Sketches in the House Part 18

[Sidenote: A great Parliamentarian.]

Everybody was delighted--that is to say, everybody on the Liberal side of the House--to see that the great old leader was displaying on this question the same unerring tactics, the same resources the same willingness to learn, and the same elasticity of mind as he has manifested throughout his whole life--or at least throughout all that part of it which dates from his escape from the shackles of his early and obscurantist creed. He has never concealed the fact that he departed from the old rules of the House of Commons with misgiving reluctance, and even repulsion. It would have been strange, indeed, if he could have felt otherwise after all his long years of glorious service in that august a.s.sembly. But then, when the time did come for taking the plunge, he took it boldly and unshrinkingly. It was a delight to watch him during this Session, and especially when it became necessary to use the guillotine against the revolutionary and iniquitous attempt to paralyse the House of Commons by sheer shameless obstruction. The "guillotine"

was a most serious, a most momentous, and even portentous departure from all precedent, except, of course, the Tory precedent of 1887; but the Old Man, when the proper time came, proposed the experiment with the utmost composure--with that splendid command of nerve--that lofty and dauntless courage--that indifference to attack, which explains his extending hold over the imaginations and the hearts of men.

[Sidenote: The plain duty of Liberals.]

I have little doubt that he will be quite equal to any further steps which may be necessary to vindicate the authority of the majority in the House of Commons, and n.o.body doubts that such further steps may be necessary. The real and fundamental question--as I put it over and over again--is whether the Liberal party and the Liberal majority shall go before the country at the next election with the charge made good against them of lack of will, competence, and energy. If once that charge can be substantiated, I regard the Liberal cause as lost--and lost for many a year to come. Any Government almost is better than a Government which cannot govern; and the sentiment is so universal that I have no doubt the shifting ballast, which decides all elections, would go with a rush to the Tory side, and would enthrone in the place of power a strong Tory majority and an almost omnipotent Tory Government.

The Tories know this, and calculate upon it, and will devote all their energies, therefore to reducing the present House of Commons and the present Ministry to discredited impotence, contemptible paralysis. Such a conspiracy must be met in the proper manner. Obstructive debate must be mercilessly closured; old rules must be abandoned without a sigh, and give way to others more adapted to the necessity of the time. Above all things the House of Lords must be flouted, humiliated, and defied. It is on the spring-tide of popular democratic and anti-aristocratic pa.s.sion we shall have to float the next Liberal Government into power.

[Sidenote: Nepotism in the army.]

When business commenced on August 29th, there was a beggarly array of empty benches. For some time, the only Tory defenders of the Const.i.tution were the ubiquitous George Christopher Trout Bartley and the valiant Howard Vincent. Questions showed more inclination than ever to wander into the purely parochial. Presently Mr. Burnie came along with an inquiry addressed to the War Minister whether it was correct the Duke of Connaught had been appointed to the chief command of the army at Aldershot; and, if so, on what grounds he had been selected for this important position. Several other vigorous Radicals were on the same scent. Mr. Campbell-Bannerman said it was quite true the Duke had become Commander-in-Chief. This was because of his fitness; because he was practically the senior officer available, and because he had gained experience in both regimental and staff duties, having filled with great credit the high office of Commander-in-Chief at Bombay. Herculean Mr.

Allan, of Gateshead, sought for information how many months the Duke of Connaught was absent from his duties when he commanded at Portsmouth.

Young Mr. Dalziel also came forward, wanting to know whether the Duke would receive the salary of a General or a Lieutenant-General. Mr. A.C.

Morton, who had appropriated for the nonce Mr. T.W. Russell's usual seat, was anxious for a further explanation of what was meant by the Duke being practically the senior officer available. He also wanted to know what experience he had had in real fighting. The reply of the War Minister was conciliatory. There were, he explained, one or two generals senior to H.R.H., but who were at present discharging duties from which it was not desirable they should be removed. The pay would be that of a Lieutenant-General. Owing to domestic circ.u.mstances, the Duke lived out of Portsmouth, but he was little out of the district he commanded. He served in the Egyptian campaign, which was the only opportunity he had had during his career in taking part in active warfare. This did not satisfy either Mr. Allan or Mr. Morton. The member for Peterboro' wanted to be precise. How far was H.R.H. away from the real fighting? The War Minister could only smile and shake his head. Mr. Allan expressed his dissent, and Mr. Morton, derisively cheered by a handful of Tories, solemnly begged to give notice that on the Army Estimates he would again raise the question of this flagrant job.

[Sidenote: A triumph for Mr. Burns.]

