The Viceroys of Ireland Part 15

Lord Spencer was President of the Council in 1885, and in 1892, when Mr. Gladstone became {287} Prime Minister for the fourth and last time, he was given the post of First Lord of the Admiralty. That ministry brought in another Home Rule Bill, and pa.s.sed it through the Commons; but the House of Lords rejected it by the overwhelming majority of 378, the actual figures being 419 for its rejection and 41 against. Mr.

Gladstone did not appeal to the country, and thus Home Rule pa.s.sed out of the Liberal repertoire for nineteen years.

If Queen Victoria had consulted Mr. Gladstone on the question of a successor, he would have advised Lord Spencer's selection. Her Majesty, however, sent for that brilliant dilettante, Lord Rosebery, and Lord Spencer remained on at the Admiralty. There was some talk of the premiership for him shortly before the resignation of Mr. Balfour's Ministry at the close of 1905, but by then he was a spent force, worn out and ill. He could not join Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Cabinet, but he lent it his moral support, and that was not the least important factor in bringing to reason the members of the egregious Liberal Imperialist League, who at first viewed with suspicion the new premier, and then rushed with one accord to be received into the strangest political fold ever presided over by a Liberal shepherd. Lord Spencer died in 1910 at the age of seventy-four, and it can be said of him, as of the late Duke of Devonshire, that he could have risen to greater heights had he not been born with a sense of modesty adorned by a good nature that permitted younger men to pa.s.s him, and left him without a {288} trace of rancour or bitterness. He had the satisfaction of witnessing the amazing triumph of the Liberal party, and could die with the knowledge that it savoured of the Gladstonian Liberalism of the middle eighties and the early nineties--the Liberalism he fought for and in whose interest he had sacrificed his best years.

{289}

CHAPTER XIX

Lord Carnarvon was sworn in as Lord-Lieutenant on July 7, 1885, and on January 12, 1886, he tendered his resignation, departing from the country thirteen days later. It was an unusually brief, yet an exceptionally interesting, viceroyalty. He was rightfully regarded as a man of fastidious honour and sincerity. On two occasions he had resigned Cabinet rank because of conscientious objections to the policy of his leaders, and there was scarcely anybody among the statesmen of his time who commanded greater respect and confidence. The action of Lord Salisbury in giving him the viceroyalty was rightfully interpreted to mean that the Tory Prime Minister realized fully the gravity of the situation in Ireland. Lord Carnarvon might have had a more exalted and powerful position in the ministry. He accepted the viceroyalty in the same spirit of anxiety to benefit his fellows that had been characteristic of him since his entry into public life nearly thirty years before. He was now fifty-four years of age, and was known to fame as the author of the act that consolidated the British possessions in North America in 1867. Again Colonial Secretary in 1874, the foreign policy of the Cabinet did not {290} meet with his approval, and he resigned, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach succeeding him.

Lord Carnarvon's state entry into Dublin evoked a display of enthusiasm, from all cla.s.ses that indicated clearly the hopes of the people for something brilliant from his administration. Lady Carnarvon was received for her own sake, as well as for that of her husband. She possessed all the arts of the successful leader of society, and she exercised them fully while in Ireland. There was keen compet.i.tion to make the acquaintance of the viceroy and his wife, and Dublin Castle seemed likely to experience something quite different to its troubles of the previous five years. But the wise knew that the imminent General Election would in all probability terminate the reign of Lord Carnarvon. The Salisbury ministry was a 'Cabinet of Caretakers,' and the most that could be hoped for was the viceroy's return within a few years when the electors had had another opportunity of pa.s.sing a verdict upon Gladstonian Liberalism.

[Sidenote: Carnarvon and Parnell]

Lord Carnarvon, however, quickly upset the equanimity of the prophets.

