Chapter XIII: Home Rule (1)

‘Vote it as you please. There is a company of poor men that will
spend all their blood before they see it settled so.’--CARLYLE,
_Cromwell_.

On the last day in January Mr. Gladstone undertook to form his Administration. Its complexion was indicated by the first of the new appointments: for Mr. Morley became Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant. This was followed, without delay, on the one hand by the statement that Lord Spencer had acquiesced in the new Irish policy and would be Lord President of the Council; and upon the other by rumours of Whig refusals. For some days negotiations were protracted with Lord Hartington, Mr. Goschen and Sir Henry James; but, whatever signs of hesitation had marked their previous course, their action now was decided. Sir Henry James was offered successively both the Lord Chancellorship and the Home Secretaryship, and even more important Executive offices were pressed upon the others. All were declined. Doubt and reluctance were also manifested by Mr. Chamberlain and Sir George Trevelyan and both required and received assurances that they were not committed, by joining the Government, to the support of any Irish policy which involved the creation of a separate Parliament. For the rest it may be noticed that Sir William Harcourt became Chancellor of the Exchequer; that Lord Rosebery went to the Foreign Office; and that neither Lord Derby nor Mr. Forster was included in the Government.

The traveller who visits an old battlefield can never fully understand what its various natural features meant to the combatants. He is shown, perhaps, a rocky ridge which is called the key of the position. He reads that it was taken and repurchased on hard terms more than once during the day. But it is an ordinary object in the landscape. A dozen such eminences have been seen during the morning’s ride. Was it really so important? Were the fortunes of kingdoms actually for some hours involved in the possession of those few acres of rank grass and scattered stone? As he stands serenely on ground where once the bravest soldier hardly dared to crawl, he can scarcely believe it. Yet, to the men who fought, those rocks meant much more than life or death. Duty was there; honour was there; and in the end victory. And if the smoky curtain that hangs about the field were lifted and the view enlarged, it might be seen that great causes of truth, or justice, or freedom, and long tranquil years in smiling lands depended indeed upon this ragged ridge, made famous by the blundering collision of two armies, worthless except for the tactical purpose of the moment and probably ill-adapted and wrongly selected even for that.

The actual provisions of the Home Rule Bill do not at all convey the magnitude of the issue or explain the gravity with which it was regarded. A proposal to establish by statute, subject to guarantees of Imperial supremacy, a colonial Parliament in Ireland for the transaction of Irish business may indeed be unwise, but is not, and ought not to be, outside the limits of calm and patient consideration. Such a proposal is not necessarily fraught with the immense and terrific consequences which were so generally associated with it. A generation may arise in England who will question the policy of creating subordinate legislatures as little as we question the propriety of Catholic Emancipation and who will study the records of the fierce disputes of 1886 with the superior manner of a modern professor examining the controversies of the early Church. But that will not prove the men of 1886 wrong or foolish in speech and action.

The controversy of 1886 can never be resolved. Whatever may happen in the future, neither party can be brought to the bar of history and proved by actual experience right or wrong. The cases of Catholic Emancipation, of the Great Reform Bill, of the Repeal of the Corn Laws, are differently placed. We know that in certain circumstances a great change was made and that that change was immediately vindicated by events and afterwards ratified by posterity. The opponents of the change stand condemned. No such assured conclusion of the Home Rule Question of 1886 can ever be reached, unless by some unthinkable coincidence the actual circumstances of that time were reconstructed.

Mr. Gladstone ultimately succeeded in convincing not only his personal friends and half his fellow-countrymen of his entire sincerity, but his most capable opponents also. Yet at the time his motives were impugned, and not without much reason. Concessions to Ireland made by any British Government which depends for its existence on the Irish vote, will naturally and necessarily be suspect. There must always be a feeling in English minds that such a government is not a free agent, that it is trafficking for personal or party advantage with what belongs to the nation. In 1886 Mr. Gladstone’s Administration lay under deep suspicion. His own appeals for an independent majority at the election; the sudden conversion of his principal colleagues; the absolute dependence of his power upon Mr. Parnell’s followers; the precipitate haste with which he had taken office; all tended to confirm the distrust and prejudices of his opponents. Whether his Bill was proposed upon its merits or not, it was not considered, and could not be considered, upon them. It looked like surrender--not advance; and surrender made shameful by the party advantage that was its first-fruits. The violent scenes in the House of Commons, the declarations of hatred towards England reiterated by Irish Nationalism, however historically excusable, the long nightmare of outrage and unrest through which Ireland was struggling, the American gold, the dynamite explosions, the bloody daggers in the Phœnix Park, had bitten deep into British minds and memories. The tireless conflicts of Catholic and Protestant, of landlord and tenant, provoked and disquieted statesmen of every complexion. Some there were who rose to Mr. Gladstone’s level of enthusiasm, who shared his consciousness of unswerving rectitude and dreams of glorious achievement; but by most of the eminent men in England the Irish proposals of 1886 were regarded as the surrender of national heirlooms at the compulsion of public enemies, involving an act of practical secession with potential consequences of revolution and civil war. And once this conviction was adopted, all chance that the plan itself would be fairly weighed was inevitably destroyed. Radicals who, like Mr. Chamberlain, were committed to all sorts of schemes of devolution, who looked with favour upon National Councils or Legislatures of the Canadian provincial type, were, by the stroke of crisis, united with the ultra-Conservatives and authoritarians. A state of war existed and political leaders selected their positions upon tactical reasons alone. Here it was good to fight; there it was bad. At this point a stand might be made; that it would be well to concede. All question of a reasonable settlement vanished. Every man chose his ground and fought upon it to win. ‘Never,’ said Lord Randolph in after years to a friend, ‘have we approached the Irish Question _avec de bonnes paroles et de bons procédés_.’

