Chapter XXII: Opposition Once More (1)

Though much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
TENNYSON: _Ulysses_.

[Sidenote: 1892 ÆT. 43]

The variations of English politics are continual, and at times so swift that those who influence them and are in turn influenced by them are hardly conscious of the pace they are travelling. As the general situation alters, the relations of its principal characters insensibly change. The doubtful or indifferent acquaintance of one year is the trusted comrade of the next. Combinations impossible in January are inevitable in June. Mortal offences are forgotten, if they are not forgiven; and as the ship moves forward into newer waters only a fading streak of froth lingers on the surface of the sea.

Lord Randolph Churchill returned from South Africa early in 1892, to find, so far as he was concerned, a better temper and complexion in public affairs than at any time since his resignation. The life of the Government was ebbing away; the appeal to country could not be long delayed; and although the Parnell disclosures had immensely strengthened the Unionist position, there was little in the record or character of the Administration to excite popular enthusiasm. The drag of six years of office made its effect felt, and the Grand Old Man seemed still to enjoy the unconquerable splendour of his powers. That feeling of closing up the ranks, usually the prelude to a General Election, was abroad in the party; and its chiefs, though he did not at first realise it, looked in amity, not unmingled with anxiety, to the erstwhile leader of Tory Democracy, who had done such great things with the electors in the past and might, for all they knew, exert even a greater influence in the future. His reappearance in the House of Commons in the first days of February created a stir, which his silent and reserved demeanour did not speedily allay. Alike in the lobbies and the newspapers the question was debated, ‘What is he going to do?’ And it must be admitted that his answer to the resolution in which the South Paddington Conservative Association inquired whether he proposed to stand, and if so whether he would support the general policy of the Conservative party, did not altogether remove the uncertainty which existed.

‘I would be obliged to you,’ he wrote to the Secretary of the Association (February 4, 1892), ‘if you would inform the Committee that, as at present advised, it is my intention in the event of a dissolution of Parliament to offer myself to the constituency for re-election and that in taking that course I should hope that I might rely upon the renewed support of the body which the Committee represent. It would further be my intention, in the event of my being re-elected as member of Parliament for the borough, to give to the Tory party the same support which I have given to it since the year 1874, when I first entered Parliament. Of the usefulness of that support it is not for me to judge; it is sufficient for me to say that my action in the future in the House of Commons would be in accordance, and consistent, with my action in the past.’

To FitzGibbon he wrote with greater plainness.

Penn House, Amersham: January 13, 1892.

It was too pleasant to get a sight of your handwriting again. My
travel through South Africa was as nice an experience as anyone
could have, and though I am very glad to get back I really enjoyed
every hour of my journey. I think I find H. M. G. in a very weak
and tottering state; their feelings towards myself more bitter and
hostile than ever. But I imagine that, willy nilly, they will have
to shake off or subdue their prejudices, for great troubles are
before them. My information is that a large, influential and to
some extent independent section of Tories kick awfully against
Irish Local Government and do not mean to vote for it. This comes
from a very knowledgeable member of the Government outside the
Cabinet. If the Government proceed with their project they will
either split or seriously dishearten the party, and to do either on
the verge of a General Election would be suicidal. This is what
they ought to do: They ought to say this Irish Local Government is
far too large a question to be dealt with by a moribund
Parliament; they ought to confess that there is not sufficient
agreement among their supporters as to the nature and extent of
such a measure, such as would favour the chances of successful
legislation, and that they have determined to reserve the matter
for a new Parliament, when the mind of the country upon their Irish
administration has been fully ascertained. But I would not stop
there. What is the great feature of the political situation in
Ireland now? The resurrection in great force of priestly domination
in political matters. Now I would cool the ardour of these
potentates for Mr. G. by at once offering them the largest
concessions on education--primary, intermediate, and
University--which justice and generosity could admit of. I would
not give them everything before the General Election, but I would
give a good lot, and keep a good lot for the new Parliament. I do
not think they could resist the bribe; and the soothing effect of
such a policy on the Irish vote and attitude would be marked. Of
course the concession would have to be very large--almost as large
as what the Bishops have ever asked for--but preserving always
intact Trinity College. It would assume the material shape of a
money subsidy. What do you think of this? What is the frame of mind
of the Bishops? What form and scope would you give to such a
measure or measures as I suggest?

H. M. G. have no imagination or originality. The keystone of their
policy has been to play against the life of Mr. G. This (not very
noble, but still human) policy should, once taken up, be pursued
remorselessly. To carry on the policy, the life of the Parliament
should be prolonged into ‘93. How to do this? Introduce a measure
dealing largely with the registration laws.

‘One man one vote’--a trifle--could be conceded; twelve months’
residence in lieu of eighteen established; paid officials for
preparing register appointed in all constituencies. The new
register could not be ready before the early spring of next year,
and the convenient time for the election would be the summer or
autumn. Now, my dear FitzGibbon, imagine the consternation, fury
and utter paralysis of the Gladstonians if the Government were to
make this complete _volte-face_--this tremendous surprise (all so
logical and defensible as it is), the relief and joy of the Tories
at getting rid of Local Government and at getting another year of
life! Do not show this to anyone, unless it be to David Plunket, if
he is with you--the Government are too fond of appropriating my
ideas without acknowledgment--but write me all you think about it.
I could write pages in support of it, but your own wily and Ulysses
kind of mind will suggest to you all the wonderful elaboration of
which it is susceptible.

