Chapter VI: Part 6

I may mention here that Mr. Redmond's intimate knowledge of the rules and practices of the House and his thorough acquaintance with its business ways were, in great measure, due to his having held for a time a place in one of the offices belonging to the House of Commons. He was appointed, before he became a member of the House, a clerk in the Vote Office, a department which has to do with the preparation of Parliamentary documents, the distribution of Parliamentary papers, and other such technical work. The clerkships in these offices are in the gift of the Speaker, are an avenue towards the highest promotions in the official staff of the House, and are usually given to young men who, in addition to high education and a promise of capacity, can bring some Parliamentary or family influence to bear on their behalf. John Redmond had some experience in this Vote Office, and it made him a thorough master of Parliamentary business. I had enjoyed his personal acquaintance for some time before he came into the House as a member, and I had been in the House myself some two years before his election. I remember often seeing him and exchanging a word with him as he stood within the House itself, but just below the line which marks the place where the bar of the House is erected when there is occasion, for any public purpose, to admit a stranger thus far and no farther, in order that he may plead some cause before the House or present some petition. Officials employed in any of the offices belonging to the House are allowed the proud privilege of advancing up the floor of the chamber as far as the chair occupied by the Sergeant-at-Arms, the point at which the bar would be drawn across if occasion should require. Thus I had the opportunity of conversing with John Redmond on the floor of the House itself, before he had yet obtained the right of passing beyond the sacred line of the bar.

I am quite certain that Parnell himself did not, until the great crisis came in the Irish National party, fully appreciate the political capacity of John Redmond. Parnell always regarded him as both useful and ornamental--useful in managing the business of the party, and ornamental as a brilliant speaker on a public platform. But he did not appear to know, and had indeed no means of knowing, that Redmond had in himself the qualifications of a party leader and the debating power which could make him an influence in the House of Commons. The speeches which Redmond made, or rather was "put up" by his leader to make, in the House, had often for their object merely to fill up time and keep a debate going until the moment arrived when Parnell thought a division ought to be taken. But when the great crisis came in the affairs of the party, then Redmond was soon able to prove himself made of stronger metal than even his leader had supposed. The crisis was, of course, when the Parnell divorce case came on, and Gladstone and the Liberal leaders generally became filled with the conviction that it would be impossible to carry a measure of Home Rule if Parnell were to retain the leadership of the Irish National party. I need not go over this old and painful story again; it is enough to say that the great majority of Parnell's own followers found themselves compelled to believe that it would be better for Ireland if Parnell were to resign the leadership and retire into private life for a certain time. This Parnell refused to do, and, in opposition to the earnest wishes of the majority of his followers, he published a sort of manifesto in denunciation of Gladstone. Then came the famous meetings of the Irish party in Committee-Room No. 15--one of the committee-rooms belonging to the House of Commons--and, after long days of angry and sometimes even fierce debate, the great majority of the party declared that they could no longer follow the leadership of Parnell. The minority made up their minds to hold with Parnell for good or evil.

I am willing and always was willing to render full justice to the motives which inspired the action of the minority. They did not feel themselves called upon to justify every act of Parnell's private life, but they took the position that his private life had nothing to do with his political career, and that they could not abandon the leader who had done such service to Ireland merely because his name had become associated with a public scandal. On the other hand, the majority of the party, of whom I was one, held that their first duty was to their country, and that if the continued leadership of Parnell rendered it impossible for Gladstone to carry his Home Rule measure, they had to think only of their country and its national cause. During all these debates in Committee-Room No. 15, John Redmond took the leading part on the side of the minority. He became the foremost champion of Parnell's leadership. This position seemed to come to him as if in the nature of things. I well remember the ability and eloquence which he displayed in these debates, and the telling manner in which he put his arguments and his appeals. The course he took was all the more to his credit because Parnell had never singled him out as an object of especial favors and, indeed, in the opinion of many among us, had not done full justice to his services in the House of Commons. Then came the formal division of the party. The majority met together and reconstituted the party with a new Chairman, while the minority associated themselves with Parnell as their leader for the purpose of going over to Ireland and endeavoring to organize the country in his support. When the end of the fierce open controversy was brought about at last by Parnell's sudden death, John Redmond was made the leader of the minority, and from that time forth he began to give more and more distinct evidences of his capacity for a Parliamentary leader's position. He and his group of followers kept themselves in the House of Commons entirely apart from their former colleagues. John Redmond had often to take a part in the debates of the House, and every one could see that the serious responsibility imposed on him was developing in him qualities of leadership, and even of statesmanship, which very few indeed had previously believed to be among his gifts.