Whatever may have been his own doubts about the durability of his position, he startled friends and foes alike by arranging for an interview with Charles Stewart Parnell. A Tory Lord-Lieutenant debating the policy of his Government with the Irish leader was even more productive of astonishment than the sight of Parnell accepting a place in the Government would have been. The interview was kept a secret for a time, but it was too {291} important to escape disclosure and debate, and the result of the General Election of November-December, 1885, hastened the acrimonious and puzzling discussion, with its sequel of denials and denunciations. The scene of the momentous interview was a London drawing-room. The viceroy, the moment he was alone with Parnell, appears to have taken the trouble to explain elaborately--perhaps too elaborately--his adherence to Unionist principles. As the representative of the queen, he could not listen to one word involving the separation of the two countries; as a Tory minister, he did not expect any result from the interview, and he did not even hope for an agreement; while further, to protect himself and his colleagues, he a.s.sured Mr. Parnell that he was acting entirely upon his own responsibility, and as an individual, and not as a Cabinet minister.

Despite these preliminary precautions, the Irish leader came away from the meeting under the impression that the Tory party were willing to grant Ireland an a.s.sembly giving it complete control of its own affairs, and also a measure of land reform that would settle that difficult problem. Of course, the price to be paid for this was to be the Irish vote. On the other hand, Lord Carnarvon most emphatically contradicted this interpretation of what had pa.s.sed between them.

Nevertheless, Mr. Parnell adhered to his version.

The General Election of November-December, 1885, did not give either of the English parties an independent majority. Of Liberals there were {292} 335, Tories numbered 249; and 86 Irish Home Rulers, all followers of Mr. Parnell, held the balance of power. Mr. Gladstone was now a Home Ruler, and a Bill for establishing a separate legislature for Ireland was introduced. It was in the early days of Mr. Gladstone's conversion to the cause that Mr. Parnell hurled a charge against the Tory party of having at one time been willing to purchase the Irish vote by an eleventh-hour conversion to Home Rule. The charge was denied indignantly, and then the Nationalist leader named Lord Carnarvon as the Tory emissary. The ex-viceroy explained his position in the House of Lords. This was on June 10--three days after Mr.

Parnell's speech in the Commons. The latter at once replied in a letter to the _Times_ of June 12. It is worth reproducing:

[Sidenote: The Tory Party and Home Rule]

'Lord Carnarvon proceeded to say that he had sought the interview for the purpose of ascertaining my views regarding--should he call it?--a const.i.tution for Ireland. But I soon found out that he had brought me there in order that he might communicate to me his own views upon the matter, as well as ascertain mine. In reply to an inquiry as to a proposal which had been made to build up a central legislative body upon the foundation of county boards, I told him that I thought this would be working in the wrong direction, and would not be accepted by Ireland; that the central legislative body should be a Parliament in name and in fact. Lord Carnarvon a.s.sured me that this was his own view also, and he strongly appreciated the importance of giving {293} due weight to the sentiment of the Irish in this matter. He had certain suggestions to this end, taking the Colonial model as a basis, which struck me as being the result of much thought and knowledge of the subject. At the conclusion of the conversation, which lasted more than an hour, and to which Lord Carnarvon was very much the larger contributor, I left him, believing that I was in complete accord with him regarding the main outlines of a settlement conferring a legislature upon Ireland.'

The viceroy's explanation of this was more general than particular. He must have been satisfied with Lord Salisbury's verdict that he had conducted the interview with Mr. Parnell 'with perfect discretion,' but all the same it was many years before the Tory party lived down the allegation that had he wished Parnell could have purchased it lock, stock, and barrel, for service in the Home Rule cause.

In social circles Lord Carnarvon's popularity never waned. He was supposed to be that contradiction in terms, 'a Tory Home Ruler,' but he was only a high-minded gentleman who made a genuine attempt to deal with the Irish problem. It was yet another instance of a viceroy risking peace and popularity by trying to be impartial. One of his opponents in Dublin expressed amazement that he should 'bother his head about Home Rule when he had the viceroyalty and a beautiful wife.' It is not to his discredit that he failed, and it must be remembered that he paid a price for his interest in Ireland. The General Election placed {294} Mr. Gladstone in power with the aid of the Nationalists, but Gladstone soon committed political suicide, and Lord Salisbury returned for a six years' lease of power. He did not invite Lord Carnarvon to join his Cabinet, and at fifty-five the earl pa.s.sed from the political stage. All he gained by his brief a.s.sociation with Ireland was the degree of LL.D. from Dublin University, when he replied to the Public Orator's congratulations with an elegant Latin speech that amazed the dons by reason of its splendour and faultlessness.