And again in April:--

Politics attract me less and less and I successfully resist all
invitations to take part in them, whether in Parliament or in the
country. I really sincerely do not think that an offer of office
would cause me the slightest emotion or drag me from my freedom and
carelessness. However, that speculation is not likely to be put to
the test. I have now a nice position--well with my constituents,
well with my party--and am inclined to let well alone. I anticipate
with amiable malice a Unionist defeat, and speculate on the nature
of their struggles to resume power after that defeat. Balfour is
doing very well, and has been much benefited by the senseless
outcry raised against him by the Opposition.... Did you see my
beautiful Latin letter to the [Trinity] College authorities,
corrected and revised by Welldon of Harrow! It ought to have been
published.

As the dissolution approached, overtures were made to him to contest several constituencies and he was pressed on all sides for his assistance. He declined everything. ‘It is not my intention,’ he wrote to one ardent Tory Democrat,[75] ‘to make any political speeches at the present time. Formerly I made many; but the labour was thankless and fruitless. Besides, I have not the smallest idea what the programme of our party now is.... From 1880 to 1886 I advocated on my own account a generally liberal and progressive policy, with the result that when I came into office I found that none of my colleagues were prepared to give to this policy the smallest genuine support; and that, office having been reached, promises to the people were to be forgotten or evaded. This experience I will never recommence; and it is for this reason that I decline, and must continue to decline, all invitations to take part in the platform exercises which precede the General Election.’ In Parliament he remained silent. He admired Mr. Balfour’s early essays in leading the House. ‘At last,’ he said, ‘the Tory party have got a leader whom they like.’ To one who told him that if he sat below the gangway he could soon overthrow the Government, he answered, ‘No, no; Arthur Balfour is too often nearly right.’

The only interventions in outside politics which he allowed himself were a speech on Metropolitan affairs during the London County Council election and a letter to Mr. Arnold White, the Liberal-Unionist candidate for Tyneside. This letter, however, outlines so boldly the scope and direction of his views that it deserves to be quoted.

He wrote:--

The Labour community is carrying on at the present day a very
significant and instructive struggle. It has emancipated itself
very largely from the mere mechanism of party politics; it realises
that it now possesses political power to such an extent as to make
it independent of either party in the State; and the struggle which
it is now carrying on is less against Capital, less one of wages or
division of profits, but rather one for the practical utilisation
in its own interest of the great political power which it has
acquired. The Labour interest is now seeking to do itself what the
landed interest and the manufacturing capitalist interest did for
themselves when each in turn commanded the disposition of State
policy. Our land laws were framed by the landed interest for the
advantage of the landed interest, and foreign policy was directed
by that interest to the same end. Political power passed very
considerably from the landed interest to the manufacturing
capitalist interest, and our whole fiscal system was shaped by this
latter power to its own advantage, foreign policy being also made
to coincide. We are now come, or are coming fast, to a time when
Labour laws will be made by the Labour interest for the advantage
of Labour. The regulation of all the conditions of labour by the
State, controlled and guided by the Labour vote, appears to be the
ideal aimed at; and I think it extremely probable that a foreign
policy which sought to extend by tariff over our Colonies and even
over other friendly States, the area of profitable barter of
produce will strongly commend itself to the mind of the Labour
interest. Personally I can discern no cause for alarm in this
prospect and I believe that on this point you and I are in perfect
agreement. Labour in this modern movement has against it the
prejudices of property, the resources of capital, and all the
numerous forces--social, professional, and journalist--which those
prejudices and resources can influence. It is our business as Tory
politicians to uphold the Constitution. If under the Constitution
as it now exists, and as we wish to see it preserved, the Labour
interest finds that it can obtain its objects and secure its own
advantage, then that interest will be reconciled to the
Constitution, will find faith in it and will maintain it. But if
it should unfortunately occur that the Constitutional party, to
which you and I belong, are deaf to hear and slow to meet the
demands of Labour, are stubborn in opposition to those demands and
are persistent in the habit of ranging themselves in unreasoning
and short-sighted support of all the present rights of property and
capital, the result may be that the Labour interest may identify
what it will take to be defects in the Constitutional party with
the Constitution itself, and in a moment of indiscriminate impulse
may use its power to sweep both away. This view of affairs, I
submit, is worthy of attention at a time when it is a matter of
life or death to the Constitutional party to enlist in the support
of the Parliamentary Union of the United Kingdom a majority of the
votes of the masses of Labour.

You tell me that you find the designation ‘Tory’ a great difficulty
to you. I cannot see any good reason for this. After all, since the
Revolution the designation ‘Tory’ has always possessed an
essentially popular flavour, in contradistinction to the
designation ‘Whig.’ It has not only a popular but a grand
historical origin; it denotes great historical struggles, in many
of which the Tory party have been found on the popular side. Lord
Beaconsfield--who, if he was anything, was a man of the people and
understood the popular significance of names and words--invariably
made use of the word ‘Tory’ to characterise his party; and whatever
the Tory party may be deemed to be at particular moments, I have
always held, from the commencement of my political life, that,
rightly understood and explained, it ought to be, and was intended
to be, the party of broad ideas and of a truly liberal policy.