Meanwhile the state of things created in Ireland by the split and the setting up of two opposing parties was becoming intolerable. Every man of patriotic feeling on either side of the controversy was coming to see more keenly every day that the maintenance of such a division must be fatal to the cause, for at least another generation. Some efforts were made by the leading men on both sides to bring about a process of reconciliation. John Dillon on the one side, and John Redmond on the other, lent every help they could to these patriotic efforts. John Dillon had by this time become leader of the more numerous party, having been chosen to that position when the leader elected after the severance from Parnell had been compelled by ill health to resign the place. Every reasonable man among the Irish Nationalists, inside and outside Parliament, was coming more and more to see that there was no longer any occasion whatever for further severance, and that the country demanded a return to the old principle of union in the National ranks. John Dillon became impressed with the conviction that it might tend to smooth matters and to open a better chance for reconciliation if he, as one of the most conspicuous anti-Parnellites, were to resign his position, and to invite the whole party to come together again and elect a leader. Dillon was strongly of opinion that, as all matter of controversy had been buried in the early grave of Parnell, it would be better for the cause of future union that the new leader should be chosen from among the small number of men who had always adhered to Parnell's side. Dillon prevailed upon most of his friends to adopt his views on this subject. It was the custom of the Irish National party--indeed, of both the parties--to elect their leader at the opening of each session, and John Dillon had been re-elected more than once to the position of command in his own party. Accordingly, at the close of a session Dillon announced his intention to resign the place of leader, and he added to the announcement that he would not then accept re-election, even if it should be offered to him by a vote of his party. This patriotic course of action was most happy in its results. The Irish National members met together once again as a united party, and the leadership was conferred on John Redmond as an evidence alike of the confidence which was felt in his capacity and his sincerity, and a proof of the desire entertained by the majority for a thorough and cordial reunion of the whole party.

John Redmond was therefore the first leader of the whole party since the events of Committee-Room No. 15. John Dillon and his immediate predecessor had been only leaders of a majority, and now John Redmond was chosen as the leader of the whole party representing the Irish National cause in the House of Commons. He settled down at once to his new position with a temper and spirit admirably suited to the work he had to undertake. He seemed to have put away from his mind all memory of disunion in the party, and he became once more the friend as well as the leader of every member enrolled in its ranks. Many of those who formed the majority had in the first instance only yielded to the persuasion of John Dillon and others in the election of Redmond as leader merely because they believed that by such a course the interests of the cause could best be served just then. But I know that some of these men accepted with personal reluctance what seemed to be the necessity of the hour, and looked forward with anything but gratification to the prospect of having to serve under the new chief. John Redmond, while defending the cause of the still living Parnell, had shown in the service of his chief an energy and a passion which few of us could have expected of him, and was often utterly unsparing in his denunciation of the men who maintained the other side of the controversy. It was not unnatural that many of his former opponents should feel some doubt as to the possibility of working harmoniously under the leadership of a man who had been but lately so bitter an opponent. I had, at the time of the new leadership, been compelled by ill health to give up all active part in public life, but I talked with many members of the majority in the Irish party who told me frankly that they feared it would not be possible to get on under the leadership of John Redmond. Before long, however, these same men spontaneously assured me that they had changed their opinions on that subject, and were glad to find that they could work with Redmond in perfect harmony, and that his manner and bearing showed no sign whatever of any bitter memories belonging to the days of internal dispute. Redmond devoted himself absolutely to the House of Commons and the business of leadership, unless indeed when some pressing national interests compelled him to leave his place in St. Stephen's in order to see to the organization of the National cause in Ireland or in the United States. At the time when I am writing this article he has but lately returned from a visit of that kind to some of the great cities of the American Republic.

Fortunately for his country as well as for himself, John Redmond is a man of private means, is not compelled to earn a living, and can devote the whole of his time to the service of the National cause. He is always to be found at his post while the House of Commons is sitting, and I believe that his morning ride in Hyde Park with his wife every day is one of the few recreations in which he allows himself to indulge. I had not long ago a visit from a well-known member of the Irish Parliamentary party who holds one of its official positions and was at the time of the internal dispute an uncompromising opponent of Parnell's continued rule. This friend of mine I know was decidedly opposed at first to the election of John Redmond as leader, for the reason that he did not believe such an arrangement could possibly work with smoothness and satisfaction to the party. But when I saw him lately, he assured me that he had entirely changed his opinions and that he did not believe any party could possibly have a better leader than John Redmond had already proved himself to be. He had nothing but praise for Redmond's bearing and ways, for the manner in which he appeared to have banished from his mind all memory of past disunion, and for the unremitting attention with which he devoted himself to the work of the party inside and outside the House of Commons.

