The Adventure of Living Part 26

He was a natural chieftain. He expected obedience and loyalty in the men who enlisted under his banner, but he felt in every corner of his being that it was the duty of the chieftain to succour, to help, and to advance those who stood by him. No labour and no self-sacrifice was too great to help a member of the clan he had const.i.tuted, and it was given quite as readily to the man who was never likely to be able to help again as to him from whom future favours might be expected.

This quality of grat.i.tude and devotion may not be the greatest of moral qualities, but it is certainly one of the most attractive--a quality which will always secure a love and veneration similar to that with which Mr. Chamberlain was regarded, not only by his own people, but throughout the country. Cool and pedantic political philosophers may think that he carried the backing of his friends too far, but it was a generous fault and not likely to be resented in the workaday world. The man who has the instinct for comradeship will "bring home hearts by dozens" when the virtuous and well-balanced awarder of the good-conduct prizes in life's school will leave his fellows cold.

Because I have dwelt on this side of Mr. Chamberlain's character, it must not be supposed that I have forgotten, or that I desire to minimize, the splendid public services done by him, first in the region of munic.i.p.al life--a priceless contribution--then in national politics, and last of all in the wider Imperial sphere. In every part of our public life he lit a torch which will not be extinguished. Men differ, and will continue to differ, as to his policy. None will differ as to the spirit in which he acted, or deny that he gave what nations most need--the stimulus of high endeavour.

However, I do not want to speak too much of his politics, partly because my aim is to be uncontroversial, and still more because his personal character is far more likely to interest my readers than any diagnosis of the politician.

The qualities of heart and head, which I have described, were not learned by me through Mr. Chamberlain's public form, but through a close study at first hand. From the year 1887 or '88 till the Tariff Reform controversy, I was on very intimate terms, social as well as political, with Mr. Chamberlain. I think he was fond of me. I know I was fond of him. I expect he thought I was a little too cool, or, as he might have said, not keen enough, just as I thought him inclined to be too zealous a partisan,--too ready to push party conditions to the uttermost. Yet both of us, and that is after all the great thing in friendship, felt the sense of personal attraction.

He was among other things one of the most delightful of companions. To see him, as I so often did, in his house in the country set at the edge of a great city,--that best describes Highbury,--was a delightful experience. The house-parties at the Whitsuntide and Easter recesses, which lasted double the length of ordinary Sat.u.r.day to Monday parties, were most attractive. Chamberlain was an expert at asking the right people to meet each other, but if he had not been it would not have mattered. Owing to his vigour of mind and the stimulating character of his talk he would have turned a house-party of the purest "duds" into a success. As a matter of fact, however, he was the last man to endure bores. People who were asked to Highbury, were asked because he liked them, not for any conventional reasons.

Another factor which made these visits to Birmingham delightful was the hostess. Mrs. Chamberlain had as high social qualities as the host. But I must not speak of Mrs. Chamberlain as I feel, for to do so would break the rule of not writing about living people. I will say, however, that even an interval of a quarter of a century--the date in her case sounds utterly preposterous I admit--has not dimmed my recollection of a fascinating and gracious young woman. New to England, new to our politics, and plunged into the midst of a party crisis of a very bitter kind, she showed an unfailing instinct as a hostess. She never said an unkind thing or made an enemy. Besides her youth, her good-looks, and her charm of manner and her natural dignity she possessed the gift of making parties go. Though she always made herself felt in her parties, she was never formidable. She was always friendly and yet never gushing or affected. But I most sincerely ask Mrs. Chamberlain's pardon for I cannot conceal from myself that she will not like to be written about in terms of eulogy.

Mr. Chamberlain was indeed singularly fortunate in his family as supporters in the matter of entertaining. His two sons, Austen and Neville, evidently enjoyed the house-parties as much as did their father and his guests. Both inherited a liking for good company. Therefore, whether one went in the evening to the big or the little smoking-room one was sure of good talk.