His interest in Labour questions was, indeed, growing steadily. When the Eight Hours Bill for Miners was discussed that year in the Commons, he addressed a long private letter to Mr. Balfour praying for its considerate treatment. ‘I humbly advise, but pressingly; in the debate let Gorst have a little Labour fling. Keep your hand tight over Matthews and, if you can see your way to it, make one of those interesting and amicable speeches which you can do so well, not exactly saying that your mind is open, but, to use a Gladstonianism, that it is not altogether absolutely closed. You can realise,’ he added quaintly, ‘how much importance I attach to the question when I tell you that I am actually coming up from Lincoln and missing three important races in which our horses run, to vote for the Bill. I do not think I would do this for the Monarchy, the Church, the House of Lords or the Union.’

The General Election came at that period, July, dear to the hearts of Tory organisers, when democracy is supposed to be under the soothing influence of summer weather, and before villadom has departed on its holidays. Lord Randolph took little part in it. He stood for South Paddington as a Conservative and an opponent of Home Rule. He let it be understood that if he was not interfered with by the Liberal party he would not speak outside the limits of his own constituency. This bargain seeming sufficiently good, in view of the fact that the seat was impregnable, no opposition was offered him. The only speech he found it necessary to make, and his election address, dealt almost entirely with the maintenance of the Union, though the latter also contained the following paragraph:--

‘My views as to the reforms in the public service which public safety and economy alike urgently call for, are, I think, well known to you; they have undergone no change, save that I hold them more strongly than ever. You are also, I imagine, not unaware of my desire to meet with all legitimate sympathy and good-will the newly-formed but very articulate and well-defined demands of the labouring classes.’

To FitzGibbon he wrote:--

I cannot manage to get over for the Trinity College festivities. I
have a great and increasing horror of anything in the nature of
speeches and functions. We are all over here awaiting in suspense
the result of the elections.... I have refused many invitations to
speak. I do not think the time at all propitious for anything in
the shape of a manifesto such as you suggest. Besides which, I have
no contest in this constituency; and as the Radicals are not
annoying me I do not want to provoke them. Nor do I feel called
upon to take any action which may be of the slightest use to a
Government and a party which for five years has boycotted and
slandered me....

The Paddington election proceeded smoothly to an unopposed return. Parliament met only to change an Administration and separate for the holidays.

[Sidenote: 1893 ÆT. 44]

I am living [Lord Randolph wrote to FitzGibbon in November] a very
quiet life in London, mainly occupied in reading books of one kind
and another. I have two discourses to deliver, one at Macclesfield
on the 30th inst. and one at Perth in December. Then _tacebo_. I
hope John Morley will make a final adjustment of the grievances of
those poor Christian Brothers. If I can usefully make any
representations to him, instruct me. We have always been very good
friends. Such Ministers as I have seen declare that they will soon
be turned out; but I cannot see why this should be so. At any rate,
beyond opposing their Home Rule Bill, I shall do nothing to bother
them, as I very greatly prefer them to their predecessors.

This feeling of detachment was soon to be removed. The accession of Mr. Gladstone to power and the imminence of a Home Rule Bill was bound to unite in the most effective manner all sections of the Unionist party. Lord Randolph had, since his return from South Africa, accepted, though not without embarrassment, an invitation to dine with Lord Salisbury. ‘C’est le premier plat qui coûte,’ wrote Wolff, who highly approved of the proceeding. Now Chamberlain sent a very friendly letter, and this was soon followed by a long and agreeable conference. The meetings which Lord Randolph had consented to address at Perth and Macclesfield in the autumn must have made his antagonism to the new Government plain; and only the sudden death of his brother the Duke of Marlborough, in November, which was a great shock to him, caused those arrangements to fall through; so that Parliament met in January, 1893, without his having formally joined himself to the official leaders of the Opposition.

With the opening of the Session and the beginning of the fight came full and complete reconciliation. He was urged to take his place again upon the Front Bench. ‘If it had ever occurred to me,’ wrote Mr. Balfour (January 30, 1893), ‘that you could sit anywhere but on our bench, I would have spoken about it to you last night. _Everyone_ desires you should do so, and _most of all_ yours ever, A. J. B.’ At the meeting of the Conservative party in the Carlton Club to consider the resistance to the Home Rule Bill, he kept himself in the background at some distance from Lord Salisbury. But after all the worthies had spoken, the assembly still found the proceedings incomplete and loud cries were raised from all parts of the room for ‘Churchill.’ At first there was no response, but so continuous and insistent was the demand that Lord Randolph eventually came forward and in a few simple words, which evoked remarkable enthusiasm, declared his willingness to serve, to the best of his ability, in the House of Commons under his friend and political chief, Mr. Balfour. He was henceforward invited to attend the private meetings of the Unionist leaders which were held at Devonshire House during the passage of the Irish Bill, and he took his share in framing the amendments and deciding upon the policy of the Opposition.