The evening was notable for a splendid triumph achieved by that fine Democrat, John Burns. It arose out of the Navy Estimates. The conditions of labour in the Government dockyards have long been crying out for remedy, and Mr. Burns presented the case for the men with a force and lucidity that carried conviction home to the minds of a crowded House, among whose members his is one of the most magnetic personalities. The member for Battersea pointed out that, whilst he strongly approved of the att.i.tude of the Government in adding 30,000 to the wages of the men, the real step they should have taken was to ignore the opinion of the permanent officials, those bugbears of all reformers, past, present, and to come--pay the trades union rates, and abolish cla.s.sification altogether. A very excellent smack at Sir John Gorst, Mr. A.B. Forwood, and other standbacks on the Opposition side was the remark:--"I would rather have the rate of wages in dockyards regulated by trades unions than made the sport of party politicians and put up as a kind of Dutch auction." What have the Government to fear in this matter? The trade unions must always have to face compet.i.tion and trade rivalry, and these elements alone are more than sufficient to keep down wages. So great was the impression made by Mr. Burns's speech, that official notice of it was inevitable, and Mr. E. Robertson was able to make an announcement which gave, if not absolute satisfaction, at least a measure of it to the champions of the artificers and labourers in our dockyards.

[Sidenote: Home Rule again.]

It was only the Old Man would have had the daring to begin the third stage of the greatest Bill of modern times at an hour so inauspicious--noon on a Wednesday sitting. Everybody knows that among all the dead hours of the House of Commons, there is no hour so utterly dead as that. Indeed, very often such is the disinclination of the natural man for unreasonable and unseasonable hours--it is very often extremely difficult for the Whips of the Government to get together the forty members who are necessary to form the quorum for the starting of business; and I have known cases where it was close upon two o'clock--if not even later--before there was a sufficient muster for the beginning of the day's business. However, Mr. Gladstone calculated correctly on the magic of his name and the witchery of his oratory; for by a few minutes past twelve, when he rose to make his speech, the House was crowded in almost every part, and he had an audience not only unprecedented in its fulness at such an hour, but also delightfully stimulating in its general responsiveness and sometimes even its ready enthusiasm.

[Sidenote: A mighty speech.]

The speech of the Old Man was worthy of the occasion. For some hours after it had ended n.o.body had anything to say about anybody or anything else; it was one of those speeches that create something like rapture; and that oft-repeated declaration that he had never done anything like it before--a declaration I have heard too many times to now altogether accept. The voice was splendid, the diction very fine, the argument close and well knit, the matter carefully prepared without any selfish adherence to the letter of a ma.n.u.script--a fidelity which always spoils anything like spontaneity of oratory. And the Old Man was in splendid physical condition and in the brightest of spirits. Indeed, I was never more struck with the extraordinary physical perfection which Mr.

Gladstone's frame has maintained after his eighty-three years of full active and wearing life. The back was straight, the figure erect, the motions free, unconstrained, easy; the gestures those of a man whose every joint moved easily in a fresh and vigorous frame. And the face was wonderfully expressive, now darkened with pa.s.sionate hatred of wrong, now bursting into the sunshine of genial and pleasant smiles. And--as is usual when he is in this mood--he was extraordinarily quick at taking interruptions; he was, indeed, almost boisterous in his manner, and seemed to positively invite those interjectional interventions from the other side, which, in less exuberant moods he is sometimes inclined to resent. Mr. Chaplin had quoted a portentous pa.s.sage from Cavour to show that the great Italian statesman had declared against Home Rule. Mr.

Gladstone was able to cap this with another pa.s.sage--which, beginning with a strong indictment of English methods of government in Ireland, wound up with the declaration that Ireland ought to be treated with the same justice and generosity as Canada. While the Liberals were still cheering this thrust, Mr. Chaplin got up to make the remark that Cavour had said other things quite contradictory of this, whereupon the Old Man--still with a smile of deadly courtesy--pounced upon Mr. Chaplin with the remark, "Is it your case, then, that Cavour contradicted himself?"--a retort, the rapidity and completeness of which crushed Mr.

Chaplin for the moment.

[Sidenote: Cowed silence of the Tories.]

When he dealt with the charge that the Government had unduly curtailed debate, the Old Man had made up his case very thoroughly, and as he read the d.a.m.ning indictment which showed the wild mult.i.tudinousness, the infinite variety and the prolonged duration of the speeches of the Opposition, there was plenty of encouraging cheers from the Liberal side; while on the Tory Benches they sat in dumb and stricken silence.

Indeed, throughout the whole speech, the Tories were singularly quiet.