Lord Carnarvon died in 1890, only fifty-nine, but with a generous record of work in the public service behind him. Never a party hack nor a slave to political shibboleths, always an individualist and a thinker, it was scarcely a fault if his good nature led him into an unfortunate attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. He came to Ireland with no previous experience of the country and its people, and so he judged them by the standard applied to average men and women. We have been told by an authority that the Celtic temperament is destructive, and not constructive, and the facts of history confirm him. Lord Carnarvon forgot this, and therefore laid himself open to the charge that he was surrendering to Parnellism and reform by crime, and at the same time leading the Tory party to destruction. But political catch-phrases are usually the work of the unthinking and the illogical, and the only mistake he made was the common one of being a little too much in advance of his time. The Tory party has travelled many Irish miles since the day an {295} Irish viceroy and Parnell exchanged their opinions in a London drawing-room.

[Sidenote: The Earl of Aberdeen]

The General Election of 1885 swept Liberalism out of Ireland, and gave the House of Commons eighty-six Nationalists, the remainder of the Irish members representing the opinions of the Unionist and Conservative party. Mr. Gladstone had to solve the problem created by the indecisive election, and as he finally decided to cast in his lot with the Home Rulers, he formed a Government--his third--and appointed the Earl of Aberdeen Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Mr. John Morley--now Viscount Morley--entering the Cabinet for the first time as Chief Secretary.

Lord Aberdeen was born on August 3, 1847, and in 1870 succeeded to the earldom--the seventh to hold the t.i.tle. a.s.sociated from his earliest days with the great Liberal statesman, he had always enjoyed his friendship and confidence. It was to Lord and Lady Aberdeen's London residence in the eighties--Dollis Hill, near Willesden--that Mr.

Gladstone went to seek repose after giving up his London house, recording in his diary that he felt too timid at seventy-seven to think of acquiring another London home. When in 1894 he resigned the premiership, it was at Dollis Hill that he spent a few days in rest and quiet. Ever a stanch and discriminating friend, Mr. Gladstone was delighted to bestow the viceroyalty upon Lord Aberdeen, and accordingly, on February 10, 1886, he was sworn in at Dublin Castle.

It is almost impossible to write of contemporaries without revealing traces of prejudice or {296} partiality. Lord Aberdeen's Liberalism was moulded by Mr. Gladstone, who was his political mentor; and Lady Aberdeen, his clever and energetic wife, has always displayed a masculine knowledge of politics and politicians. She was a Miss Ishbel Marjoribanks before her marriage in 1877, and from all accounts seems to have been a Home Ruler before Mr. Gladstone's conversion. When she entered Dublin in 1886 as the viceroy's wife she was under thirty, but already had achieved considerable fame as a determined politician, a philanthropist who had initiated common-sense methods in dealings with the grave problems of ill-health and poverty, and a loyal friend. She entered with zest into the social pleasures of Ireland's capital, and practised the arts of the vice-queen which she has since brought to perfection in Canada and in Dublin.

Their hospitality was generous, their popularity boundless. The chosen of Gladstone could not but be an idol with the ma.s.ses. Until coached by their suspicious chieftains, the rank and file of Nationalism idolized the viceroy and his wife. The Lord Mayor of Dublin and the leading citizens voiced the opinions of the people, and the 'Union of Hearts' appeared to be accomplished. At last Liberalism seemed to have won the allegiance of the Irish.

The influence of Lady Aberdeen was considerable, and she helped to earn success for the viceregal party. An ardent politician, she never made the mistake of subordinating the hostess to the politician, and at her functions all cla.s.ses and {297} creeds met. It may be necessary here to state that the story which has been in circulation some years, describing how Lady Aberdeen was informed by the late Lord Morris that 'herself and the waiters, bedad!' were the only Home Rulers in the room, is a wicked and malicious lie. The alleged incident never took place, for Lady Aberdeen is not in the habit of introducing politics during dinner-parties and canva.s.sing for opinions when entertaining.