But now, when a new prospect was opening to his view, when he had been welcomed by the mass of the party, when he had returned to its inmost councils and ranged himself once again with his old friends and colleagues in whole-hearted support of a cause which he had long defended, a dark hand intervened. The great strain to which he had subjected himself during the struggle against Mr. Gladstone, the vexations and disappointments of later years and finally the severe physical exertions and exposure of South Africa had produced in a neurotic temperament and delicate constitution a very rare and ghastly disease. During the winter of ‘92 symptoms of vertigo, palpitation, and numbness of the hands made themselves felt, and his condition was already a cause of the deepest anxiety to his friends. But it was not till he rose on the occasion of the introduction of the Home Rule Bill that the political world realised how great was the change. It happened that the debate was unexpectedly delayed by a question of privilege. The suspense proved a strain greater than he could bear with composure and when he rose his nervousness was extreme, and more to be looked for in some novice presuming for the first time than in a Parliamentarian of near twenty years’ standing. He no longer dared to trust his memory: while the notes of his speech on the first Home Rule Bill had been written on a single sheet of paper, he now required eighteen. The House, crowded in every part to hear him, was shocked by his strangely altered appearance. It seemed incredible that this bald and bearded man with shaking hands and a white face drawn with pain and deeply marked with the lines of care and illness, and with a voice whose tremulous tones already betrayed the fatal difficulty of articulation, could be that same brilliant audacious leader who in the flush of exultant youth had marched irresistibly to power through the stormy days of 1886.

Yet the quality of his speech showed no signs of intellectual failing. Avoiding the network of details in which so many speakers had stumbled, he presented a broad intelligible picture. Lucid and original expression, close and careful reasoning, wealth of knowledge, quaint Randolphian witticisms--all were there. Although much of the charm and force of his manner was gone, his statement was considered by good and impartial judges to have been, with the exception of Mr. Chamberlain’s, the best speech delivered against the Bill.

And he was destined to have one last flicker of success. Once again was he to encounter, not unequally, his majestic antagonist; once again those he had been so proud to lead, were to sustain him with triumphant acclamation. Exactly a week after his reappearance he was entrusted with the conclusion of the debate on the Welsh Church Suspensory Bill. The trying circumstances of his first effort were no longer present and the feeling that he had broken the ice comforted him. His whole condition varied sensibly from day to day. This was his good day. The House seemed friendly to him; his spirits responded to its mood, and for the moment he seemed to recover all, or nearly all, of his former power. Anyone who will take the trouble to read in Hansard the intricate and sustained argument and the ready rejoinders of the speech will see that the vigour of his mind was unimpaired. Triumph came at the end. Putting aside his notes, he began a fierce and sparkling attack on Mr. Gladstone. It is the last quotation I shall make:--

‘What motive has influenced the right honourable gentleman and his colleagues to propose this measure to the House? It is not, as the member for Hertford said, “plunder.” That is the local motive. The political motive is widely different. It is undoubtedly to secure votes for their Irish policy. On behalf of that Irish policy nothing must be spared--not even the Established Church in Wales. Votes! Votes! Votes! That is the cry of the right honourable gentleman, and that is the political morality which he preaches.

‘Hæc Janus summus ab imo
Prodocet. Hæc recinunt juvenes dictata senesque.

Votes at any cost, votes at any price. Refrain from nothing that can get you votes; adhere to nothing that can prevent your getting votes--the votes which alone can accomplish the political salvation of the Liberal party. I see before me,’ he continued, backed by the clamorous growing support of the great party from whom he had been so long estranged, ‘many distinguished gentlemen, as able as any that this country can produce, in the administration of public departments. But do you call that a Government? Whom do you govern? One day the Government is at the mercy of the Irish party; another day it is at the mercy of the Welsh party; and on a third day yet to come it will be in the power of the Scotch party. The Government is absolutely in the power of any of the three sections of its majority. It must concede when any section makes a demand. An English Government has never yet been conducted on such principles--better suited to a Whitechapel auction than to the conduct of our State.’

This characteristic attack produced an electrical effect upon Mr. Gladstone, and the years seemed to fall from his shoulders as he rose at once to reply. ‘I accept,’ he cried, ‘the monosyllabic invocation of the noble lord and I say “Vote, Vote, Vote” for both Welsh Disestablishment and Home Rule.’ And in the course of a rejoinder which, though brief, was inferior to few, if any, of his later speeches, he cast back the reproaches of the Opposition and roused and rallied the enthusiasm of his followers amid a storm of cheers and counter-cheers. The First Reading passed by a majority of 56 in an angry and excited House, and the members hurried home, saying that the days of the ‘eighties’ were come back and that Randolph was himself again.

FitzGibbon, who was increasingly his correspondent, kept him supplied with an inexhaustible stream of fact and fancy upon the Irish Bill, and Lord Randolph’s replies to his old friend constitute a sufficient account of his Parliamentary doings and domestic affairs:--

Branksome Dene, Bournemouth: January 15, 1893.