Perhaps it was that they too were carried away by the witchery and the spell which the Old Man had cast over the rest of the House; and, while disagreeing with him, were still sufficiently wound up to the lofty and more empyrean heights which the orator reached to feel that there would be something jarring and even common in a note of dissent. Whatever the reason, they remained uncommonly silent throughout the whole speech; and, sometimes, when one or two of the more ebullient members spoke, the interjectors got very little change for their pains.

[Sidenote: The readiness of the Old Man.]

And this silence was the more remarkable in one or two of the most important pa.s.sages of the Bill, for the Old Man challenged interruption.

Thus he ranged the objections to the Bill under seven separate heads, and then he proceeded to read out these heads. They were all a perfectly faithful representation--in some cases even a repet.i.tion--of what the Tories had said; but stated baldly, nakedly, in the cold light of early day, they sounded intensely ridiculous. It was impossible, for instance, to take seriously the resounding proposition that the Bill "would break up the Empire"--that under the Bill the loyal minority would incur loss of life, liberty and property, and so on. As Mr. Gladstone read out these propositions there was a deadly chill, a disheartened silence, on the Tory Benches which had its importance, for it showed plainly that, however ready they were to mouth these things on platforms they felt a little ashamed of them in their more sober moments. Just once or twice, a stray Tory did venture to signify by a timid and faint cheer his acceptance of the ridiculous litany of prophecy and reprobation which Mr. Gladstone was repeating to him. And then the Old Man was delightful; he smiled all over his face until its features were one vast ma.s.s of corrugated wrinkles; then he waved his hand a little to the other side, and finally congratulated himself on being in the happy position of being even partially corroborated by gentlemen of opposite opinions, Whereupon, of course, the whole House laughed, including the very member whom the Old Man had thus toasted. In short, as will have been seen from my description, the Old Man was in his very best form, in full command of himself, of his friends, and even of his enemies.

[Sidenote: A solemn peroration.]

Finally, there came a peroration--lofty, almost inspired--splendidly delivered, rapturously applauded. It rang out a note of perfect confidence--of early and complete victory--of righteous trust in a righteous cause. And the House which had followed the great orator in rapt attention so long could not tire of cheering this glowing and inspiring end. For several minutes the cheers were given--and again given, and again. Meantime, poor Mr. Courtney had been standing--waiting for silence. To him had been entrusted the task of moving the rejection of the measure. He was dull, pedantic, and rather embarra.s.sed after this great effort of Mr. Gladstone, and the House emptied. There was a certain stir of curiosity as the name of "Mr. Disraeli" was called by the Speaker; and then the bearer of one of the greatest names of our times, stood up. His speech was brightish, cleverish, and yet there was something wanting. Mr. Redmond was critical, cautious, severe on the financial clauses, but finally p.r.o.nounced for the Bill. And so we started the first day of final debate on the Home Rule Bill.

[Sidenote: The last lap.]

There was no doubt about it; the House was thoroughly jaded, and it would have been beyond the power of the most Demosthenic orator to rouse it to anything like enthusiasm. Several of the speeches throughout the following evening were of a high order; but still there was no response--it was speaking from a rock to the noisy, unlistening, and irresponsive sea. The night of September 1st began with a brief, graceful, finely-phrased and finely-tempered speech by Mr. Justin McCarthy, which confirmed Mr. Dillon's frank expression of the Bill as a final measure of emanc.i.p.ation to the Irish people. The obvious sincerity of the speaker--the high character he has, his long consistency, and, above all, the sense of his thorough unselfishness, procured for Mr.

McCarthy a respectful and even a sympathetic hearing from all parts of the House, and he had an audience silent, attentive, and admiring.

[Sidenote: Joe's parting bolt.]

The contrast between the kindliness, the sincere judgment, and the kindly disposition of Mr. McCarthy and the somewhat raucous and malevolent accents of Mr. Chamberlain, was very marked. Not that Mr.

Chamberlain was by any means so nasty as usual; it looked as if he had been taught by the failure of his last utterance into learning at last that malevolence in the end defeats itself by its very excess, and he evidently had resolved to put a very severe restraint upon himself, and attuned his oratory to a very minor key. But this new tone was just as unsuccessful as the other, and there is a second unsuccessful and flat speech to be put to his credit. Many of the ideas, many of the phrases, were repet.i.tions of things he had already said a hundred times over in the course of the previous debates; in short, the speech was a revelation of the fact, known to those who have watched Mr. Chamberlain carefully, that the soil is very barren and very thin; and that after a few oratorical crops it becomes exhausted. Perhaps the failure of the speech was also largely due to the fact that the Irish and the Liberal members, taught by previous experiences, resolved to also put restraint on themselves. They have learned by this time that interruptions do Mr.