Thus it happened that in the tremendous enterprise upon which Mr. Gladstone had now determined to embark, he found arrayed against him nearly all the leading men and most of the strongest forces in England and Scotland. When a party has been for many years supreme in the State, it draws into itself by its prestige and authority many men who are not really with it in sympathy and opinion. The Whigs and many moderate Liberals had long been estranged. They were held by the force of party associations alone and most of them welcomed a shock which ended the strain and freed them from obligations they could no longer faithfully discharge. The wealthy Whig Peers were glad to escape from Radical associates and to be ranked in the mass of their order. Statesmen of the old school like Mr. Bright, Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen, with many followers whose talents adorned the Liberal party, were quite unprepared to adapt themselves to the new conditions which a democratic franchise had imposed. The Home Rule proposals--already in themselves a sufficient cause for final separation--were, besides, a convenient opportunity. All this was to have been expected, and no doubt the Irish accession was estimated to fill the gap. But a Radical defection was utterly unforeseen.

Of all the men who followed Mr. Gladstone into the Lobby on the night when the Jesse Collings amendment dismissed the ‘Ministry of Caretakers’ from office, Mr. Chamberlain stood to gain the greatest profit, both in the furtherance of his political opinions and in his personal advancement, from the turn events were taking. For five years he had battled with the Whigs in the Cabinet; for five years they had checked him. He had declared he would not serve with them again. Now they were going. Their influence alone had enabled the Prime Minister to moderate the Radical demands, of which he was the champion. In the place of that influence was now to be substituted the party of Mr. Parnell. If Mr. Chamberlain had been powerful before, what would he be in the Liberal Governments of the future? If Mr. Gladstone had yielded much to his insistence in the past, what must he concede thereafter? At the very moment when the Radical movement was growing in strength, after an election in which the ‘Unauthorised Programme’ had saved the counties from the Tory triumph in the towns, the whole composition of the Liberal party was to be changed--and changed wholly in his favour. The Prime Minister was a very old man. The path was already almost clear. The future of the party lay at the feet of the leader of thorough, precise and militant Radicalism.

And if in one direction all prospects looked so bright, the other seemed entirely barred. He was in acute antagonism with Lord Hartington. Lord Salisbury had just called him ‘Jack Cade.’ The Whigs regarded him as the cause of their undoing. To the Tories he was a warning of the wrath to come. By many acts of his public life, by a hundred speeches, by the affirmation of important principles and the support of definite measures, he had cut himself off from Whigs and Tories alike. Many men will wrestle with their own party or change to another party, but few will face political extinction. That such a man, careless perhaps of office, but ambitious for power, should in such circumstances quarrel with Mr. Gladstone, tear his own Radical following to pieces and go forth into the night-storm almost alone, was a fact not in human wisdom to be known or imagined in dreams. Yet his reply to Parnell’s demand had been prompt and plain. ‘If these, and these alone, are the terms on which Mr. Parnell’s support is to be obtained,’ he declared as early as September, ‘I will not enter into the compact.’

That Lord Randolph Churchill was consistent and sincere in his opposition to Home Rule was at the time much questioned by both sides, and some shadow of that suspicion has remained. He it was who had rendered possible the co-operation between the Irish party and the Tory Opposition, which had placed and maintained the late Government in office. He was known to hold liberal views on Irish problems. He was described as being unscrupulous in Parliamentary manœuvre. He had opposed the renewal of Coercion. He had defended the Maamtrasna inquiry. If it were true that the Conservative Government had had any Home Rule dealings as a Government, he was reputed their agent. If any Minister had trafficked independently, he was that Minister. Many Home Rulers and Orangemen, agreeing in nothing else, agreed in believing that he at any rate had been ready upon a Home Rule basis to bargain with Parnell. These suspicions are injurious. No man was more vigorous in his public resistance to Home Rule or more vehement in his language than Lord Randolph Churchill; and if in the midst of his denunciations of Mr. Gladstone, while he was rousing England and inflaming Ulster, it had been true that he was fortified by no real conviction, and had been ready a few months before to sell all that he now declared sacred, an odious charge would have been brought home.