Lord Morris was the author of many witty sayings, and he does not require the aid of the unscrupulous to perpetuate his memory. His sayings will live without the help of that type of person who delights in a.s.sociating persons of eminence with their jokes, well aware that because of their position they are compelled to ignore their slanderers.

While history was being made with startling rapidity in England, Lord Aberdeen continued to carry out the duties of his exalted office. But the Liberal party was by now smashed to atoms. Mr. Gladstone was acting like a broken and disappointed man, and the life of the ministry threatened at any time to cease. It was merely a question of time for the Tory party and the rebellious Liberals to amalgamate and turn out the Gladstone Government.

On July 20, 1886, Mr. Gladstone resigned, and Lord and Lady Aberdeen left Ireland, and it was now the turn of the Tory-Liberal-Unionist coalition to show what they could do in Ireland--the land of opportunities of which no one seemed capable of taking advantage. Lord Salisbury had {298} already stated his views with characteristic bluntness. During the debate on the Home Rule Bill of 1886 he forgot that he had not a reputation for humour, and informed his audience that the Irish were like the Hottentots, incapable of governing themselves, while he suggested that the best plan for Ireland would be the application for twenty years of a stringent Coercion Act. The question of the Imperial contribution towards the setting up of a Parliament in Dublin he touched upon lightly by suggesting that the money would be better employed in aiding the emigration of a million Irishmen.

This was the statesman who was given the opportunity of putting into practice his theories of Irish administration. There was some curiosity as to the new viceroy, and when Lord Salisbury chose the Marquis of Londonderry the nervous felt more relieved. The premier had selected a safe rather than a brilliant Lord-Lieutenant, and one who was capable of perpetrating as few blunders as any of his Tory contemporaries. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach emphasized the new importance of the Irish Secretaryship by accepting it, and, as he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in the previous Salisbury Cabinet, his action was regarded as a generous one. It was a remarkable innovation to send a tried statesman to Dublin, for it had been the custom for many years to utilize the position as a sort of preparatory school for the Cabinet. It was Sir Michael's second attempt, but this was only a half-hearted one. Two Royal Commissions were appointed--one {299} to report on the land question, the other to examine into the material resources of the country. Lord Cowper, an ex-viceroy, presided over the first. Lord Salisbury was, indeed, making a worthy attempt to effect the political salvation of the Hottentots by Act of Parliament.

The viceroy, Charles Stewart Vane-Tempest-Stewart, sixth Marquis of Londonderry, was thirty-four years of age, and had before his succession to the peerage in 1884 represented County Down in Parliament for six years. As a descendant of the second marquis, who earned undying notoriety by his destruction of the so-called Irish Parliament, he was naturally of interest to all whose affairs brought them into close touch with Ireland. He was an Irish landlord, the husband of a clever, ambitious woman, a daughter of the premier earl of England.

They had married in 1875, and she was a leading Tory hostess when they transferred their headquarters from Londonderry House, Park Lane, to Dublin Castle and the Viceregal Lodge for a period of three years.

[Sidenote: Mr. Balfour as Chief Secretary]

They were stirring times, but the viceroy, by a curious chance, was able to stand aloof. The resignation of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in the March following the arrival of Lord Londonderry brought the Prime Minister's nephew, Mr. A. J. Balfour, over as Chief Secretary. We know how he made his years in Ireland peculiarly his own, obscuring our view of the viceroy until at times it seems that there was only a shadow behind the frail-looking personality that dominated Ireland in his capacity of Chief Secretary. 'b.l.o.o.d.y' {300} Balfour, they called him, and plotted against his life, much to the annoyance of the viceroy, who detested fuss, and never could understand the prevailing pa.s.sion for political principles. Mr. Balfour answered force with force, and, remembering the history of attempts at conciliation, he went boldly and fearlessly for the criminals, their patrons and instigators. Another Coercion Bill was framed, and, empowered by it, he sent about thirty members of Parliament to gaol, while evictions and murder continued to be reported, and Parnellism became synonymous with crime.