Chamberlain a great deal of good; and that his great nimbleness and readiness never come out so well as when he has suddenly to answer such an interruption. Addressing benches--blank, silent and irresponsive, he laboured rather heavily throughout the whole of his address; and there was a complete absence even from the Tory benches of that loud and frequent accompaniment of cheers to which Mr. Chamberlain is usually treated. In short, it was a dull, ineffective speech, mostly listened to in silence.

[Sidenote: A coming man.]

Sir Edward Grey delivered an admirable reply. In his case--as in that of Mr. Chamberlain--there was an immense disadvantage of a tired House, and the audience had thinned somewhat after Mr. Chamberlain had sat down.

But those who remained were fortunate enough to hear one of the most perfect specimens of House of Commons eloquence that has been heard in Westminster for many a day. Indeed, there are few men in the House who have so perfect a command of what I might call the true, genuine, and even grand style of Parliamentary eloquence. Sir Edward Grey speaks with a perfectly unbroken, level tone; his language is moderate and reserved, and he has the great art of using language which implies and suggests more than it actually says. In short, his eloquence is that of perfect high-bred conversation, discussing questions with that complete self-command and composure of the man of the world who disdains to use, even of the greatest affairs, and of the strongest emotions, language of pa.s.sion or exaggeration. Such a style is wonderfully effective in a business a.s.sembly, where men feel, even when they are under the glow of splendid eloquence, that there is behind the words a thinking, reflective, and composed mind. The speech gained enormously by the contrast of its composure--its fine temper, its calm and broad judgment--from the somewhat pettish, personal, and pa.s.sionate utterances of Mr. Chamberlain. This young man will go very far--very far indeed.

[Sidenote: Wearisome Wallace wit.]

Then there was the interval of the dinner-hour--wound up with a speech from Mr. Wallace. The iniquity of the abandonment of the In-and-Out clause of the Bill was again the burden of his theme. He brought to the subject the same quaint, rich, but somewhat elaborate humour which made the success of his previous speech; and the Tories were more than delighted with some telling hits which he gave to Mr. Gladstone for the change of front. But Mr. Wallace made two mistakes. It is not given to any man to make a success twice over on the same theme; and he spoke at much too great a length. In the end he somewhat wearied the House, and altogether the second speech was not equal to the first, though it had a great deal of ability in it, and _The Sun_ was obliged next day to acknowledge with grat.i.tude the great gratuitous advertis.e.m.e.nt which it received by numerous quotations from its columns.

[Sidenote: Balfour at a disadvantage.]

It was half-past ten o'clock when Mr. Balfour rose. By this time the heat, which had set in with quite tropical fervour, became almost overpowering, and the House, which began by being tired, had become almost exhausted. It was under these depressing circ.u.mstances that the Leader of the Opposition started on what must have been to him something of a corvee, and for a considerable time--although the speech was not wanting in some very telling hits and bright sayings--he laboured very heavily; he could not arouse the enthusiasm even of his own followers, and was thus wire-drawn and ineffective.

[Sidenote: Honest John in fighting form.]

If Mr. Balfour was at his worst, Mr. Morley was at his best. The speech which he delivered at Newcastle, during the previous week, placed Mr.

Morley definitely in the very front rank of platform orators. After his speech of September 1st, he made a distinct and great advance in his position as a Parliamentary debater. His great defect as a speaker has been a certain want of nimbleness and readiness. He has infinitely wider and larger resources than Mr. Chamberlain, who, nevertheless, excels in the alertness which is often the accompaniment of shallowness. On this occasion Mr. Morley was rapid, prompt, crushing. As thus: Mr. Balfour had spoken of the people who denounced Dublin Castle as "third-rate politicians." "Who is the third-rate politician?" asked Mr. Morley, looking towards Mr. Chamberlain--everybody knows that he used to denounce Dublin Castle--and peal on peal of laughter and cheers followed from the Liberal and Irish Benches. Mr. Morley followed up his advantage by saying, with a comic air of despair, "It is very awkward to have coadjutors using this kind of language about each other."

[Sidenote: A reminiscence of 1885.]