The documents printed in preceding chapters constitute an unassailable defence. No Unionist politician has a clearer record. Lord Randolph Churchill was perfectly willing to work with the Irish members. He understood how much they had in common with the Conservative party, and with the best part of the Conservative party. He had no prejudices and many sympathies in their direction. But his arrangement with them, or with any of them--for he counted on dividing their forces--would have been social, religious or economic in its character. It would never have been of a National character. To give the Irish the educational system they desired, to court and coax the Bishops, to win the Catholic Church to the side of the Conservative party--these were objects which all his life he faithfully pursued. The first political pamphlet he wrote was on Irish intermediate education. Whether as a Minister in 1885, or out of office in 1888 and 1889, he will be found deep in schemes of Catholic conciliation by Irish educational reform--primary, intermediate and university. One of the last letters this account contains returns to and reiterates this long-cherished idea. Almost his last speech in the House of Commons was in defence of Catholic schools. But to the repeal of the Parliamentary Union he was always unalterably opposed. He did not even think it worth while to consider seriously the many modified alternatives in which the times abounded. They might be wise or unwise; but they were not, he thought, within the functions of the Conservative party. He knew nothing of the Carnarvon incident, and was incensed to discover it. His letter to Lord Morris of December 7, 1885, shows how unyielding he was even to the suggestion of a conference, before the great attempt was made. His correspondence with Mr. Chamberlain, who always inclined to alternative proposals, proves him quite unconvinced in later years by the course of the struggle or by the change in his own position. ‘It would require circumstances widely different and pressure of an almost overwhelming kind,’ he wrote in August 1887, ‘to induce any portion of the Tories to look at any scheme of Home Rule. Gladstone alone can deal with that measure; and I hope that if he does, and when he does, he may be kept in check and controlled by a powerful Opposition.’

The advent of this great crisis therefore threw him for the first time into complete sympathy with the whole Conservative party. All his energies and talents were freely expended in a cause for which he cared intensely. Mr. Gladstone’s vast personal power may perhaps be measured by the opponents by whom he was confronted, and by whom he was so narrowly overborne. It would be profitless to compare the relative services of the various distinguished men who now ranged themselves against him; to observe that Sir Henry James made the heaviest sacrifices, that Mr. Chamberlain ran the greatest risks, that Lord Salisbury showed commanding wisdom or that Lord Hartington struck the weightiest blows. But when the history of the famous battle for the Union in 1886 comes to be worthily written, it will be found that no single man fought with effect in more different quarters of the field than Lord Randolph Churchill or was in the heart and centre of more decisive frays.

Outside the walls of Parliament the issue was determined chiefly in the cities of Birmingham and Belfast. The transference of the whole political strength of the great Midland centre of Radicalism to the Unionist cause and the fierce resistance of the Irish North, were the two most serious obstacles which Mr. Gladstone encountered. In both cities the conflict was marked by every circumstance of passion and excitement. In both Lord Randolph intervened as a leader. He possessed in an eminent degree many of the qualities which may be discovered in a successful military commander. He could detect with almost unerring skill the weak points in his enemy’s array. He could make up his mind with bewildering rapidity and act upon the decision so formed with absolute confidence. He knew well how to separate what was vital from what was merely important or desirable. He was quite ruthless in casting away smaller objects for the sake of a greater. Few men were better suited to the storms of violent times. Till the explosion of Home Rule in the early days of December, he was deep in schemes of educational concession to the Catholic hierarchy--schemes which were in themselves delicate and complicated and which, on account of the suspicion they would have excited in Protestant Lancashire, were necessarily secret while a General Election was pending. But no sooner did Mr. Gladstone’s intentions become known with certainty than Lord Randolph looked towards Ulster. All plans of Catholic Universities and nice correspondence with princes of the Church had to be unceremoniously stowed away till calmer weather. Christmas found him planning his visit to Belfast. By the New Year the arrangements were completed. The Ulster Hall was prepared and the Orange drums were beating. ‘I decided some time ago,’ he wrote bluntly to FitzGibbon, on February 16, 1886, ‘that if the G.O.M. went for Home Rule, the Orange card would be the one to play. Please God it may turn out the ace of trumps and not the two.... I expect,’ he added, ‘your old Commission will go to the devil now.’

Lord Randolph was the first of the out-going Ministers to break silence and in Paddington, on February 13, he defended the violent oscillations in the Irish policy of the late Government--the contrast between the policy of August 1885 and that of January 1886. The reader is already in possession of the main features of that defence, but it is set forth in this speech in a complete argumentative shape; and though it is naturally a partisan account, it will be found to bear a close comparison with the facts now published. The situation in Ireland in August had not, he declared, necessitated the renewal of the Crimes Act. The provisions of the Crimes Act were not suited to deal with the National League; and by January the growth of that organisation required the creation of new and different weapons. ‘If the hateful and malignant domination of the National League had been finally and for ever suppressed, if the restoration of order had been effective--then Lord Salisbury’s Government were prepared to propose to Parliament measures which would to a large extent have met the legitimate aspirations of the Irish people, whether as regards Local Government or as regards the further settlement of some portions of the eternal Land Question, or as regards those wishes of the Catholics of Ireland on higher education which a large concurrence of the opinion of this country is disposed to look upon as right and reasonable.’ He concluded by appealing for the support and encouragement of his constituents in his mission to Ulster upon which he was about to embark.

Lord Randolph crossed the Channel, and arrived at Larne early on the morning of February 22. He was welcomed like a king. Thousands of persons, assembling from the neighbouring townships, greeted him at the port. At Carrickfergus, where the train was stopped, he imitated--almost for the only time--a historic example by addressing a ‘great crowd on the platform.’ In Belfast itself a vast demonstration, remarkable for its earnestness and quality and amounting, it is computed, to more than seventy thousand people, marched past him. One who knew Ireland well declared that he had not believed ‘there were so many Orangemen in the world.’ That night the Ulster Hall was crowded to its utmost compass. In order to satisfy the demand for tickets all the seats were removed and the concourse--which he addressed for nearly an hour and a half--heard him standing. He was nearly always successful on the platform, but the effect he produced upon his audience in Belfast was one of the most memorable triumphs of his life. He held the meeting in the hollow of his hand. From the very centre of Protestant excitement he appealed to the loyal Catholics of Ireland to stand firm by the Union and at the same time, without using language of bigotry or intolerance, he roused the Orangemen to stern and vehement emotion.