A visit from Prince Albert Victor and Prince George towards the end of June, 1887, was appreciated by both viceroy and people. The event had all the charm of spontaneity and unexpectedness, and Lord and Lady Londonderry had the one opportunity of their viceroyalty to show what they could do as representatives of the Queen of England. There was a brilliant State banquet in the famous old dining-room of Dublin Castle, where the leading men of the country paid their respects to the then second heir to the throne and the youthful Prince who was destined by Fate to ascend the throne. A review in the famous and superb Phoenix Park was another feature of the visit that must have appealed to the viceroy as an oasis does to the traveller in the desert. Not that Lord Londonderry took a too prominent part in the inevitable political and agrarian troubles of his reign. He left those to the efficient and indomitable Mr. Balfour, while he pursued the even way of life, gently patronizing the elect, and {301} good-humouredly tolerating the non-elect who are the clamouring and unsought satellites of every Viceroy of Ireland. Lady Londonderry, who is clever enough to deserve a better t.i.tle than that of mere giver of dinners, softened the crudities of office and gained a popularity in Ireland not confined to her political friends--a rare achievement in a confessedly party woman.

She is the author of a study of Viscount Castlereagh, second Marquis of Londonderry.

[Sidenote: The Mitchelstown affray]

The affray at Mitchelstown in the September of 1887 was dealt with by Mr. Balfour with his usual splendid disregard for public opinion, and it was succeeded by the Parnell Commission. During these historic incidents the viceroy remained in the background, jogging amiably along, and no doubt thanking Heaven that had cast his lot in pleasanter times than those that fell to Lord Cowper and Lord Spencer. He resigned the office in 1889. Eleven years later he sat in his first Cabinet as Postmaster-General, and when Mr. Balfour succeeded his uncle in the premiership he appointed his colleague President of the Board of Education--a nice, respectable post that n.o.body took seriously, and wondered why it was represented in the Cabinet at all. The 'tariff'

resignations in 1903 placed several important portfolios at Mr.

Balfour's disposal, and he thereupon added to Lord Londonderry's official duties by making him Lord President of the Council. And as President of the Board of Education and President of the Council the marquis continued to attend the Cabinet until the ministry perished in the {302} maelstrom that swallowed up the Tory party and astonished the world within a few weeks of Mr. Balfour's resignation of the premiership. The Tory ex-Prime Minister appeared to have left most of his courage behind him in Ireland, where he went as 'Clara,' and stayed to earn the more flattering, if inelegant, sobriquet of 'Tiger Lily.'

{303}

CHAPTER XX

From out of the solid phalanx of Tory peers eligible for the post Lord Salisbury chose the Earl of Zetland, and sent him to Dublin. The viceroy was then in his forty-fifth year, was chiefly distinguished by his fondness for horse-racing, while a painstaking press recorded the fact that his mother was an Irishwoman. In 1871 he married Lady Lilian Lumley, a daughter of the ninth Earl of Scarborough, and the following year he was elected for the family borough of Richmond, Yorkshire. The death of his uncle in 1873 terminated his career in the House of Commons, and until his appointment to Ireland in 1889 he led the life of a country gentleman and a sportsman.

His viceroyalty was somewhat similar to that of Lord Londonderry's, though he soon lost the aid of Mr. Balfour, who was replaced by Mr. W.

L. Jackson, raised to the peerage as Lord Allerton in King Edward's Coronation year. He had not been long in office when the report of the Parnell Commission became the sensation of the season; indeed, it was all Parnell and no Zetland from the beginning to the end of his term.

The Commission was followed by the divorce case that {304} extinguished the Irish leader; then came the sharp and bitter party schisms, the intervention of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and last of all the death of the central figure of the sordid and miserable tragedy. It was quite impossible for either viceroy or Chief Secretary to do more than be there if he was wanted, and, perhaps fortunately no great crisis called for their intervention. A Tory Lord-Lieutenant can always have a comfortable and easy life in Dublin provided he is not ambitious to be up and doing. Lord Zetland was disinclined to create precedents or seek to alter established things. Every good cause received his approval and the benediction of Lady Zetland. They were not more political than they had to be, while the viceroy's fondness for the Turf was not without its effect, although the Irish sportsman is quite a different type to the Irish, and 'never the twain shall meet.' The viceroyalty jogged on gently to its predestined end, and the General Election giving Mr. Gladstone a majority the six-year-old Salisbury Administration came to an end.