This is just the kind of thing which rouses even the most tired of the House; there was an immediate rise the temperature; the Liberals and the Irish were ready to delightedly cheer; the Tories, who always get restive as they approach the final hour of defeat, grew noisy, rude, and disorderly. Then Mr. Morley turned to the charges against the Irish members, and asked the Tories if their own record was so white and pure that they could afford to throw stones. This brought an allusion to the Tory-Parnellite alliance of 1885, which always disturbs, distracts, and even infuriates the Tories. They became restless and noisy, and Mr.

Balfour and Mr. Goschen began to rise and explain. Well would it have been for Mr. Goschen had he resisted this inclination. Mr. Morley was alluding to the Newport speech of Lord Salisbury, and Mr. Balfour was defending it. "Ah, but," said Mr. Morley, "did you not"--meaning Mr.

Goschen--"did you not yourself attack Lord Salisbury for that very speech?"--a retort that produced a tempest of cheers. There were then some scornful and contemptuous allusions to Mr. Russell--to his stale vituperation, and, above all, to his grotesque charge against Mr. Morley of making himself the tool of clericalism. "There are more kinds of clericalism than one," said Mr. Morley, alluding to the violent partisanship of the Presbyterian clergymen of South Tyrone. Finally, the speech ended in a lofty, splendid, and impressive peroration. When tracing the progress of the cause for the last seven years, Mr. Morley spoke with the fine poetic diction in which he stands supreme, of "starless skies" and a "tragic hour"--meaning the Parnell crisis--and then he used the words which more than any other thrilled the House. "We have," he cried, "an indomitable and unfaltering captain," and cheer on cheer rose, while the Old Man sat, white, silent, with a composed though rapt look.

There was the bathos of a poor speech from Colonel Nolan, and then the division. Everybody has the numbers now--34 majority--34 in spite of Saunders and Bolton, of absent Wallace, and unpaired Mr. Wilson. We cheer, counter cheer; we rise and wave our hats; and then quickly, quietly, even with a subdued air, we walk out and leave the halls of Parliament silent, dark, and echoless.

CHAPTER XIX.

HOME RULE IN THE LORDS.

[Sidenote: A brilliant scene.]

The brilliancy of the scene in the House of Lords on September 4th, when the fight over the Home Rule Bill began, was undeniable. Standing at the bar, in that small s.p.a.ce which is reserved for members of the other Chamber, and looking out at the view, it was, I thought, one of the most picturesque and brilliant spectacles on which my eye had ever rested.

The beauty of the House of Commons is great. But it is undoubtedly inferior in beauty to the House of Lords. In the House of Commons the roof is a false one, for the original loftiness of the ceiling was found too great to allow anyone to be properly heard. But in the House of Lords, where the acoustic properties are still extremely bad, the anxiety to hear its members has not yet proved great enough to induce them to make any change in the roof, with the result that the Chamber gives you an impression of loftiness, s.p.a.ciousness, and sweep, such as you do not find in the other. And then the walls at the end obtain additional splendour from the fine pictures that there stand out and confront you--pictures full of crowded life, movement, and tragedy. The Throne, too, with all its gilded splendour, remains, even in its emptiness, a reminder of that stately and opulent lordship which our inst.i.tutions give to a great personage above all parties and all cla.s.ses.

[Sidenote: Lovely woman.]

In addition to all this, the House of Lords has made provision for the appearance of lovely woman, which contrasts most favourably with the curmudgeon and churlish arrangements of the House of Commons. In the House of Commons women have to hide themselves, as though they were in a Mahommedan country, behind a grille--where, invisible, suffocated, and crowded, they are permitted to see--themselves unseen--the gambollings of their male companions below. In the House of Lords, on the other hand, there is a gallery all round the house, in which peeresses and the relatives of peers are allowed to sit--observed of all men--prettily dressed, attentive--a beautiful flower-bordering, so to speak, to the male a.s.semblage below. The variety and brilliancy of colour given by their fashionable clothes adds a great richness and opulence and lightness to the scene; in fact, takes away anything like sombreness, in appearance and aspect at least, from an a.s.sembly which otherwise is calculated to suggest sinister reminiscences of coming trouble and the approaching darkness of political agitation. The benches, too, have a richness which is foreign to the House of Commons, as the members of the popular a.s.sembly sit on benches covered with a deep green leather, which is dark, modest, and unpretentious. There is always something, to my eye at least, that suggests opulence in the colour crimson, and the benches of the Upper Chamber are all in crimson leather, and the crimson has all the freshness which comes from rarity of use. In the House of Commons, with all its workaday and industrious life, the deep and dark green has always more or less of a worn and shabby look. In the Upper Chamber the original splendour of the crimson cloth is undimmed; for most of the benches remain void and unoccupied for 999 nights of the thousand on which their lordships meet.