‘Now may be the time,’ he said, ‘to show whether all those ceremonies and forms which are practised in Orange Lodges, are really living symbols or only idle and meaningless ceremonies; whether that which you have so carefully fostered, is really the lamp of liberty and its flame the undying and unquenchable fire of freedom.... The time may be at hand when you will have to show that the path of honour and safety is still illuminated by the light of other days. It may be that this dark cloud which is now impending over Ireland, will pass away without breaking. If it does, I believe you and your descendants will be safe for a long time to come. Her Majesty’s Government hesitates. Like Macbeth before the murder of Duncan, Mr. Gladstone asks for time. Before he plunges the knife into the heart of the British Empire he reflects, he hesitates.... The demonstrations to-day will have a very useful effect not only upon the public mind in England, but also on the Ministerial mind, and many more of them must be held. And those demonstrations ought to be imposing not only from their numbers, but also for their orderly character. We are essentially a party of law and order and any violent action resorted to prematurely or without the most obvious and overwhelming necessity might have the most fatal and damaging effect upon the cause which we so dearly value and might alienate forces whose resistance would be beyond all price. The Loyalists in Ulster should wait and watch--organise and prepare. Diligence and vigilance ought to be your watchword; so that the blow, if it does come, may not come upon you as a thief in the night and may not find you unready and taken by surprise.

‘I believe that this storm will blow over and that the vessel of the Union will emerge with her Loyalist crew stronger than before; but it is right and useful that I should add that if the struggle should continue and if my conclusions should turn out to be wrong, then I am of opinion that the struggle is not likely to remain within the lines of what we are accustomed to look upon as constitutional action. No portentous change such as the Repeal of the Union, no change so gigantic, could be accomplished by the mere passing of a law. The history of the United States will teach us a different lesson; and if it should turn out that the Parliament of the United Kingdom was so recreant from all its high duties, and that the British nation was so apostate to traditions of honour and courage, as to hand over the Loyalists of Ireland to the domination of an Assembly in Dublin which must be to them a foreign and an alien assembly, if it should be within the design of Providence to place upon you and your fellow-Loyalists so heavy a trial, then, gentlemen, I do not hesitate to tell you most truly that in that dark hour there will not be wanting to you those of position and influence in England who would be willing to cast in their lot with you and who, whatever the result, will share your fortunes and your fate. There will not be wanting those who at the exact moment, when the time is fully come--if that time should come--will address you in words which are perhaps best expressed by one of our greatest English poets:--

The combat deepens; on, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave.
Wave, Ulster--all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry.’

‘As I was bold enough to trouble you about your speech,’ wrote Lord Salisbury the next day, ‘I may be allowed to say that I thought it singularly skilful. You avoided all shoals, and said nothing to which any Catholic could object--and yet you contrived to rouse a great enthusiasm among the Protestants. And that I gather to be the general opinion. I am sure the effect of the speech will be very great in Ulster.’ Lord Salisbury made no secret of his opinion, and on March 3 publicly alluded to the Belfast speech as a ‘brilliantly successful effort.’ The Ministerialists, upon the other hand, were furious. Lord Randolph was accused of inciting to insurrection and treason and denounced as ‘a rebel in the skin of a Tory.’ The Parnellites were especially indignant that one whom they had been accustomed to regard with friendly feelings, should so far forget his duty as to make an inflammatory speech in Ireland; and as the delinquent entered the House of Commons the next night, he was greeted by a loud demonstration of hostility from the Nationalist benches, taking, if contemporary descriptions may be trusted, the form of prolonged and dismal groaning.

On the 26th Mr. Sexton requested the Government to afford an opportunity to the House for discussing a vote of censure upon Lord Randolph Churchill; and the Prime Minister, in refusing, was careful to base himself on the needs of public business alone. Lord Randolph, however, persisted in his courses and a few weeks later, in a letter to a Liberal-Unionist member, he repeated his menace in an even clearer form: ‘If political parties and political leaders, not only Parliamentary but local, should be so utterly lost to every feeling and dictate of honour and courage as to hand over coldly, and for the sake of purchasing a short and illusory Parliamentary tranquillity, the lives and liberties of the Loyalists of Ireland to their hereditary and most bitter foes, make no doubt on this point--Ulster will not be a consenting party; Ulster at the proper moment will resort to the supreme arbitrament of force; Ulster will fight, Ulster will be right; Ulster will emerge from the struggle victorious, because all that Ulster represents to us Britons will command the sympathy and support of an enormous section of our British community, and also, I feel certain, will attract the admiration and the approval of free and civilised nations.’

The jingling phrase, ‘Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right,’ was everywhere caught up. It became one of the war-cries of the time and spread with spirit-speed all over the country. The attitude of the Protestant North of Ireland became daily more formidable. The excitement in Belfast did not subside. Dangerous riots, increasing in fury until they almost amounted to warfare, occurred in the streets between the factions of Orange and Green. Fire-arms were freely used by the police and by the combatants. Houses were sacked and men and women were killed. So savage, repeated and prolonged were the disturbances, breaking out again and again in spite of all efforts to suppress them, that they became in the end the subject of a Parliamentary Commission, the evidence and report of which are not pleasant reading and proved, when finally published, damaging to the Orange party.