[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone in power]

The return of Mr. Gladstone to the premiership caused great perturbation in Unionist circles in Ireland. At last the polls had given him a mandate for Home Rule, and there was no prospect of rebellious Liberals rising again to destroy their chief. There remained the House of Lords, ever the bulwark of the liberties of the people--whether the people appreciated it or not; but there was a doubt whether the Upper Chamber would peril its existence by defying Gladstone again. Nevertheless, Unionist Ireland, with a {305} fanaticism and a determination not unworthy of the Irish Nationalist representatives, determined to fight the odds against them inspired by a 'No surrender' spirit. They resolved not to touch Gladstone or his n.o.ble representative with a forty-foot pole, and, numbering in their ranks the majority of the gentry and n.o.bility, their decision to boycott the incoming viceroy meant much more than it appeared on the surface. It is true that any Tory viceroy can create the sort of court he pleases, and so can a Liberal in ordinary circ.u.mstances, but Lord Houghton was viceroy at a time when every sn.o.b, whether he took any interest in politics or not, became a Unionist in order to be known as a member of the gentlemanly party. It was simply 'bad form' to favour Home Rule, and that was sufficient to unite Unionists as they have never been united before or since.

Mr. Gladstone was in the position of having very few candidates for the viceroyalty. Mr. John Morley was, of course, the Chief Secretary, and he could be depended upon to do all the political work. The premier offered the viceroyalty to the then Lord Houghton, and it was accepted in the hope that it would lead to better things.

[Sidenote: Lord Houghton]

Lord Houghton was born in 1858, on January 12, so that he was in his thirty-fifth year when he was sworn in as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.

His official training had been meagre, comprising the not fatiguing post of a.s.sistant Private Secretary to Lord Granville during part of that statesman's occupancy of the Foreign Office in Mr. Gladstone's second Administration, and a few months as Lord-in-Waiting {306} to Queen Victoria in 1886. The son of Monckton Milnes was always an object of interest to students of history, literary and political, and Lord Houghton had shown that he was not inexpert by writing a number of stray verses that exhibited a talent for rhyming. His ability for statesmanship was, however, more doubtful, and, as events proved, he was not the man to conciliate the important body of opinion adverse to the Government he represented. The position, certainly, was most difficult, and abler men than Lord Houghton would have failed. He could not forget his own dignity, and therefore never attempted to conciliate the Opposition. The distrust of the Nationalists must have struck him as savouring of ingrat.i.tude, and as every Liberal viceroy has found it, Lord Houghton was an object of suspicion and distrust to all Irishmen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lord Crewe]

Irish society boycotted the Liberal viceroy. He started badly by declining to receive a loyal address because it contained a reference to the Home Rule question. Lord Houghton, being temperamentally incapable of inspiring affection in inferiors, adopted an att.i.tude of extreme _hauteur_, offending every cla.s.s in turn. Mr. Gladstone was in the midst of the battle of his life, ably seconded by Mr. John Morley; but the Lord-Lieutenant of the Government sat in gloomy solitude in Dublin, cognisant no doubt of the fact that for the first time since 1172 Dublin Castle and Viceregal Lodge invitations were being declined or ignored by a society which in the ordinary course of events would sacrifice {307} anything rather than the _entree_ to the miniature court of the viceroy. No help could come from Ireland, where the ma.s.ses watched the efforts to plant a Parliament in College Green with a sullenness of demeanour that indicated their lack of enthusiasm. The educated cla.s.ses were almost to a man and a woman Unionists, and the movement against the viceroy was inspired by party feelings, but Lord Houghton's personality did not tend towards the softening of the austerities. The members of his _entourage_ suffered from the general disfavour, and the aides-de-camp, who are usually almost danced to death every season, ended their labours as fresh as they began them.

The entertaining that had to be done was in the capable hands of the Hon. Mrs. Arthur Henniker, Lord Houghton's sister, a lady of many accomplishments. The viceroy was a widower then, and some years from a second wife, an earldom, an heir, and a marquisate.