Highbury was a house thoroughly well designed for entertainments, and the large gardens, or small park, whichever you like to call it, which surrounded the house, afforded plenty of sitting-out room. No one who shared in the parties will ever forget the long and good talks on the lawn on which the wicker chairs were set with brightly coloured rugs for the sitter's feet. Guests worthy of that honour were taken through the orchid house by Mr. Chamberlain himself, for his knowledge and love of his favourite flower was no pose, but a reality.

This absence of "pose" was, by the way, one of the most striking things about Mr. Chamberlain. He was an extraordinarily natural man. You cannot possibly imagine his taking up anything, from a new kind of cigar, a new form of hat, or a new type of novel, because he was told it was the right thing to do, or because he thought it was expedient for a politician with a future to encourage this or that fashionable craze. I have compared him to Disraeli in the matter of imagination. In the absence of "pose" he was, however, the exact opposite of Disraeli. For example, Lord Beaconsfield praised Lord Bolingbroke and talked about Lord Carteret, not because he really liked either of the statesmen mentioned, but because he thought it sounded well, and also because it amused him to look more learned historically than he was. You could no more expect Mr. Chamberlain to do that than to wear a particular flower, not because he liked it, but because it had been admired by say Mr. Pitt or Mr. Canning.

It must not be supposed from this, however, that Mr. Chamberlain was indifferent to, or ignorant of, the past. Though he was not going to let himself be dominated by old traditions, he was as distinctly well read in political history as in poetry. If he wanted to do so, he could quote freely and intimately from Browning, or Matthew Arnold. The latter was, I think, specially liked by him. But here again, any idea of his liking to prove himself a person of culture or learning cannot be entertained for a moment. He was much too sure of himself and much too sure of his own aims to want to be regarded as a man of cultivation. He liked what he liked, and he talked about what he liked. There was no "showing off."

Again, there was not the slightest touch of sn.o.bbishness in Mr.

Chamberlain. I don't think he was even amused by people expecting him, because he was not a man of great family or known as a great merchant prince, to be socially a kind of wild man to whom it must seem strange to eat a good dinner every day of his life "complete with the best of wines and cigars,"--in fact, to live exactly like men who had inherited their money, not made it. In truth, though the fact was unknown to the public and it never occurred to Mr. Chamberlain to talk about it, he was not a self-made man, but the son of a rich father. He belonged to a very old City family, for Mr, Chamberlain was not a Birmingham man, but a Londoner, through and through. His family had, however, remained in London even after it had grown rich and not retired to the country, like so many "warm men" to use the eighteenth century _argot_. I remember well Austen Chamberlain telling me that he had taken up his membership of the Cordwainers Company by right of inheritance. His family had been connected with that company in tail male, so to speak, since the time of Charles II.

This connection with the city companies had an interesting result. In the '70s and '80s it was a mark of a Radical to demand the abolition of the Livery Companies of London and to say hard things about the Corporation and the City. A Radical meeting was hardly complete without an attack on the City and its "fat and feasting Tories." When you were on a Radical platform you expected indeed as Shakespeare says:

"... to hear the City Abused extremely, and to cry 'That's witty!'"

Mr. Chamberlain, however, whether in the House of Commons or on the platform, did not like his Colleagues to abuse the City Companies, but instead, gave them, as all sane people will now agree quite rightly, the benefit of his support. We should all be the poorer without the picturesqueness lent to London Munic.i.p.al Life by its livery. Some of them may still want a little reform, but for the most part their wealth is well spent.

But Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain were not only good country hosts. Nothing could have been more pleasant or more interesting than their London dinners. The talk was always good and Mr. Chamberlain was always the chief point of attraction. He was never cross, or moody, or depressed.

Instead, he was always ready to talk. You could put up any game with him and he would fly at it with zest and spirit.

Time has not dimmed the warmth of my personal feeling either for Austen or Neville Chamberlain. And here I want to say one word of regret in respect of Miss Beatrice Chamberlain,--her father's eldest daughter who died during the first year of the Peace. She was a woman of great ability and inherited no small share of her father's power of talk and fondness for social life. Highbury house-parties owed much to her.