The subject was not, however, discussed in the House of Commons until May 20. An interlude in the Home Rule debate was required for the passage of an Arms Bill which the state of Ireland generally, and of Ulster in particular, had rendered necessary. Lord Randolph was, of course, the object of severe attack from the Irish party and especially from Mr. Parnell, who accused him of inciting, unintentionally, to murder and outrage. To this charge, and to a statement of Sir Henry James that his Ulster speech proved him ‘half a traitor,’ he replied indignantly. He was able to cite the authority of Lord Althorp, Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Morley and of the Prime Minister himself in support of the contention that circumstances might justify morally, if not technically, violent resistance or even civil war. He declined to recede in any way from his words, and the Conservative party cheered him loudly when he said so. Sir Henry James made a soft answer; but the extraordinary feature in the debate was the intervention of the Prime Minister. He did not arrive in the House until after Lord Randolph had spoken, but without delay he launched out upon a sonorous denunciation of his proceedings. He declared that such conduct reminded him of Mr. Smith O’Brien, who in 1848 had risen in his place and announced that, regarding constitutional means exhausted, he would forthwith return to Ireland and proceed to levy war against the Queen. But Mr. Smith O’Brien, argued Mr. Gladstone, was only a private member and a representative of the people. How much more reprehensible was such conduct when displayed by a former Minister of the Crown, by an ex-Secretary of State and by a Privy Councillor! It almost seemed, from the measured severity of the Prime Minister, that he intended to conclude by intimating that he had advised the Queen to strike Lord Randolph Churchill’s name from the list of the Privy Council. But he avoided this natural conclusion to his argument. ‘If,’ he said, ‘we were a weaker country, with less solid institutions, such occurrences as this would, in my opinion, have called for severe and immediate notice.’ Mr. Plunket from the Front Opposition Bench defended Lord Randolph, but the Irish continued to attack him all the evening in an acrimonious fashion. The next day Lord Randolph wrote to the Prime Minister, pointing out some inaccuracies in the words attributed to him. Mr. Gladstone replied tartly:--

10 Downing Street, Whitehall: May 21, 1886.

Dear Lord Randolph,--I have to acknowledge the receipt of your
letter of this day, and it would be a matter of great regret to me
if I had used words which misrepresented your statements on so
important a question as that of resistance to the law.

My words rested mainly on a recollection of your speech in Ulster,
and of your letter of May 7 to Mr. Young. To abridge or avoid any
controversy which is avoidable, I will at once say I am content to
take your opinions as you have yourself expressed them in the
closing paragraph of your letter to Mr. Young.

Let us, then, if you please, consider that paragraph as already
substituted for my words.

The only difference will be that to that paragraph I should feel
constrained to apply the words in which last night I endeavoured to
describe your opinions, without any subtraction or modification, in
lieu of applying them to the description from memory which on the
moment I endeavoured to give.

I remain, dear Lord Randolph, Faithfully yours, W. E. GLADSTONE.

There the matter ended, being crushed in the throng of greater events. Constitutional authorities will measure their censures according to their political opinions; but the fact remains that when men are sufficiently in earnest they will back their words by more than votes. ‘I am sorry to say,’ said Mr. Gladstone in 1884, in defence of Mr. Chamberlain’s threat to march 100,000 men from Birmingham to London in support of the Franchise Bill, ‘that if no instructions had ever been addressed in political crises to the people of this country except to remember to hate violence and love order and exercise patience, the liberties of this country would never have been attained.’

Lord Randolph immediately on his return from Ulster, at the end of February, threw himself heart and soul into his favourite project of a coalition. To bring all Unionists together in one line of battle, strengthened by trust and comradeship, to spread with roses the path of every man or Minister who would separate from Mr. Gladstone, was his unwearying endeavour. He would not allow personal differences to disfigure that array. As early as January he had made friends with Lord Hartington, who was still deeply offended by the ‘boa constrictor’ speech.

_Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Hartington._

India Office: January 13, 1886.

Dear Lord Hartington,--I learnt some time ago that you had
considered some remarks which I made in Manchester in November
concerning yourself in your public position considerably exceeded
the proper limits of political controversy. From your manner this
afternoon when we met I venture to think that you will not
misunderstand me when I endeavour to assure you that in case I am
open to blame in this matter I greatly regret it; and indeed will
admit that it is probable that on the occasion alluded to I dwelt
upon events which I feel must ever be to you of a deeply painful
memory in an unguarded and stupid manner.

There was, however, I hope you will believe, no intention on my
part to say aught that you could object to on these grounds, and I
am very sorry if it is the case that I gave you cause for
reasonable and just complaint.

Yours faithfully, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

This, of course, put everything right. Lord Hartington replied with much cordiality, and the friendly relations thus re-established were thereafter consistently preserved and improved.