Many thanks for your letter. I am happy to say Winston is going on
well and making a good and on the whole rapid recovery. He had a
miraculous escape from being smashed to pieces, as he fell thirty
feet off a bridge over a chine, from which he tried to leap to the
bough of a tree. What dreadfully foolhardy and reckless things boys
do! We have a sharp return of the cold, and snow is all about. I
keep thinking of my good time in Ireland, which was the best I have
had for a long time.

50 Grosvenor Square, W.: February 18, 1893.

Just a line to thank you for your letter. I imagine the speech
produced not unsatisfactory effects. I was awfully ‘jumpy.’ The
damned Bill is out, and I should greatly like from you, if you had
spare time, a _critique raisonnée_ of it. I shall have to make some
speeches--probably one to a great meeting in Scotland at Easter
time. The Second Reading is fixed for March 13, but this may be
only a nominal date. I am very anxious about the result when it
comes to a General Election. It is on England we must concentrate
our efforts.

50 Grosvenor Square, W.: March 15, 1893.

It is most good of you taking so much trouble for me in respect of
that measure, but I will try and make the best use of all you send
me, and the ‘lawyer’s notes’ may develop into orations which may
electrify the country. If one can trust the statements of the
Unionist Press, the Bill has absolutely no prospects or chances of
passing. All the heart, what little there ever was, has been taken
out of the Repealers by the postponement of the Second Reading. I
only hope the end may not come too quick. The Local Veto Bill has
infuriated the liquor interest even more than the H. R. Bill has
Ulster.

I do not think the G. O. M. has influenza, but it may be some time
before we see him again in the House of Commons.

50 Grosvenor Square, W.: March 29, 1893.

You are really too good, and I am shocked to have added so much to
your work. Your notes will be most valuable to me and I am looking
forward to their arrival. You will see that I loosed off last night
against Mr. G. and Morley. I think our party were very much
pleased. The old man is pressing us very hard with his demands for
the time of Parliament and his refusal to give decent holidays. I
have counselled that we do not enter on a futile resistance in
which we must be overborne. I am all for giving him rope; he is
sure to get into a terrible mess sooner or later.

I have a busy Easter before me. Political discourses at Liverpool
and Perth, and I shall not get back to London till April 14. I
shall keep your notes, though more for Parliamentary purposes; they
will be too good for public meetings. With many thanks and much
gratitude.

Penshurst: April 30, 1893.

Well, we have had three important meetings at Devonshire House--D.
of D., M. of S., Joe C., Arthur B., Goschen, Sir Henry J.,
Atkinson, and myself. With the general result I am much pleased. I
contended hard for the principle that none of our amendments should
be in any sense constructive, nothing that could give rise to an
idea that we were drifting into anything like an alternative
scheme. Joe C. was much for leading us in this way, but Devonshire
and Salisbury were very firm and the mischief was averted. Then
there was another great danger avoided. Joe C., A. B., and Goschen
were rather strongly in favour of an amendment excluding Ulster
from the Bill. Your powers of reflection and discernment will show
you at once what a horrid and dangerous trap that would have let us
into. However, thanks again to Salisbury and Devonshire, the idea
was dropped.

No amendments will be moved by any of us, but some have been drawn
and will be given to others. James’ amendments to the fifth clause
are very ingenious. But I shall send you a paper of amendments
marked after next Friday. We are to meet on Fridays when the H. R.
Bill is in Committee. Government will not get their Committee
Thursday: at the earliest not before Monday. I have not been very
well lately, and the last three days have had a dreadful cough,
which would quite have incapacitated me from speaking. I hope now
it is yielding to treatment, and fortunately I have had no speeches
to make. I am full of hope. There is much rumour that Mr. G. will
go to the House of Lords. Harcourt is certainly very unwell.
Belfast seems to have settled down. I have several speeches in the
country before me in May. Write to me when you have time, but not
in those horrid envelopes.

50 Grosvenor Square.

I have just delivered a twenty minutes’ speech in the House of
Commons on the case of the Christian Brothers. We had a large
majority against the Ulster Bill. You will find a passage in
Morley’s speech in which he said that he still hoped for an
arrangement, and that if he was a member of the Board [of National
Education] he should expect to be able to discover a method. The
Tories are, I expect, very cross with me.

I think you can now go to work again.

50 Grosvenor Square, W.: July 11, 1893.

I wish you had not written in so uncomplimentary a strain about
Rosebery. I would have shown it him but for that. I have the very
highest opinion of his work,[76] and always describe it as a
literary diamond. Now please write me another letter, more
complimentary. You can bring out all the views which have occurred
to you without accusing him of absolute ignorance of Ireland.
Remember, he was in a very awkward position, and Mr. Gladstone was
very cold to him after the work appeared. After all, he made one of
the most luminous expositions of the benefits of the Union and that
covers every error. Do do what I ask, for I am very fond of
Rosebery and very intimate with him, and I always look forward to
being in a Government with him. He likes you very much, and knows
on what intimate terms you and I are. Write me a review, not longer
than your letter, fair and _raisonné_. It will not take you long,
and it might do a great deal of good.