Since then I have heard and read nothing but good accounts of the manner in which Redmond has reorganized the party. It has under his guidance become once again a powerful force in political life. The House of Commons, as a whole, has thoroughly recognized Redmond's position, influence, and capacity. The Prime Minister has given many proofs of the importance which he attaches to Redmond's decisions and movements. The new leader of the Irish party has won a much higher rank as a Parliamentary debater than he ever had attained to in the days before he had become invested with a really grave responsibility. The newspaper critics on all sides of political life are agreed in describing him as one of the foremost living debaters. Indeed, there are but three or four men in the House of Commons who could possibly be compared with him for eloquence and skill in debate, and there is a quality of grace and artistic form in his style of eloquence which often recalls the memories of brighter days, when the art of oratory was still cultivated in Parliament. The success with which he has conducted the movements of his party has compelled Ministerialists and Opposition alike to take serious account of Redmond and his followers when the chances of any great political measure are under consideration. Only quite lately, during the passage of the Education measure, he adopted a policy which at first greatly puzzled his opponents, and at the last moment succeeded in impressing the Government and the Ministerial party generally with the conviction that Redmond understands when and how to strike a decisive blow.

Of course we hear sometimes, and of late rather often, about differences in the Irish party itself, and about a threatened secession from John Redmond's leadership. The Tory papers in England, and even some of the journals which are professedly Liberal, made eager use of this supposed dissension, and endeavored to persuade themselves and their readers that Redmond has not a full hold over his followers and over the Irish people. I may tell my American readers that they will do well not to attach the slightest importance to these stories about a threatened secession from the lately reunited Irish National party. In the first place, I never heard of any political party which did not inclose in its ranks some men who could not always be reckoned on as amenable to the discipline which is found necessary in every political organization. There is a considerable number of Liberal members who cannot be counted on to follow at all times the guidance of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. There are many Ministerialists, and some of them very clever men, who have lately been proving that at times they would just as soon vote against Arthur Balfour as with him. But in regard to the Irish party and the members who do not always fall in with the wish of its leader, the actual facts are peculiar. The only members of the party who have lately been showing a tendency to mutiny are, with one exception, men of no account whatever in Ireland's political life. I do not wish to name any names, but I can state with deliberation that almost every one of the mutinous members just now is a man who has not the slightest chance of ever again being sent to represent an Irish constituency in the House of Commons. These men have long since forfeited the confidence of their constituents and their fellow-countrymen. They are perfectly aware of this fact; they know quite well that the next general election will see them put out of Parliamentary life; and, in despair of re-election, they probably think that they might as well make the most of the opportunity for rendering themselves conspicuous or for indulging in eccentricities which now can do them no further harm. It may be taken for granted that at the next general election the National constituencies of Ireland will send to the House of Commons no men who are not prepared to work in complete union with the National party, and to recognize the authority of the leader who has the confidence of his people. I do not care to waste many words on this subject, but I think it right to assure my American readers that they need not attach any serious importance to the doings of five or six men, most of whom are either mere "cranks" or are driven to desperation by disappointed personal ambition.

John Redmond has the confidence of his countrymen in England and Scotland, as well as in Ireland, and we have seen that within the last few months he has obtained full assurance that he enjoys the confidence of his countrymen in the United States, in Canada, and in Australasia. I feel all the more ready to bear my testimony to his merits and his success because of the fact that I was, during a crisis which lasted for some years, in direct opposition to the policy which he felt himself conscientiously bound to adopt. The change of events has released him from any obligation to adhere to such a policy, and I do him the justice to believe that he accepted with the sincerest and most disinterested good will the first genuine opportunity offered for a complete reunion of Irish Nationalists. John Redmond is still young enough to have a career before him, and I feel the fullest confidence in his future.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT]