CHAPTER XXV

FIVE GREAT MEN (_Continued_)

It was at one of Mr. Chamberlain's house-parties that I first met one of the five distinguished men who made a deep impression on my mind and so on my life. That man was Colonel John Hay, some time Amba.s.sador of the United States to this country. I shall never forget going down, some thirty-two years ago, to Birmingham with my wife for a Sat.u.r.day to Monday party, and finding that the chief guest was the new American Amba.s.sador. When one is young and going to a pleasant house, there is nothing more delightful or stimulating than the moment of waiting at the side of a country-house omnibus consecrated to station work and wondering who are to be one's fellow-guests. On that occasion it was not long before we discovered that they were Colonel and Mrs. Hay and their daughter Helen. It did not take one long to see what a memorable man Hay was. It was indeed a case for me of friendship at first sight. Though it only took, even in pre-motor days, some twenty minutes to drive to Highbury, I had become, long before we reached the front door, a fervent admirer of the man who had been Private Secretary to the greatest man of modern times,--Abraham Lincoln.

The acquaintance begun at Highbury ripened for both of us into a true friendship. I was deeply touched to find that Mr. Hay met me half way in my desire to be friendly, for I knew enough about him to know that his reputation was that of a very reticent, very fastidious man--a person by no means inclined to fall into the arms of the first comer. But I don't want to flatter myself. Perhaps the pa.s.sport to Hay's heart in my case was my love of Lincoln, for that he soon saw was real and not a.s.sumed.

Anyway, Hay and I soon began to see a great deal of each other, and he paid me the compliment of confiding in me throughout the war between Spain and America. He would have liked to avoid that war and did his very best to do so, but I knew that all the time he felt it was inevitable. I remember well his saying to me that the positions of the United States and Spain were like two railway engines on the same track, neither of which would give way and both of which were advancing. You might delay the collision, but you could not prevent it, unless one train cleared out of the way of the other, and to this neither side in control would agree. Therefore, a collision had to come,--and come it did.

Hay loved his tenure of office in England and greatly regretted that he had to accede to Mr. McKinley's request that he should go back and become Secretary of State. He knew the work would be too much for him, and told me so quite simply and unaffectedly, but he was never a man to shirk a duty. During his term of office, he and I were constantly in touch with each other by letter. Though Hay did not write long letters, he contrived in his short notes to say many poignant things,--often in the form of comments on _Spectator_ articles, for he was a diligent reader of my paper. One example is so curious and so interesting that I must set it forth. The War enables me to do so without any risk of doing injury in the diplomatic sphere. It concerns the memorable visit of Prince Henry of Prussia to the United States in the year 1902.

The Kaiser was alarmed at the good feeling growing up between Britain and the United States. He therefore made a special effort to capture American goodwill, largely in the hope of drawing off American sympathy from this country. Accordingly he sent his sailor brother to American to announce his august and Imperial satisfaction with the United States.

The Americans--most kindly of hosts--gave him the best possible reception. At that time Mr. Roosevelt was President, and Hay was Secretary. Writing of Prince Henry's reception on March 1, 1902, _The Spectator_ pointed out what delightful hosts the Americans had proved and were proving, but went on to express very grave doubt whether in the circ.u.mstances and with the men then at the helm, the Kaiser would "cut any political ice" or gain any material advantage by the visit or by the attempts at diplomatic bargaining sure to be connected with it. The article continued as follows:

American photographers are taking "snapshots" of the Prince at every turn in his progress; but the snapshots we should like to see would be those of the President and Mr. Hay just before and just after the Prince had made some political request. They would hardly look, if our view of the American temperament is correct, like the faces of the same persons.

The infinitely courteous hosts will in a moment become hard business men, thinking not of the pleasantest sentences to say, but of the permanent interests of the United States. Only the humour might linger a little in the eyes.

The article took some six days to get to America, but as soon as it was possible for a return of comments I received from Hay the following characteristic and laconic note:

_Spectator_, March 1, p. 317, 2nd Column, half-way down.

My Dear Strachey, You are a mind reader.