On March 2 Lord Randolph visited Manchester again, was received by enormous crowds in the streets and spoke at almost proportionate length in the evening to upwards of 12,000 people in the Pomona Gardens--a spot now occupied by the central pool of the Ship Canal. Certainly the offer which, with Lord Salisbury’s consent, he made to the Whigs and Liberal seceders could not well have been more fair or handsome. ‘Tell us what you want,’ he said: ‘dictate your terms. We believe in your hearts you are animated only by a desire for the welfare of the country; we believe that you possess the capacity, mental and otherwise, for contributing to that welfare. If you like to form a Government yourselves, we will support you. If, on the other hand, you wish for our personal co-operation in that Government, we will give it you. If there are persons to whom you object and with whom you do not wish to serve, those persons will stand aside cheerfully.’ And then he went on, in a passage which those he so faithfully served ought not perhaps to overlook, to urge the formation of a new party. ‘Do you not think,’ he asked, ‘that the time has arrived--and fully arrived--when we might seriously consider together how we might form a new political party in England? Do you not think that that party might be an essentially English party? I say English from no spirit of prejudice whatever. I mean a party which shall be essentially English in all those ideas of justice, of moderation, of freedom from prejudice and of resolution which are the peculiarities of the English race. Do you not think that such a party might be formed, which might combine all that is best of the politics of the Tory, the Whig or the Liberal?--combine them all, whether they be principles or whether they be men; and might not we call that party by a new name--might not we call it the party of the Union? Members of that party might be known as Unionists. Our opponents are the party of Separation, and they may be known as ‘Separatists,’ because they are a party who, in one form or another, would adopt a policy which would be equivalent to the restoration of the Heptarchy--a policy which would throw back our civilisation for centuries, and a policy which must inevitably destroy that great fabric of empire which those centuries have laboriously erected. I ask you to answer that proposition seriously. Let us go in for a party of Union; and it is not only to be a party of union of the United Kingdom, but it is also to be a party which supports as its great and main and leading principle union with our colonies and union with our Indian Empire. I offer this without further elaboration to your most earnest attention, because I believe that it is only by the union of all the subjects of the Queen in all parts of the world and by the re-invigorated cooperation, cohesion and consolidation of all parts of the widely scattered British Empire that you can hope to restore to your commerce and to your industries their lost prosperity.’

Meanwhile the preparation of the Irish Bills was jealously guarded from the public eye. Rumours and reports of their character, and of the resistance they were encountering in the Cabinet, multiplied and perished daily. Whigs and Moderate Liberals arraigned before anxious local associations defended themselves in one way or another from charges of ‘insubordination’ and ‘lukewarmness.’ Even those who had refused great office were subjected to severe examination. But while the agitation and excitement in the country mounted steadily, the proceedings in Parliament were tame and dull. ‘Les jours se passent et se ressemblent,’ wrote Lord Randolph. ‘Waiting on the G.O.M. is weary work.’ Radical resolutions in favour of Disestablishment and the abolition of the House of Lords failed to rouse the smallest interest. All debates on other than Irish subjects were unreal; and as the Government reasonably claimed sufficient time to present their policy in due form, discussion on Ireland degenerated into desultory skirmishing. A Scottish Crofters Bill and the colourless ‘Cottage Budget’ slipped easily through. An unrestful hush preceded the storm.

In this interval Lord Salisbury retired to the Riviera and Lord Randolph kept him supplied, as usual, with every kind of rumour, chaff, gossip and circumstantial information, which his wide and various acquaintanceship enabled him to collect. These chatty letters do not lend themselves to reproduction. They are too full of sharp phrases and personal confidences. But in the main they show only the utter uncertainty and confusion that reigned in the political world and how, even to those best able to judge, much that seemed trivial, turned out to be true and important and much that looked substance, proved moonshine.

Lord Salisbury himself was far-sighted, but not sanguine. He was doubtful of a Whig coalition:--

It was said of the Peelites of 1850 [he wrote on March 16] that
they were always putting themselves up to auction and always buying
themselves in. That seems to me the Whig idea at present. I do not
think it is necessary to make any more advances to them. The next
steps must come from them.

I have great doubts about _your_ being the impediment. I observe
that Hartington, whenever he has the chance, dwells with so much
conviction upon my ‘rashness, &c.,’ that I suspect I am more the
difficulty than you. I believe the G.O.M., if he were driven to so
frightful a dilemma, would rather work with me than with you; but
that with Hartington it is the reverse.

And a fortnight later:--

It does not seem to me possible that we should attempt to govern by
a majority of which Hartington, Trevelyan and Chamberlain will be
important parts. On the other hand, a dissolution by us, as a
‘Government of Caretakers,’ would be hazardous. It would give both
the Chamberlain and Hartington sections an opportunity of wooing
back their old supporters by abusing us on some point or other that
is sure to arise and so escaping from the necessity of fighting the
election campaign mainly on Home Rule. It would be much better for
us that the dissolution should take place with Gladstone in power,
and upon the Home Rule question. It will then be impossible for the
three sections of Liberals to coalesce against us, and the moderate
men will be compelled to give us (at the election) some friendly
guarantees. But Gladstone may, if he is beaten, decline either to
dissolve or to go on. I see no hope of good Parliamentary
government in England unless the right wing of the Liberals can be
fused with the Tories on some basis which shall represent the
average opinion of the whole mass. But I see little hope of it. The
tendency to grouping, caused mainly by the exigencies of various
cliques of supporters, is becoming irresistible.

* * * * *

I doubt any popular stirring on this question. The instinctive
feeling of an Englishman is to wish to get rid of an Irishman. We
may gain as many votes as Parnell takes from us; I doubt more.
Where we shall gain is in splitting up our opponents.