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

Every friend and admirer of Sir William Harcourt must have been glad when it was made known that the late leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons had declined to accept the King's offer of a peerage and was determined to remain in that representative chamber where he had made his political name and won his place of command. Sir William Harcourt would have been thrown away in the House of Lords. He could not have done anything to arouse that apathetic chamber to living importance in the affairs of state, and the House of Commons would have lost its most impressive figure. Sir William Harcourt's political fame was made in the House of Commons, and he is even yet its most distinguished member. I say "even yet" because Harcourt is growing old, and has passed that age of threescore years and ten authoritatively set down as the allotted space of man's life. But he shows no appearance of old age, seems full of energy and vital power, and is as well able to command the listening House of Commons by argumentative speech and impressive declamation as he was twenty years ago. Harcourt's bearing is one of superabundant physical resources, and he has a voice of resonant tone which imposes no tax on the listening powers of the stranger in the farthest gallery. He is a very tall man, would be one of the tallest men in any political assembly, and his presence is stately and commanding. After Gladstone's death he became the leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons, and he resigned that position only because he could not cordially accept the policy and plans of action undertaken by his leader in the House of Lords, Lord Rosebery. I do not propose to enter at any length into the differences of opinion which separated these two men, but it was generally understood that Lord Rosebery did not see his way to carry out Gladstone's policy for the maintenance of Greece and the Christian populations generally against the blood-stained domination of the Ottoman power in the southeast of Europe. The result of these differences was that Lord Rosebery applied himself to form a Liberal party of his own, which should be what is called Imperialist in its policy, and that Harcourt became merely a member of the Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons. To have won the place of Liberal leader in the representative chamber might well have satisfied the ambition of any man, and to withdraw from that place rather than contribute to any further disagreement in the party did not in any sense detract from Harcourt's influence and fame.

Sir William Harcourt won his earliest distinctions in law and literature rather than in politics. He comes of a family which has a history of its own and had members who won reputation during many generations. He was educated at Cambridge University and obtained high honors there. He was called to the bar in 1854, and became Queen's Counsel in 1866. In the meantime he had accomplished some important literary work. He was a writer for the "Saturday Review," then at the zenith of its reputation, and under the title of "Historicus" he contributed a series of letters on important public subjects to the "Times" newspaper which attracted universal attention, were afterwards collected and published in a volume, and found readers in every part of the world where men take interest in the public life of England. He was a leading advocate in some legal causes which excited the profound attention of the whole country, and was already regarded as a man of mark, who might be safely assumed to have a successful career before him. It was generally taken for granted at the time that such a man was certain to seek and find a place in the House of Commons, which of course offers an opening for rising legal advocates as well as for rising politicians. I can remember quite distinctly that to all of us who were watching the careers of promising men it appeared quite certain that Harcourt was not likely to content himself with professional distinction, and that when he entered the House of Commons he would devote himself for the most part to the business of political life. He made one unsuccessful attempt to obtain a seat in the House of Commons as representative of a Scottish constituency, and was more fortunate in his second endeavor, when he was elected to Parliament by the city of Oxford as a Liberal in 1868. Then for a while I personally lost sight of him, for towards the close of that year I began a lengthened visit to the United States, and only learned through the newspapers that he was already winning marked distinction as a Parliamentary debater. When I returned to England in 1871, I found that Harcourt was already regarded as certain to hold high office in a Liberal administration. His first step in that direction was to obtain the office of Solicitor-General in Gladstone's Government.

A story was told of Harcourt at the time--this was in 1873--which I believe to be authentic and is worth repeating. Up to this time he was merely Mr. William Vernon Harcourt, but the usage in Parliamentary life is that the leading law officers of the Crown, the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, shall receive the honor of knighthood. It was therefore a matter of course that Mr. Harcourt should become Sir William Harcourt, and bear the title by which he is still known everywhere. The story goes, however, that Harcourt was not much delighted with the offer of a distinction which is commonly conferred upon the mayors of English cities and towns and other such personages of municipal position. Harcourt, as I have said, came of a distinguished English family which had contributed Lord Chancellors and other such exalted dignitaries to the business of the State. He probably had also in his mind the fact that rising men in his own profession who happened to be sons of peers were specially exempted by constitutional usage from the necessity of putting up with knighthood when accepting one of the two legal offices under the Crown. The manner in which this very fact proclaimed the comparative insignificance of the title may have still further influenced Harcourt's objections. Anyhow, he did endeavor to impress upon Gladstone his claim to be exempted from the proffered dignity. Gladstone, however, assured him that it was the recognized constitutional practice to confer a knighthood upon a new Solicitor-General, and that there was no reason why Harcourt should seek dispensation from the honor. "Then," demanded Harcourt--so at least the story is told--"why don't you confer knighthoods on all the members of your Cabinet, and see how some of them would receive the proposition?" I cannot vouch for this story as historical truth, but I can vouch for the fact that it was told everywhere at the time, and received, so far as I know, no contradiction.