J. H.

I turned eagerly to the pa.s.sage, for I could not at the moment recollect what we had said, and found what I have given above. By a guess, or (shall I say?) by a piece of thought transference, I had had the good luck to envisage exactly what had happened at Washington. Prince Henry was not merely a social but a political bagman. He had asked for something. He wanted a tangible "souvenir" of his visit. He had made proposals to the State Department of the usual Prussian type. By "usual Prussian type," I mean that he had asked for concessions of territory and engagements in which all the real, and most of the apparent, benefit was on the Prussian side. I do not now remember their exact nature, though later I learned from Hay something of their general scope and character. My only trustworthy recollection is that Hay referred to them with that patient, well-bred disgust with which he always received overtures of this kind. He was a man of a very fastidious sense of honour, and not amused by the low side of life, or by trickery even when foiled. And here I may perhaps be allowed to interpolate another personal recollection. I remember his telling me twenty years ago--that is, during the Spanish War--how the German Amba.s.sador in London had approached him officially with the request that a portion of the Philippine Islands should be ceded--Heavens knows why--to the Kaiser. I can well recall his contemptuous imitation of the manner of the request.

"You haf so many islands; why could you not give us some?" I asked Hay what he had replied. With a somewhat grim smile he answered: "I told him: 'Not an island--not one!'"

I shall perhaps be accused of indiscretion in what I have written, especially when I am dealing with a man so discreet, so punctilious in all official intercourse, as John Hay. I feel, however, that I am justified by the time which has elapsed, and by the events of the last few years.

I could fill, not one, but several chapters with the delightful talks about Lincoln which I had with Mr. Hay. He was always at his best when talking about Lincoln. It must not be supposed, however, that he was a man with one idea or that he was, as it were, eaten up by his great chief. Hay was a true statesman and a man with clear and consistent views of his own. I had the pleasure of bringing Hay into touch with Lord Cromer. Cromer was, of course, greatly impressed. I remember pointing out to him that Hay was really the best ill.u.s.tration that he could have had for one of his favourite theories,--that is, that the people who in their youth had been private secretaries were, other things being equal, the best people to whom to give big appointments.

Cromer used to say that the reason for this was a very plain one. The difficulty with most officials, and especially with men in the Army, was that they so often did not attain to positions of real responsibility, and where they had to take the initiative, till their minds had been atrophied by official routine and by the fact that they had simply carried out other people's orders, and not to think or act for themselves. It was different with a young man who at the most impressionable time of life had not only been under the influence of a great man, but had seen great affairs absolutely at first hand and not dressed up in official memoranda. Again, the Private Secretary saw the whole of them and not merely departmental fragments.

It was no doubt this fact which made Hay a great Amba.s.sador and a great Secretary of State. He had not only had the magnificent education which was received by the whole of Lincoln's personal staff, the inspiration, intellectual, moral, and political, which a man like Lincoln spreads around him, but he had seen at their very source the great affairs of home, war, and foreign politics.

He had seen how great questions arise and how hard it is to settle them; how they go wrong through accidents, or delay, or negligence, how necessary it is to prevent the rise of prejudice, selfishness, and folly in their handling. In a word, there could not have been a better proof of Lord Cromer's dictum than Hay's career. I remember talking on the general subject to Hay, who in effect agreed, and later I also said the same thing to President Roosevelt. I told him I thought it was a great pity that the Presidents of the United States and other holders of great offices did not encourage young men of brains and also of great possessions, coming from families with great influence, local or social, to become, when young, private secretaries. There would be a double blessing produced thereby. It would help to bind men of wealth and influence to the public service, and would get them trained to fill in later life the great offices of State--Cabinet Ministers, Amba.s.sadors, and special commissioners. If a young man had been a member, say, of the President's official family for four or five years and had then gone into business or even into leisure, he would, granted that he was a man of intelligence, have received an insight into affairs which might be of great use to the nation later on. I even went so far as to dream that the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain might have an occasional exchange of secretaries and so get a certain number of people on both sides of the Atlantic who knew something about the arcana in each government. As it is, both halves of the English-speaking race are apt to make official bogeys,--to spell Washington or London as the case may be with a very big capital letter, and then to envisage this impersonation as something dark, mysterious, or even terrible. How useful it would be if, when this sort of talk was in the air, someone could say, "Honestly, they really are not a bit like that (in Washington, or in London). You picture them as hard-sh.e.l.l Machiavellis with sinister reasons for not answering our despatches or proposals promptly, or as going behind our backs in this or that matter.