This is not the place to describe the stormy and protracted Session of 1893. The ruthless persistency of the Government; the stubborn resistance of the Conservative party; the inch-by-inch struggle in Committee; Chamberlain’s keen and unceasing attack from below the gangway; the venerable figure of the Prime Minister, erect and unflinching, at the table; the mutilated procedure of Parliament; and the rising storm of partisanship on both sides contribute to an account which seems to approach by sure gradations a violent climax. Lord Randolph has left a record, in the form of a private letter to the Speaker, of the explosion:--

_Lord Randolph Churchill to the Speaker._[77]

50 Grosvenor Square: July 29, 1893.

I am desirous of submitting to you a true account of the
disturbance and the real cause of the disorder which occurred in
the House of Commons on Thursday night.

The cry of ‘Judas’ was the retort to Mr. Chamberlain’s expression
‘Herod.’ But Mr. Chamberlain has never taken any notice of it on
previous occasions, nor did he on Thursday night, for I saw him
smiling; and I do not consider that this exclamation was, except in
a certain sense, the real cause of the turmoil. When Mr. Balfour
left the House he told me that in the event of a division we were
to vote with the Government against Mr. Clancy’s amendment, a
course in which I thoroughly concurred. I did not know the
tremendous passions which were raging behind me. The division had
begun and I was already proceeding into the Lobby, when, turning
round, I saw that scarcely a single member of the party had moved.
I returned, and told them of Mr. Balfour’s wishes, and begged them
to go into the ‘No’ Lobby. But I was met by cries that they would
not divide, and I ascertained that Mr. Vicary Gibbs had been trying
to raise a point of order on the question of the cry ‘Judas,’ and,
because that had not been settled, this very considerable section
of the Opposition would not on any account divide. I thought it
obvious that a point of order could not be decided when a division
had been called, for the reason that a number of members had left
the House for the Lobby. I urged upon them that not leaving their
seats to vote was the gravest violation of the rules of the House,
but all to no purpose. I therefore proceeded myself into the Lobby,
where there was a small muster of Liberals, three or four
Ministers, but none, so far as I could see, of the Opposition.

We waited for about two minutes, when the sound of a great noise
reached us. We returned to the House; the floor was crowded with
members, all standing; there was much scuffling; and certainly the
scene was the most appalling I ever witnessed. I made my way to the
Front Opposition Bench again, and implored the occupants of the
Opposition benches to come into the Lobby to record their votes.
There was still time to take the division, if only they would have
moved from their seats; but all my efforts were more useless than
before.

When you took the Chair, Sir, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Balfour
(neither of whom had seen all that passed) informed you that you
had been sent for to decide a point of order as to the propriety of
the cry ‘Judas.’ With all respect nothing could have been more
inaccurate. I lay down confidently that the whole disorder arose
from the Opposition members being determined not to take part in
the division and from the Chairman seeming not to know that he
could compel them to do so under pain of very severe penalties.

I must excuse myself for wearying you, Sir, with this long
statement, but I would make two justifications: (1) I read there is
a possibility of an inquiry into the cause of the disturbance, and
I am anxious that my evidence should be before you; (2) that there
has been so much disorder and defiance of the authority of the
Chairman of Committees by individual members of all parties during
the progress of the Government of Ireland Bill that if it is not
checked by the high authority which resides in yourself, Sir, the
House of Commons will go from bad to worse, and it is impossible
to foresee to what extent it may change its character in a very
short time.

Lord Randolph’s speech on the Welsh Church was his last Parliamentary success. Throughout the passage of the Home Rule Bill he held his place in the front rank of the Opposition and took a regular and not undistinguished part in the debates. In the Easter recess his speeches to large audiences at Liverpool and Perth commanded the attention of the country, and now, as in former years, he provided his party with an inexhaustible supply of catchwords and homely arguments. But the fire and force of his oratory were gone, never to return; and as the Session drew on, his difficulties of utterance and of memory increased, and the severe and unrelenting labour exhausted the remnants of his strength. Several times in the hot summer months he failed to hold the attention of the House and even sometimes to make himself understood. Once, indeed, the members grew impatient and the House was filled with restless murmurs. But his friends--some of them his most distinguished opponents--rallied to him, checked the interruptions, and tried perseveringly to make all look smooth and successful. And in these days it was observed that Mr. Gladstone would always be in his place to pay the greatest attention to his speeches and to reply elaborately to such arguments as he had advanced.

Lord Randolph Churchill was acutely conscious of his failing powers and the realisation roused him to immense exertions. A year before he had hardly cared for political affairs. Now he plunged desperately into the struggle. Others around him encountered the measures of a Liberal Administration. He faced a different foe. With the whole strength of his will he fought against the oncoming decay. He refused to accept defeat. He redoubled his labours. If five hours no longer sufficed for the preparation of a speech--he would take five days. If his memory played him false, it must be exercised the more. If the House of Commons was escaping from his grip, he would see whether the people would still hear him.

During the months of May and June he spoke at no fewer than ten important meetings--at Reading, Bolton, Macclesfield, Leicester, Carlisle, Pontefract, Boston and other big towns. Everywhere he was received by immense audiences and frequently he succeeded, as of old, in arousing their interest and enthusiasm. The fertility of his mind and the store of political knowledge and expression he had accumulated were astonishing. Almost every one of these speeches was reported verbatim in the _Times_ newspaper. All were confined to the single subject of the Home Rule Bill and the circumstances that attended its passage. No repetition of argument or phrase can be detected in the entire series of speeches.