Harcourt made his way almost at once to the front rank of Parliamentary debaters. His style was somewhat rhetorical and declamatory, but it was distinctly argumentative, and his speeches contained few passages of mere declamation. He was a hard hitter, one of the hardest in the House, but he hit straight from the shoulder and never gave an unfair blow. He was often very happy in his sarcastic touches, and there was a certain robust and self-satisfied good humor even in his severest attacks on his Parliamentary opponents. The general impression of observers at first was that Harcourt would go in merely for the reputation of a powerful debater in the House of Commons, and would not show any ambition for the steady and severe work of Ministerial office. The public had yet to learn that the highest reputation of the man was to be made by his success as the head of a great Ministerial department. Many observers also formed the opinion that Harcourt had no clear political views of his own, and was merely a sort of free lance ready to accept employment under the most convenient leader. He had entered the House of Commons as a Liberal, and even before he accepted office had always ranked himself as a regular supporter of the Liberal party, but he often made speeches in opposition to the views of extreme Liberals or Radicals--speeches such as might well have been made by some eloquent member of the Tory party. Many of the more advanced Liberals had for some time no confidence whatever in Harcourt's Liberalism, and were often engaged in sharp controversy with him. My own impression is that, up to a certain period in his career, Harcourt had not formed, or troubled himself to form, any very settled opinions on the rising political questions of the day. Upon all the old subjects of political debate, on the controversies which divided political parties in a former generation, his views were, no doubt, quite settled, but then there were many new subjects coming up for discussion, bringing with them new occasions for political division, and it is quite probable that on some of these at least the new Solicitor-General had not quite made up his mind. He had been a close student at Cambridge, and had been elected professor of international law by that University; he had practiced law as an advocate, and had begun to make a reputation for himself as a writer. It is quite probable that he had not yet given any special attention to some of the new questions which the growing development of social and political conditions was calling up for Parliamentary consideration.

Harcourt appears to have accepted as a matter of course, when he entered the House of Commons, the recognized principles inherited by the Liberal party. But there was then, as at most other periods of England's constitutional history, a new and advancing Liberal party beginning to make its influence felt, and not satisfied to abide by the mere traditions and established canons of the older Liberalism. Only a very few even of the advanced Liberals were yet prepared to support and encourage the Irish demand for Home Rule, and on such domestic questions, for instance, as the regulation of the liquor traffic, the Liberal party in general had not made up its mind to any policy other than a policy of mere inaction. I mention these two subjects in particular because they have an especial value in throwing light upon the change which took place more lately in Harcourt's political attitude. Probably at the time when he first entered the House of Commons he had not concerned himself much with the Home Rule question, and had allowed himself to take it for granted, as so many even among Liberal politicians and newspapers would have told him, that the Irish Home Rulers were aiming at the break-up of the Empire. In the same way it is quite possible that he may have given little or no attention to the demand for some new regulation of the liquor traffic, and dismissed the whole subject as a crotchet of Sir Wilfrid Lawson. When, however, he began to study the political life of the House of Commons as an active and a rising member, and when he found that his inclinations and his instincts were leading him into politics and away from law, we can easily understand that he set himself to study with candid judgment the new questions which were beginning to divide the Liberal party. I have often heard Sir William Harcourt accused of inconsistency and even of time-serving, because of his sudden conversion to the principle of some political movement which was at last coming to be accepted by the great Liberal leaders. I do not see any reason whatever to believe that Harcourt can fairly be reproached with inconsistency, or justly accused of any ignoble motive for his adoption of the newer and more advanced opinions. The explanation seems to me quite clear. The university student, the practicing advocate, the professor of international law, adopted a new career and devoted himself to an active part in the work of the House of Commons. Then it was that he studied for the first time with earnestness and impartiality some great developing questions which had previously been mere names and shadows to him, and thus he came to form the conclusions which guided his subsequent career. If Harcourt had been thinking chiefly of his own political advancement, he might have done better for himself by following the example of Disraeli, and taking a place among the Tories, where intellect and eloquence were more rare than on the other side of the House, and where promotion was therefore more easily to be won.