But in the last week of March the situation cleared and hardened. Descriptions more or less accurate and detailed of the Home Rule Bill and its companion measure had leaked out. The division in the Cabinet became open. Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Trevelyan had, it now appears, already wished to resign on the 16th. Mr. Gladstone persuaded them to remain, at any rate until the Irish proposals could be presented to his colleagues in a concrete form. On the 26th the Prime Minister faced his powerful lieutenant for the last time across the Cabinet table. The differences of opinion and mood were not to be reconciled or covered by verbal concessions, however ingenious. Even with goodwill on both sides they could not honestly have come to an agreement. And by this time personal goodwill had ceased to be the determining factor in the decisions of either. The resignations were announced forthwith. Persons were found, as is usual in such circumstances, to occupy rather than to fill their places. Together, in the ensuing five years, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain could have carried almost any measure of Liberal or Radical reform upon which they were resolved. The champion of Tory Democracy, the cautious leader of the Whigs, the astute Conservative general, would have resisted them in vain. But the separation proved as lasting as it was complete and the war declared upon March 26, 1886, did not cease until after Mr. Gladstone had finally retired from the political arena.

Ever since their reconciliation after the Aston Riots, Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr. Chamberlain had been good friends. The Radical leader had been the first to offer his congratulations upon the defeat of ‘the old gang’ in June 1885. He had discountenanced the opposition to Lord Randolph’s re-election on taking office, and had been displeased that a contrary action should have been attributed to him. The bickerings and wranglings of the General Election in Birmingham had left their personal relations quite unaffected. They had fought with fairness, and even with courtesy in public speech, and without rancour of any kind. The friendship that existed between them was now to have an important bearing upon the course of events.

In various ways Lord Randolph Churchill was the only prominent man in the Conservative ranks with whom Mr. Chamberlain could easily deal. Lord Salisbury represented opposite ideas, and his antagonism had been so recent and marked that direct association was impossible, even in this great crisis. But Lord Randolph had been so roundly charged, both by his Conservative comrades and his regular opponents, with being ‘a Radical in disguise,’ and was, in fact, so far advanced on many questions, that Mr. Chamberlain could consort with him without embarrassment or flagrant incongruity. Lord Randolph therefore became a natural and indispensable link. The force of political circumstances was strengthened by personal predilection. Both men liked each other’s company. Their moods and ways of looking at things--to some extent their methods--were not altogether dissimilar. Both were popular leaders drawing their strength from democracy. Both were bold, determined, outspoken and impulsive by nature. Both had been joined to their orthodox party colleagues by slender and uncertain bonds. So long as Chamberlain was a Minister, their communications were necessarily restricted; but as soon as he had resigned, he was free, and the two came together in close and cordial co-operation.

Mr. Chamberlain was not likely to be turned from his purpose by the difficulties and dangers of his position. The determination of such men is only aggravated by these elements. Their doubts are hardened into convictions at the whisper of compulsion. He had made up his mind, and he would certainly not have been bullied out of it. All sorts of ingenious and substantial alternatives occupied his imagination. An Irish National Assembly, sitting at Dublin, ‘free to make bye-laws,’ but ‘subject to the authority’ of Parliament--able to levy rates, but leaving ‘the Queen’s taxes to be settled at Westminster,’ would not have driven him away. But on the main point he would not budge, any more than Mr. Gladstone. He would not on any account erect ‘another sovereign authority similar to the Imperial Parliament.’ Rather than consent thereto he would face political ruin. And, indeed, it might have come very near to that latter conclusion in the summer months of 1886.

Lord Randolph Churchill now set himself to work by every means in his power to make the path of such an ally easy and smooth. To bring ‘the great Joe,’ as he is so often called in the Churchill-Salisbury correspondence, into the main line of the Union party seemed to him, indeed, a worthy aspiration. He possessed in private life a personal attractiveness and a wonderful manner--at once courtly, frank and merry--which he did not by any means always display. Only his intimate friends saw his best side. He now exerted himself to comfort Mr. Chamberlain in the difficulties by which he was beset, and to make him feel, in the midst of so much anxiety, that he was not without generous friends in the Conservative party, who were ready to work with him in this great fight without conditions or explanations of any kind--without, indeed, one thought beyond the immediate overpowering issue of the hour. The two men dined together often; they corresponded freely; they consulted almost every day.

The Ministerial resignations and the imminence of the Parliamentary crisis induced Lord Randolph to urge by telegraph Lord Salisbury’s return. The latter was, however, not well enough to travel for several days and in the meanwhile his lieutenants were in much perplexity. Lord Randolph wrote to Lord Salisbury on March 29:--

Joe’s conversation last night was somewhat to this effect: He has
separated from Gladstone on account of the question of keeping the
Irish M.P.’s at Westminster. Chamberlain’s Parliament or Council
would be little more than a kind of central vestry, and the Irish
M.P.’s would remain at Westminster as they now are. Gladstone’s
Parliament is a real Parliament, and contemplates the departure of
the Irish M.P.’s. Chamberlain is very anxious, and cannot count for
certain on Radical support. He is rather ‘drawing a bow at a
venture.’ He is much exercised because G.O.M. will not let him make
any explanation of his resignation until after he has introduced
his Bill. Thus G.O.M. has the advantage of first bark. I am going
to dine with Joe to-night at his house, _tête-à-tête_, and shall
learn more. Last night there were too many others present for much
close conversation. Caine, on being asked to stand for Barrow, made
a _sine quâ non_ that he was to oppose Home Rule, and the Barrow
Liberals have accepted him on this platform. This is not without
significance. Gladstone declares he will have a majority of 100;
the Government Whips say 20; R---- says he will be beaten by 70.