Believe me, they are just about like what we are here. They go out to lunch as we do; they forget big things and trifle with small things, and for fear of their trivialities being exposed, they talk big as if they had some great and ruthless reasons of state for their official misadventures. When you begin to ask, 'What are they up to? What is their game?' the answer ninety-nine times out of a hundred is 'There is not any game at all.'"

Before I take leave of Hay, I want to add a fact which deeply touched me. It will be remembered that the Secretary of State, after a breakdown in his health at Washington, came over to Europe to try the Mannheim cure. The treatment at first seemed to do him good; but he was in truth a broken man. So precarious, indeed, was his condition that, pa.s.sing through London, the only people he saw were Lord Lansdowne, then Foreign Minister, and King Edward VII. I was the only exception. He asked me to come up and see him, telling me that I must not let it be known or he would be killed with kindness. If I was deeply touched by his thought of me, I was still more moved to see how extreme was his weakness of body.

His mind, however, was as clear as ever and he talked almost in his old way. He was the kind of man who was much too sensitive to say in words, what I knew he felt--that it was good-bye. I came away from that last talk, with my devotion to the man, high as it was before, greatly heightened.

Though I did not know the Duke of Devonshire, earlier known as Lord Hartington, nearly so intimately as the other four, I had for him a political admiration which was almost unbounded. When a young man as was only natural--I was twenty-six when I first came into contact with him-- I rather chafed at what I thought was his impenetrability. This, however, I soon discovered was due to no want of intelligence, but partly to natural shyness, partly to his education, partly to temperament, and partly also to a kind of dumbness of the mind, which is by no means inconsistent with a real profundity of intellect.

It is this mental profundity which is the main thing to remember about the Duke of Devonshire. To speak of him as if he were merely a man of character and firmness is to mistake him altogether. The Duke impressed all who saw him at close quarters. It was only the people who did not know him who said that he owed his rise to high office solely to his birth and wealth. I remember Mr. Chamberlain once saying to me, "It's all nonsense to talk about Hartington being dull and stupid. He is a very clever man." What made this admission all the more memorable was that Mr. Chamberlain was at the moment in a condition of something like exasperation with his colleague's dilatory ways, and his const.i.tutional unwillingness to tackle a question till it was almost too ripe; you simply could not hurry him. One of the difficult things about the Duke was that he never realised the full greatness of his position in politics, how much people depended on his lead, and how anxious they were to find out what he thought and then fellow him without demur. But the more they wanted to get a lead out of him, the more he seemed determined to avoid if he possibly could the responsibility they had asked him to a.s.sume, and partly because of a certain lethargy of his mind, and partly because he never could be made to believe that anybody could really want to lean upon and follow somebody else, he often appeared to be utterly stubborn. I remember once, just before the election in 1905, urging him as strongly as I knew how to make a public statement and to give a public lead to the Unionist Free Trade electors as to how they should vote. He was more than loath to take my advice. He was all for letting the thing alone. He actually went so far as to say, and remember, this was without the slightest suggestion of pose, "I don't see why I should tell people what I should do if I had a vote.

They will do what they think right and I shall do what I think right.

They don't want me to interfere." It was no good to try and talk him round, as one would have been inclined to talk round any ordinary politician, by pointing out how very flattering it was to him for people to wait upon his words and to desire to follow him, or to paint in romantic language what he, as a leader of men, owed to his followers.

Anything of that sort was unthinkable with the Duke, and, if it had been tried, would first of all have puzzled him utterly and when it had at last dawned on him, would have put him off more than ever.