Harcourt had probably not given much attention to great financial questions until he came under the influence of Gladstone. Up to that time he had, perhaps, not assumed that such subjects were likely to come within the scope of his practical work; but when he had to study them, he began to discover that he had within him the capacity for a thorough comprehension of their real meaning and development, and as the result of the study he became, when the opportunity offered itself, one of the most successful and enlightened financial Ministers of his time. In the same way he may never have given any serious thought to the question of Irish Home Rule, and may have fallen quietly into the way of regarding it, in accordance with the common opinion of most Englishmen just then, as something naturally associated with a rebellious desire for the breaking up of the Empire. When, however, he was led to study it as a question of reasonable import, he grew to be a convinced and a hopeful advocate of the cause. For a long time after he had taken office under Gladstone he found himself brought into an incessant opposition and even antagonism to the small group of Irish members, who then represented the Irish national demand, and compelled to fight against the obstruction which these Irish members were raising night after night, as their only means of enforcing public attention to a serious consideration of Ireland's national complaints and claims. He became converted to the cause of Home Rule, just as Gladstone did, by having the question forced upon his consideration, and thus being compelled to ask himself whether there was not some real sense of justice inspiring the Irish agitation.

I shall always remember a conversation I once had with Gladstone on this subject of Irish Home Rule. It was in one of the inner lobbies of the House of Commons, and Mr. Gladstone began it by asking me how I could regard Home Rule as a national demand, seeing that only a very small number of the Irish representatives in the House were actively in favor of such a measure. Gladstone called my attention to the fact that out of the whole body of Irish representatives elected by the constituencies on the same basis of voting, less than a dozen members declared themselves uncompromising advocates of Home Rule. I drew Gladstone's attention to the fact that the suffrage in Ireland was so high and so restricted that the whole bulk of the Irish population were disqualified by law from giving a vote at any election. Gladstone appealed to me to say whether he had not long been in favor of an expanded suffrage for the whole Kingdom, and I told him that I cordially recognized his sincere purpose, and that whenever we got a really fair and popular suffrage he would then find ample proof that the great bulk of the Irish people were united in their demands for Home Rule. Not long after, it came about that Gladstone and his Government saw their way to a measure of reform which gave the whole Kingdom an expanded and popular suffrage, and at the next general election the great majority of Irish members opposed to or lukewarm about Home Rule disappeared altogether from Parliament, and their places were taken by avowed and uncompromising Home Rulers elected mainly because they were earnest advocates of Home Rule. Out of the hundred and three members who constitute the Irish representation, we had then nearly ninety who were proclaimed and consistent Home Rulers. This result did much of itself to make Gladstone a convert to Home Rule, and it had naturally the same effect on Harcourt, who was far too intelligent a man not to accept the lesson taught by the Irish constituencies, and to admit that the demand for Home Rule was a genuine national demand, and as such entitled to the serious consideration of real statesmen. The conversion of Harcourt I have always, therefore, regarded as sincere and statesmanlike, and of the same order as the conversion of Gladstone himself. The first business of statesmanship is to recognize established facts and to act upon their evidence. Once the demand had been proved to be national, neither Gladstone nor Harcourt was the man to deny it a full consideration; and the same full consideration made the one man and the other an advocate of Home Rule.

In the days before the great constitutional change which I have described, the change which resulted in the adoption of a popular suffrage, in the days when our small band of Irish Nationalists was still doing battle inch by inch against the Government, we had many fierce struggles with Harcourt, then a leading member of the Liberal administration. We had to admit that we found in him a powerful antagonist. He was ready in reply, resolute in maintaining his position, and he gave us, to say the least of it, as good as we brought. He was ever alert, he could answer attack by attack, he could carry the battle into the enemy's ranks, and the ablest of our debaters had his best work to do when compelled to stand up in Parliamentary contest against Harcourt. But I observed that in our private dealings with Harcourt, on questions which came within the range of his administrative functions, we always found him considerate, kind, and even generous. There were frequent occasions when a Minister of the Crown had to be applied to by an Irish member for justice in the dealings of his official department, where individual questions of right and wrong having nothing to do with the general subject of Home Rule came up for consideration. I am now speaking of questions which were not to be settled by mere debate in the House of Commons, but which belonged to the ordinary and practical dealings of the department with this or that individual case. I can remember many instances in which I had to make some such appeal to Sir William Harcourt, and I ever found him most ready and willing to consider fairly the nature of any individual grievance, and to prevent the administration of the law from being perversely turned into an engine of oppression. I know that many of my colleagues as well as myself felt thankful to Harcourt for his prompt interference where a real grievance had been brought under his notice, and for his resolve to see that justice must be done to the obscure sufferer from official tyranny. When the Liberal Government and the Irish National party came to work together for Home Rule, we, the Irish National members, had nothing on our memory which could prevent us from regarding Harcourt as a genuine Liberal and a sincere friend who had never shown any inclination to abuse his power when he was strong and we were at our weakest. My recollection of the days when we were fighting against Harcourt is tinged with no bitterness. He was always a formidable fighter, but he fought fairly when he still had to fight against us.