Joe told me he had not exchanged a word with John Morley for six
weeks. Ashbourne was commenting last night on the fact that
Archbishop Walsh had swallowed John Morley’s atheism. ‘Ah,’ said
Morris, ‘John Morley spells God with a small _g_; but he spells
Gladstone with a big _G_, and that satisfies the Archbishop.’

I shall write to you again to-morrow and tell you what I hear
to-night.

_March 30._--I hope this will catch you before you leave Monte
Carlo. I learnt a good deal from my friend Joe last night.
Gladstone’s scheme, when Chamberlain retired, was roughly to this
effect: An Irish Parliament of one Chamber, with political powers
equal to the constitution of Canada, controlling all sources of
revenue, raising any taxes, with Ministers responsible to Irish
Parliament. Some kind of shadowy veto reserved to Crown. No other
guarantees or safeguards. The fiscal arrangement was to this
effect: At present Ireland pays by taxation 8,000,000_l._ to
Exchequer; of this England spends 4,000,000_l._ on expenses of
Irish Government, and takes the balance towards service of debt,
army and navy. In future Ireland is to pay 3,500,000_l._ to the
Exchequer towards these three latter objects, and to pay for her
Government as best she can.

The land scheme contemplated the issue of Consols to selling
landlords at a rate which was the same all over Ireland, but which
was to some extent influenced by the size of the holding. If
everybody interested in land took advantage of the scheme
simultaneously, the amount of Consols to be issued would be
220,000,000_l._; but by various dodges this was not to take place,
and the estimated gross issue of Consols was placed at
120,000,000_l._ On this advance Ireland would have to pay 3 per
cent. interest and 1 per cent. sinking fund, or something over
4,000,000_l._ a year. So that the total payments to the Exchequer
would be about what Ireland pays now--viz. 8,000,000_l._--for which
she would receive the land of Ireland and political independence.
Chamberlain thought the whole scheme might be altered by the G.O.M.
between last Friday and Thursday, 8th; but such it was in rough
outline when he left them. Can you imagine twelve men in their
senses silently swallowing such lunatic proposals?

Chamberlain said he could not support opposition to the
introduction of this Bill; so that, I suppose, no such opposition
will be pressed. He said that it was everything that the country
should see the G.O.M. had had the fairest of fair play. He is going
to reply to the G.O.M. on the 8th, and I could see he contemplates
a smashing speech--in fact, a speech for dear life.... No doubt
Chamberlain’s defection has increased Hartington’s numerical
following, and it has also rather fluttered him, for fear he should
be cut out by Chamberlain taking the lead. Chamberlain told me that
there was not a chance of his ever serving in the same Cabinet with
Goschen. This will make a reconstruction of the Liberal Government
under Hartington impossible.

Political apprehension increased as the date for the declaration of the Irish policy drew near. This event, after various postponements, was finally fixed for April 8. Early in the month Lord Randolph persuaded Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Salisbury to meet. The Turf Club was the neutral ground selected. Thither Lord Salisbury repaired--not, as it appears, without trepidation and misgivings, and in the little dingy downstairs room where visitors are received, was begun that strange alliance afterwards so powerfully to affect the course of history. ‘I was very anxious to see you to-day,’ wrote Lord Randolph to Mr. Chamberlain on the 5th, ‘but learn you are gone home. Your friends, of whom you have many, of whose existence you are not perhaps aware, are desperately anxious that in any reply which you may make to Gladstone on Thursday, you should not commit yourself to, or acknowledge the authorship of, any alternative scheme. It would be a very dangerous piece of manœuvring with such a skilful opponent as the G.O.M., and besides might scatter dissension among the allies without conciliating estranged Radicals or infuriated Irish. Don’t be cross with me for troubling you. The situation is so critical for everybody that any genuine opinion is worth consideration.’

And again later from the House of Commons:--

‘My anxiety about Thursday forces me to write to you again to remind you, in case of forgetfulness among many other anxieties, that the Queen’s consent to a detailed explanation of Cabinet proceedings is required, which consent I am informed on high authority must be asked for in a formal letter.... The G.O.M. is capable of trying to trip you up on any formality.’

Mr. Chamberlain replied on the 6th. He was vexed with Lord Hartington, who had changed his mind about the arrangements of the debate and who now wished to follow Mr. Gladstone immediately. To this Mr. Chamberlain had assented, not without irritation. ‘The whole matter,’ he wrote, ‘is rendered more uncertain by the fact that the permission from the Queen is curiously worded. It seems to preclude reference to Land Purchase; and as this is bound up with the scheme of Home Rule, I shall decline to say a word unless I am free to tell the whole story. I have written to Mr. Gladstone, but at present have no idea whether or when I shall speak.’

Lord Randolph answered:--

House of Commons: April 7, 1886.

I and my friends pressed very strongly on Hartington and his lot
your indefeasible title to speak after G.O.M. if you chose to do
so, and last evening they finally agreed to this. Now things are
again in confusion ... if we do not act symmetrically and in union,
we shall all get muddled up. Lord H. tells me he is going to see
you this evening. I want to see you first. Could you meet me at the
Athenæum, and, if so, at what hour? Send reply by bearer to
Carlton.