I could only repeat then that it was his duty to give people a lead and when I said this once more I was met with the old tale that he would do what he thought right, and they--the voters--would do what they thought right. But what was wonderful in the Duke about a matter of this kind was that he did not in the least show any annoyance at being badgered by a man who was not only so much younger than he was, but also of so much less experience in politics or affairs.

He was essentially a good-tempered man and had not a trace of _amour propre_ in his nature. I doubt if he had ever intentionally snubbed a man in his life, though, no doubt, he had often done so unintentionally, for he was plain-spoken. He hated to hurt people's feelings, but he sometimes thought that their feelings were like his own, quite iron- clad. I remember an example of his imperturbability in this respect.

Once, in the eagerness of pressing a plan of action for the Unionist Free Traders, to which he was disinclined, I expressed the wish to propose it to the Council of our group and see what they thought of it.

He made no objection and I gathered that he thought it could do no harm to have the matter aired, which, of course, was all I desired. A day or two afterwards, however, the Duke casually and in the most good-humoured way happened to say to me that I, of course, no doubt realised that if people a.s.sented to my motion, he would have to resign as President of our a.s.sociation. I was, horror-struck, for to have lost him would have meant utter destruction for our movement,--the movement, that is, to prevent the Tariff Reformers running away with the Unionist Party. I said at once that I would most gladly withdraw my proposal, and expressed my complete confidence in his leadership.

He was delightfully naive about the whole matter and, here again, without any pose. He declared that he did not see why I should not go on with my scheme if I really thought it was a good one, and that he did not regard it as in the least hostile to himself. There was nothing in it that was in the least personally objectionable to him.

At a much earlier period of my acquaintance with him the Duke gave another example of his good nature and want of fussiness. When the split came in the Liberal party and the Liberal Unionist organisation was created under his leadership and that of Mr. Chamberlain, I was chosen as I have related elsewhere to act as Editor of the party organ, _The Liberal Unionist._ Each number was to contain an article by some man of importance, so I naturally asked Lord Hartington, as he then was, to supply the signed article for the first number. I was entirely new to the task of editing, and the Duke had never, oddly enough, written anything before for publication, though, of course, he had made plenty of speeches. The Duke was old-fashioned in his ways and did not have a typewriter or a secretary, but wrote with his own hand. It was a very good handwriting, but not quite printer-proof. Like all first numbers mine was late. The proofs of the Duke's article were not sent out early enough, with the result that we had to go to press without getting back a corrected proof from the Duke. The result was one or two bad misprints; the Duke was not angry--only sad, for he thought it might make him look ridiculous. I was told, however, by excited members of the Committee that I had made an awful blunder and must go and apologise for so bad a beginning. Naturally, I was eager to express my regret, and went down at once to the House of Commons and sent in for him. Now, as ill-luck would have it, he was in the middle of an important debate on Home Rule and just on the point of rising to speak when he received my message. However, in the kindest way he came out, to see, as he said, whether he could do anything for me, and apologised most profusely for having kept me waiting for ten or twelve minutes. It was not, indeed, till these apologies had been got over that I was able to make my apologies, which he received in the most delightful way. If he had been a pompous prig, he might so easily have lectured me (for I was not 26) on how important it was for a young man just entering political life, etc., etc. Of course, he had no thought of making me his special adherent by his good temper and easiness. Such things never entered his head. All the same, his courtesy, consideration, and evident determination not to take advantage of my slip, made a deep impression on me. A final example of the Duke's inability to realise that it mattered to anybody else what he did was shown when he let Mr. Balfour, then Prime Minister, persuade him to remain in the Unionist Ministry in 1905 when the rest of his Free Trade colleagues resigned. I felt none of the amazement mixed with indignation felt by some of the Liberal Unionists, because I knew my man, I felt, indeed, quite sure that what had happened was that the Duke imagined that n.o.body would misunderstand him and that perhaps, as he said, it was a pity when so many people were resigning that he should resign also. He wouldn't be missed and so why should he not just remain where he was? I felt equally sure, however, that in a very little time he would come to understand the importance of clearing up his position.