It is not surprising that Harcourt should have been for some time regarded as a powerful debater and nothing more. He was one of the foremost debaters in the House of Commons, even at a time when that House had more commanding debaters in it than it can claim to have just at present. He cannot be ranked among the great orators of the House. He is wanting in imagination, and without the gift of imagination there cannot be eloquence of the highest order. Even in the mere making of phrases he has seldom shown originality, and it has often been remarked of him, as it was remarked by Disraeli of Sir Robert Peel, that he never ventures on any quotation which has not already well established its popularity. Sir William Harcourt's best qualities as a speaker consist in his clearness of exposition, his unfailing fluency, his masterly array of forcible argument, and the fact that he never allows his eloquence to soar over the heads of his audience. I should be inclined to say of him that, although he is unquestionably a great Parliamentary debater, yet his intellectual capacity, his faculty for balancing evidence, acquiring and comparing facts, appreciating tendencies, and coming to just conclusions, are greater even than his powers of speech. I may say that one who listened to Sir William Harcourt during the earlier stages of his Parliamentary career might very naturally have been led to quite a different conclusion, and might have set him down as a clever maker of speeches and not a statesman. But such an observer, supposing him to be endowed with a fair amount of intelligence, would have gradually changed his opinion as he followed Harcourt's political career. Every time that Harcourt has been in office he has more and more given proof that there is in him the true quality of statesmanship. He served as Home Secretary under Gladstone, and was afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, first in one of Gladstone's Administrations and afterwards in the Government of Lord Rosebery. There can be no question that he proved himself to be one of the greatest financial Ministers England has had in recent times. His famous Death Duties budget, introduced while Lord Rosebery was Prime Minister, created one of the most vehement controversies known to the political life of the present generation. Yet the great principle which Harcourt embodied in his dealing with the question of death duties must now be regarded even by his political opponents as resting on a basis of absolute morality and justice. The principle merely was that the amount of taxation which any individual pays to the State in consideration of his having obtained property by bequest shall be greater in proportion according as the acquired property is great in amount. In other words, Harcourt's policy maintained that a man who comes in for a large property as a bequest shall pay a larger proportion of taxation to the State than a man who comes in for a small property, and that the same principle ought to prevail through our other systems of direct taxation. The whole controversy simply turns on the question whether the rich man ought or ought not to pay a larger proportion of his income to defray the national expenses than the poor man--whether the citizen who has only income enough to enable him to maintain his family decently ought to be called upon to pay towards the maintenance of the State on just the same scale as that ordained for the man who can live in lavish luxury. The boldness and originality of Sir William Harcourt's venture in his budget of 1893, the energy and argumentative power with which he carried it to success, have undoubtedly secured for him a place in the front rank of England's financial Ministers. The later years of Harcourt's career offer a strange commentary on the estimate generally formed of him when he began to be conspicuous in Parliament. At the former period he was commonly regarded as a clever but somewhat superficial man, as one whose qualities were rather flashy than sound, as a ready maker of telling speeches designed to produce an immediate effect and destined to be utterly forgotten the day after to-morrow. Harcourt's later years of public work have proved him to be a serious Parliamentary leader, a man of strong and deep convictions, a man who thinks before he speaks and speaks because he thinks.

Indeed, the seriousness of Harcourt's convictions on some subjects of national importance has brought him more than once into disfavor with his constituents. He holds very strong and advanced views on the subject of local option--that is to say, on the right of localities to say whether they will or will not allow the sale of intoxicating drinks within their confines, and to state what conditions are to be imposed on the traffic if it is permitted at all. Sir William Harcourt went further on this subject than some even among his colleagues who were in favor of the general principle as a principle, but did not see the necessity for pressing it to immediate action. One of those colleagues said to me that in his opinion Harcourt might very well have allowed the question to stand over for eight or ten years, and perhaps by the end of that time the habits of the population would have improved so far as to render the passing of any strong restrictive law unnecessary. I am quite certain that Harcourt's earnest resolve to deal boldly with this subject if he should be allowed the opportunity had much to do with the condition of feeling in the Liberal party which led to his resignation of its leadership. We may look forward with confidence to the formation of a new Liberal Government in which Harcourt will have a commanding position, and when that time comes we may take it for granted that, in spite of whatever opposition on either side of the House of Commons, he will once more attempt to deal with the question of local option.

