Reaction.]

There came upon the House at the beginning of the following week a deadly calm, very much in contrast with the storm and stress of its predecessor. It is ever thus in the House of Commons. You can never tell how things are going to turn out, except to this extent--that pa.s.sion inevitably exhausts itself; and that accordingly, when there has been a good deal of fire and fury one day, or for a few days, there is certain to come a great and deadly calm. Uganda is not a subject that excites anybody but Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Burdett-Coutts; and even on them it has a disastrous effect. Mr. Burdett-Coutts is always dull; but Uganda makes him duller than ever. Labby is usually brilliant; while he discoursed on Uganda he actually made people think Mr. Gladstone ought to have made him a Cabinet Minister--he displayed such undiscovered and unsuspected powers of respectable dulness.

[Sidenote: Still the seats.]

Nevertheless, there was still room for excitement and drollery in the perennial question of the seats. Mr. Chamberlain is not a man to whom people are inclined to make concessions; he is so little inclined to give up anything himself; and, accordingly, there arose a very serious question as to the first seat on the third bench below the Gangway, which he had taken all defiantly for his own. He counted without one of the oldest and most respected, but also one of the firmest, men in the House. Mr. T.B.--or, as everybody calls him, Tom Potter--sits for Rochdale; he was the life-long friend, and for years he has been the political successor of Cobden in the representation of Rochdale, and he is likewise the founder and the President of the Cobden Club. Every man has his weakness, and the weakness of Mr. Potter is to always occupy the first seat on the third bench above the Gangway. Everyone loves the good, kindly old man, the survivor of some of the fiercest conflicts of our time, and everybody is willing to give way to him. When the Liberals were in Opposition, there was a general desire among the Irish members to take possession of the third seat above the Gangway; and the first seat has enormous advantages--tactically--for anyone anxious to catch the Speaker's eye. But whenever the st.u.r.dy form of the member for Rochdale appeared, the fiercest of the Irishry were ready to give way; and from his coign of vantage, he beamed blissfully down on the House of Commons.

[Sidenote: Strong, but Merciful.]

Mr. Chamberlain had the boldness to challenge what hitherto had remained unchallenged; and Mr. Potter's wrath was aroused. He is not one of those people who require the spiritual sustenance of the Chaplain's daily prayers; and, accordingly, it was an effort to get down at three o'clock, when that ceremony begins; but his wrath upheld him; and thus it was that on a certain night, the thin form and sharp nose of Mr.

Chamberlain peered out on the House from behind the ma.s.sive form of the Member for Rochdale. It looked as if the unhappy Member for West Birmingham had undergone a sort of transformation, and had, like Mr.

Anstey's hero in "Vice Versa," gone back to the tiny form and slight face of his boyhood. Mr. Potter, however, is merciful, and having a.s.serted his rights, he surrendered them again gracefully to Mr.