It was at this time that he looked towards Bradford. That city had even before the General Election invited him to contest its central division. His eye for a political country was as good as ever. To persuade a great commercial centre to change its party allegiance, to be returned at the election with three solid seats won for the Unionist cause, to entrench himself in the heart of Yorkshire was a plan most attractive to his nature; and had he lived, these objects would certainly have been accomplished; for all divisions of Bradford returned Unionist members to the Parliament of 1895 and that condition continues to this day. On May 26 he addressed a large meeting in the St. George’s Hall. His candidature was adopted with enthusiasm by the local Conservatives. Meetings were held, the organisation was improved, the Unionist press was strengthened and supported, and a new impulse was imparted to the Conservative movement throughout the whole district.

For the autumn of 1893 he prepared a further extensive campaign all over the country, and he convinced himself that it was still in his power to raise a great wave of democratic excitement that would shake the Government and establish his position before the world. In order to collect all his strength for this effort he withdrew before the end of the Session to Kissingen and Gastein and submitted himself to the strictest discipline that the doctors could advise. The quiet peaceful life, with its simple routine of baths, walks and long drives, when the afternoon sun cast the shade of the forest and the hills over half the valley, seemed for a time to restore his health: and he hastened to write glowing accounts to his mother of the improvement. But these appearances were illusory and, underneath, the process of dissolution went remorselessly forward.

One incident--not unworthy of record--diversified the weeks at Kissingen and lighted up the autumn of 1893.

_To his Mother._

_August 7._--The sensation of yesterday was the visit of Prince
Bismarck. We had left cards on him the day before, and I did not
expect he would do more than return them. However, yesterday the
weather was showery, and as Jennie was rather seedy we did not go
our usual drive. I was reading the papers when a great big Chasseur
appeared and informed me that the Fürst von Bismarck was in his
carriage at the door and was asking for me. I hurried downstairs
and met the Prince at his carriage. He came up to our rooms--which
luckily are on the first floor--and sat down, and we began to
converse. I had sent off a message to Jennie, who had gone to the
Kurhaus to see a friend. So I had about a quarter of an hour in
which to talk to the Prince. I will tell you of his appearance. He
is seventy-eight--so he told me afterwards--but he looks so much
younger than Mr. Gladstone that in fact you would hardly give him
more than seventy-three or seventy-four years. He looked in good
health, and came upstairs without the slightest difficulty. We
discussed various subjects, which I will go through _seriatim_. We
spoke in English; but whether it was for that reason, though he
spoke very correctly, he struck me as being nervous. Perhaps it was
meeting with a total stranger, because he had never seen me before.
However, he was most gracious and seemed very anxious to please.
You may imagine that I did my very best to please him, for I
thought it a great honour for this old Prince to come and see us.

The conversation began on Kissingen--the baths, the waters, &c. He
told me he had first come here in 1874, and had been here almost
every year since. He gave up drinking the waters about eight years
ago, but he continues to take baths, and thinks they do him good.
After this I asked him why he never went now to Gastein. He said,
laughing, ‘Oh, Gastein is a peculiar water to some
people--sometimes dangerous’; that he knew two of his friends who
died of apoplexy when taking the baths; and added that his doctor
had told him that Gastein was the last resource; and he remarked,
‘And I am seventy-eight,’ and seemed quite pleased about it. Then
he talked about the Emperor William on a question as to whether
Gastein had not added some years to his life. He quite admitted it,
and told me that for many years the Emperor used to go to Carlsbad,
when he used to accompany him; and this reminiscence seemed very
pleasing to him. In talking of the Emperor he always used the
expression ‘my old master.’

Then I turned the conversation on to Siam, and asked him whether he
did not think it was a satisfactory settlement. He appeared to
agree and began speaking in this connection of M. Jules Ferry. He
regretted his loss, and said that Jules Ferry was the best man that
France had had for years, and joked a little about his
appearance--long whiskers, &c. Then he went on to say that he
thought, if Jules Ferry had remained in power, a very good
arrangement and condition would have come about between the Germans
and the French. He said that he had nearly concluded an agreement
between himself and Jules Ferry that France should remain on
friendly and peaceful terms with Germany, and that he (Prince B.)
would support France in Tunis and Siam, and generally in her
Eastern colonisation. Then I remarked about Siam that Rosebery had
learned out of his book this principle--to ask for no more than he
required, but to insist on getting what he required, and to treat
with neglect what was not essential. He said that was so and he
went on to praise Rosebery, and described him as a good combination
of will and caution, and added that of all English statesmen he was
the one who was most modest and quiet in his acts and attitude.