Most of my American readers know that Sir William Harcourt's second wife was the daughter of Lothrop Motley, the famous historian who was for a time Minister to Great Britain, and who died at Harcourt's country residence in 1877. The eldest son, Louis Vernon Harcourt, who was born in 1863, has also married an American lady. Louis Harcourt, whom I have known since his boyish days, is endowed with much of his father's talents, and I have always thought that if he had devoted himself entirely to political life he might make for himself such a career as his father has already accomplished. During contested elections I have been more than once associated with Louis Harcourt in "stumping" some parts of the country on behalf of the Liberal Government then engaged in the cause of Home Rule, and I have the clearest memories of his remarkable organizing capacity, his ready eloquence, and his skill in replying to questions and arguments and in convincing skeptical voters. I take it for granted that every one who has known Louis, or, as he is commonly called, "Lulu" Harcourt, must have delightful recollections of his bright companionship. We have all heard that Sir William Harcourt studiously consulted his son when the offer of a peerage was made to him by King Edward, and that "Lulu" was resolute in supporting his father's desire to refuse the honor, even although his acceptance of it would have made "Lulu" the heir to a peerage. Sir William Harcourt, we may well hope, has yet good work to do in the House of Commons. There is nothing about him which suggests the idea of advanced years or of decaying powers, whether mental or physical. The curious attack of weakness which lately came over so many members of the Liberal party never touched his robust intellect and resolute character. No man could render more valuable services than he may be expected to do in turning to account for genuine Liberalism the reaction already beginning to set in against the reign of the Tories and the Jingoes. I cherish the belief that the best of Sir William Harcourt's work is yet to be done by him.

JAMES BRYCE]

JAMES BRYCE

James Bryce is universally recognized as one of the intellectual forces in the British House of Commons. When he rises to make a speech, every one listens with the deepest interest, feeling sure that some ideas and some instruction are sure to come which no political party in the House can well afford to lose. Some men in the House of Commons have been orators and nothing else; some have been orators and instructors as well; some have been Parliamentary debaters more or less capable; and a good many have been bores. In every generation there have been a few who are especially regarded as illuminating forces. The House does not think of measuring their influence by any estimate of their greater or less capacity for mere eloquence of expression. It values them because of the lessons which they teach. To this small order of members James Bryce undoubtedly belongs. Now, I do not mean to convey the idea that such men as these are not usually endowed with the gift of eloquence, or that they cannot deliver speeches which would entitle them to a high rank among Parliamentary debaters, no matter what the import of the speeches might be. My object is to describe a certain class of men whose Parliamentary speeches are valued by members in general without any special regard for their form, but only with regard to their substance, for the thoughts they utter and not for the manner of the utterance. James Bryce would be considered an effective and even a commanding speaker in any public assembly, but nevertheless, when the House of Commons and the public think of his speeches, these are thought of mainly for the truths they tell and the lessons they convey, and not for any quality of mere eloquence which adorns them. In a certain sense James Bryce might be described as belonging to that Parliamentary order in the front of which John Morley stands just now; but of course John Morley has thus far had more administrative experience than James Bryce, and has taken a more distinct place as a Parliamentary and popular leader. Of both men, however, I should be inclined to say that their public speeches lose something of the praise fairly due to them as mere displays of eloquence, because of the importance we all attach to their intellectual and educational influence.

I may say also that James Bryce is not first and above all other things a public man and a politician. He does not seem to have thought of a Parliamentary career until after he had won for himself a high and commanding position as a writer of history. Bryce is by birth an Irishman and belongs to that northern province of Ireland which is peopled to a large extent by Scottish immigrants. We are all rather too apt to think of this Ulster province as essentially un-Irish, or even anti-Irish in tone and feeling, although some of the most extreme among Irish Nationalists, men like John Mitchell for instance, were born and brought up in Ulster, and in more recent days some conspicuous Home Rulers have sat in the House of Commons as representatives of Ulster constituencies. James Bryce has always been an Irish Nationalist since he came into public life, and has shown himself, whether in or out of political office, a steady and consistent supporter of the demand for Irish Home Rule. Indeed, I should be well inclined to believe that a desire to render some personal service in promoting the just claims of Ireland for a better system of government must have had much influence over Bryce's decision to accept a seat in the House of Commons.