Of course, no conversation would be complete without a reference to
Mr. Gladstone, to which I led him. He, of course, began by
admitting that Mr. Gladstone was very eloquent; but that he had
always been like an ungovernable horse whom no one could ride in
any bridle, and was not to be controlled in any way. He used a
German adjective to describe the horse, which I have forgotten; but
seeing his drift, and in reply to his question what was the English
expression for the German word, I said ‘ungovernable and
unmanageable and hard to ride’ would express it, and I remarked
that in England people often called such a horse a ‘rogue.’ On
which he turned his face to me with a smile, but said nothing,
though he clearly understood the allusion. He further in
conversation said that he should be very alarmed and anxious if
such a man as Mr. Gladstone governed ‘my country.’ Then Jennie
arrived and he talked mainly to her for a few minutes, when he
announced that his son Herbert and his recently married wife
arrived that afternoon to stay a few days with him, and that he
hoped we should see something of them.

Without doubt this Prince and statesman has a most powerful
attraction. The whole of his career, from the time when he was
First Minister of the King and fought the Parliament, to the time
of the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles, seems to me
more intelligible now, and at the same time a work that only this
man could have carried out or even conceived the possibility of. I
never took my eyes off his face while he was talking to me and kept
trying to fix it in my memory. For all his quiet manner his
qualities would be apparent to any observer of experience; you can
trace the iron will in great emergencies which has so frequently
borne him up, all the calm courage for which the North Germans are
peculiarly distinguished, and yet with all that--in spite of the
recollection of the great things he had done--no trace of pride, no
sign of condescension, but perfectly gracious and polite, a true
_Grand Seigneur_. He carried himself at his age as erect as a
soldier, and for all his long black coat and his rather old black,
soft, low-crowned wideawake hat he looks all over what he is--the
combination, so rarely seen in this century, of statesman and
General.

This friendly conversation, proving mutually agreeable, was followed by an invitation to dinner with the Bismarck family. ‘We dined,’ so runs the account, ‘in the hall of an old Bishop’s palace, on the first floor, which a friend of the Prince owns and lends him every year. It was of large and fine proportion. At one end we assembled before dinner; at the other end the table was laid. The dinner was a regular old-fashioned German dinner, a little _bourgeois_ (like the Berlin Court under the old Emperor), but everything was dignified as to the table--the food, the wine, the old servants--and, though very different to our ideas, had really _un air noble_. All this was greatly added to by the presence of the Prince, his impressive appearance, and the combination of respect and affection which all his family and those friends that were dining, showed him. His good spirits and excellent humour and his sustained support of the conversation--sometimes with Jennie, sometimes with me, sometimes with Herbert and his wife--can never be forgotten by anyone who saw it.’

Lord Randolph sat next to Prince Bismarck and was so occupied in observing him and the scene generally that he took but little part in the conversation. The picture was complete--the Princess, feeble and broken in health; Count Herbert and his wife; the famous black wolf-hounds which once upon a time frightened Gortschakoff so much; Bismarck himself, ‘speaking English very carefully and slowly, frequently pausing to get the right word, but always producing it, or something like it, in the end’; drinking a mixture of very old hock poured into a needle-glass of champagne--‘“the last bottle [of hock], a present from ----,” a Grand Duke whose name I cannot remember’--at length arriving at his great pipe, prepared all ready for him by a venerable retainer, ‘stem two feet in length, curved mouthpiece, bowl long and large in china and standing up square with the stem, lighted by broad wooden safety-matches to prevent him burning his fingers; and all the time running on in talk brisk and light, always courtly and genial, never quite serious.’

‘I did not dare,’ declares Lord Randolph, ‘to drink this old hock, and only sipped it. The Prince, who was joking, said to Jennie that he was very sorry I had not drunk my share, as it would cause him to drink too much and he would be “half over the seas.”’ Presently he wanted to know about Mr. Gladstone. He would be useful in putting to rights the disorders of German finance. Would the English people exchange him for General Caprivi? ‘I told him,’ writes Lord Randolph shamelessly, ‘that the English people would cheerfully give him Mr. Gladstone for nothing, but that he would find him an expensive present!’ So with chaff and good temper the evening passed away--pleasant, memorable, one of the last he was to know.

[Sidenote: 1894 ÆT. 45]

Lord Randolph returned from Germany none the better for his rest and plunged forthwith into an exhausting campaign. What experience can be more painful than for a man who enjoys the fullest intellectual vigour, and whose blood is quite unchilled by age, to feel the whole apparatus of expression slipping sensibly from him? He struggled against his fate desperately, and at first with intervals of profound depression. But, as the malady progressed, the inscrutable workings of Nature provided a mysterious anodyne. By a queer contradiction it is ordained that an all-embracing optimism should be one of the symptoms of this fell disease. The victim becomes continually less able to realise his condition. In the midst of failure he is cheered by an artificial consciousness of victory. While the days are swiftly ebbing, he builds large plans for the future; and a rosy glow of sunset conceals the approach of night. Therefore as Lord Randolph’s faculties were steadily impaired, his determination to persevere was inversely strengthened; and in spite of the advice and appeals of his family, by which he was deeply wounded, he carried out in its entirety the whole programme of speeches he had arranged. Huddersfield, Stalybridge, Bedford, Yarmouth, Dundee, Glasgow, Bradford and Camborne followed each other in quick succession in October and November. But the crowds who were drawn by the old glamour of his name, departed sorrowful and shuddering at the spectacle of a dying man, and those who loved him were consumed with embarrassment and grief. It is needless to dwell longer upon this.

[Sidenote: 1895 ÆT. 46]