Chapter XIX: The Closing Years (1)

Upon only one occasion in his life could a charge of Jingoism have been brought against Mr. Labouchere. The last long speech he made in the House of Commons was against the second reading of the Women's Enfranchisement Bill, in which he said that he objected to women being given the vote because they could not be soldiers; in short, because their physical limitations prevented them from being able to take a place in the battlefield. A member pointed out that the speaker himself was not a military man. With passion he replied that, whereas there was not a man alive who could not fight, and, if necessary, swim through seas of gore to protect his native land, the other sex were incapable of putting up with the hardships and privation involved in warfare.[1]

It was in the third session of Mr. Balfour's Parliament that Mr. Labouchere made his last speech in the House of Commons. He was nearly seventy-four years old, and had been hankering for some time after the delights of a reposeful old age in the retirement of the beautiful villa he had bought in the neighbourhood of Florence four years before. Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman had written to him in the previous December, when a rumour of his intended retirement had reached him: "I hope you are not really thinking of breaking off with Parliament, though I frankly say it is what {518} I should do if I could, who have the advantage of a year or two over you, but I think we old stagers with sound views are wanted to steady the new-century gentlemen by a little of our early Victorian wisdom." But Mr. Labouchere was wise enough to know how dull it would be to exist in a modern Parliament as almost the only survivor of the grand old Victorian Radical party, whose sympathies and ideals, the policy of the Labour members alone resembled, in the remotest degree. His mind was made up, but he kept his own counsel, except to his leader, because, as he wrote to Mr. Robert Bennett at the time of his retirement, a man who is known not to be going to stand again becomes a nonentity in Parliament.

In a letter to Mr. Edward Thornton, the month before his withdrawal from public life, he gave his view of the Parliamentary situation at that time:

Just now politics are dead. When Parliament meets, the Liberals will try to put the Government in a majority during the session, and Balfour will try to carry on to the end of it. There seems no reason why he should be beaten, provided that he can keep his men in the House. But this is also our difficulty. The individual M.P. never wants an election.... Campbell Bannerman is now absolutely certain to be the next Premier unless his health breaks down. All that you see about this or that man in the Cabinet is only intelligent anticipation. He is not _de jure_ on the succession to the Premiership, there are no consultations, and he has a wholesome distrust of his Front Bench friends who almost all have intrigued against him. I know him intimately, and he talks to me pretty freely, for I have expressed to him that I want nothing. At seventy-four a man is a fool to be a Minister.

The news of Mr. Labouchere's retirement came as a surprise to most of the world. The first intimation to the public was his letter to the Liberal electors of Northampton announcing his decision. It was written from Florence, and dated December 14, 1905. It ran as follows:

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GENTLEMEN,--I have been elected by a majority of you to represent you in six Parliaments. I have received no intimation from any of the Radicals, to whose votes I have owed my having been your member for twenty-five years, that they disapprove of my Parliamentary action whilst serving them, or that they do not wish me to be one of their candidates at the next general election. Were I, therefore, to come forward again as a candidate there is little doubt that I should be one of your representatives in a seventh Parliament. But I am now seventy-four years old. At that age a man is neither so strong nor active as he once was, and any one who wishes to represent efficiently a large and important constituency like yours in Parliament should be strong in wind and limb. I feel therefore that I ought not to take advantage of your consideration towards me in a matter so vital to you in order to lag superfluous on the political stage.

I have delayed until now making this announcement because it was impossible to know when a general election would take place, and I thought that it would be more convenient to you for me to wait until the date of the election was settled and near at hand. I do not think that my withdrawal will affect the position of parties in Northampton. In Dr. Shipman you have a member whose Parliamentary action has been in accord with the pledges that have already secured his return, and on whose personal worth all are agreed. You will have no difficulty in finding a man to replace me, as eager to promote the cause of democracy as I am, and who will be better able to fight for the cause than one in the sere and yellow leaf.

Mr. Labouchere remarked once, that he had on one occasion only been asked by a constituent for a pledge with regard to his Parliamentary action. He had unhesitatingly given it, and been unflinchingly true to his word. The elector's injunction had been, "Now, mind, I say, and keep your hi on Joe." But whether the story is a slight exaggeration of the confidence his constituents had in him to faithfully represent their views at Westminster or not, it gives elliptically a description of his attitude during the twenty-five years he served the electors of Northampton. He became {520} their member as an anti-Imperialist, in Lord Beaconsfield's interpretation of the term, and he took his leave of them as an anti-Imperialist, in the more modern, and what may be called "Chamberlain" sense of the word.

I shall quote Mr. T. P. O'Connor's farewell on the occasion of his retirement, which he published under the title of "The Passing of Labby," for, apart from its literary merit, it is the fine appreciation of a friend of many years' standing, who knew the value of Mr. Labouchere from the social as well as the Parliamentary and journalistic points of view:

There is no old member of the House of Commons who will not feel a pang of personal regret at hearing that Labby is leaving that Assembly. No one has a right to criticise a man for giving up an active life at seventy-four years of age--he has done his work. But Labby had become an almost essential part of the House of Commons; and there never will be anybody who can quite take his place there. That extraordinary combination of strong party zeal, with a lurking desire to make mischief; the sardonic and satirical spirit, mingled with a certain fierce, though carefully concealed zeal for the public good; the mordant wit that was equally the delight of the House and of the smoking room; the world-wide and varied experience of all life in almost every country and in almost every form--these are the possessions of but one man, and his like we shall never see again. There are two Labbys. There is the Labby who almost corrodes with his bitter wit, and who seems to laugh at everything in life. There is the other Labby who has strong, stern purpose, who hates all shams, all cruelty, all imposture, all folly, and who has made war on all these things for more than a quarter of a century. There is even a third Labby--the man who hates to give pain even to a domestic, and who is laughingly said to have run out of a room rather than face the irritated looks of a maidservant whom he had summoned by too vigorous a pull at the bell. One of the reasons of the popularity Labby enjoyed in the House was his tolerant amiability. I have seen him in the smoking room in the most friendly converse with many a man whom in previous years he had most fiercely attacked; he bore no ill will, and treated all {521} those encounters as demanded by business, and as dismissable when the fight was over. Finally Labby was a far straighter, far more serious, far more effective politician than his own persiflage would allow people to think. With all his light wit, there was something stern and rigid in the man, as you could see from the powerful mouth, with the full compressed lips. He was perfectly honest in his hatred of extravagance, pretence, vainglory. He preferred riding in a tramcar to riding in a coach and four. He dressed so shabbily sometimes that his counsel used to have to remonstrate with him when he had to answer a charge of libel. He was an ascetic in eating. Once he dined quite comfortably, when he was electioneering, on ham sandwiches with sponge-cake for bread. He rarely, if ever, tasted wine; he smoked incessantly the poorest and cheapest cigarettes. As he was in private, so he was in public life. He derided all great Imperial designs as snobbery and extravagance; he hated ambition--in short, he was in both his personal habits and his public opinions, a true devotee of the simple life. He did immense service to his party in his time. During the heat of the Home Rule controversy he spoke in scores of towns; took journeys by night and by day, never spared himself exertion, never complained of discomfort; in his laughing air, with his assumed air of languor, he was a strenuous, manly, courageous fighter. And he never changed, he never concealed, he never explained away his opinion upon anything. And so I bid him with regret farewell from a scene where he was a model of honest good faith and courage.[2]

So Labby goes! [mourned the _Morning Post_]. What Parliament and public life will be without him, I hate to think. The letter of cheery regrets to his Northampton constituents subtracts the _sauce piquante_ from the Parliamentary dish. The House has long counted Labby as the last of its originals, has prized him as a refreshing relish, has looked to him for the unexpected flavour. All strangers would ask inevitably to have him pointed out, and the House would fill at once when the word went round the corridors and lobbies and smoking rooms that Labby was "up" and holding forth from his customary corner {522} seat below the gangway--the best of all positions from which to address the House. So too the smoking room became suddenly crowded when Labby was to be seen standing there with back to fireplace, the eternal cigarette between his lips, ready for talk. It gives a peculiar pang to realise that he will be seen there no more. But the pang is lessened when one finds Labby--Labby of all men--seriously pleading old age as a ground for his retirement. It sounds like one of his little jokes, or, perhaps, it is a genuine case of hallucination. Labby had possibly a touch of old age at twenty, but he had also the sense to outgrow it. Since then he has never relapsed, and now in the seventy-fifth year of his youth, and with a pen several years younger, it is a vain and commonplace and un-Labbyish thing to pretend that youth and he are no longer "housemates still." An unbelieving world will not accept that plea.... I daresay that, half a century ago, Labby was, not unlike the wise youth Adrian in Meredith's _Richard Feverel_, quite unnaturally cool and quizzical, long-headed and non-moral, but an Adrian humanised by something of the Bohemian spirit and a turn for careless pleasuring. And in those days, no doubt--his Eton and Cambridge days--he struck his contemporaries as really old. But no one, for fifty years, has ever accused him of not having overcome his early weakness; and it was the very last charge I ever expected to hear Labby prefer against himself.[3]

There was something about Mr. Labouchere's personality, apart from his deeds and thoughts, which appealed almost irresistibly to the affectionate sympathies of all mankind. To find an ill-natured comment in any of the articles that were published about him in the press when he left the House of Commons is so difficult that, were such a one to be recorded in this volume, it would give its author an almost unenviable position of distinction. But in order to be perfectly impartial, I shall merely quote the pleasant part of the only one I could find, so that its writer need not feel that he has been placed in an out-of-the-way corner with a fool's cap on his head:

{523}

On the whole Mr. Labouchere has done a great deal of good in his life, more good and less evil than many so-called statesmen. He has exposed swindlers and moneylenders and rotten companies. He has obtained for the public the right to ride, drive, and walk up and down Constitution Hill. No victim of cruelty or injustice ever appealed to him for a hearing in vain. Above all he wrote an English style of remarkable purity, logic, and humour.

Letters of regretful farewell poured in upon Labby in his Florentine home, and he possessed a kindly characteristic common to nearly all frankly unpretentious human beings. He loved his post. In his cosy armchair by the fire he read his letters and enjoyed them, and what was more--he proceeded to answer them. No pre-occupation, however diverting, ever prevented him from, at the first available moment sitting down to his writing-table, and, in the almost illegible hand which he vainly tried to improve, penning answers to his welcome correspondents.

"I have been very sorry, but not surprised," wrote Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman to him on Christmas Day, "to read in the newspapers of your retirement. It is not over kind of you to put it on the ground of age, for that hits some of the rest of us hard. For my part, I confess my sentiment when I read it was: _O si sic omnes_--and envy was the prevailing feeling. But, seriously, we shall miss you greatly as one always ready to hoist the flag of the old Liberalism, as distinguishable from the less stout and stalwart doctrine which passes for Liberalism with the moderns.

"But now as you are going would you care to have the House of Commons honour of Privy Councillor? If so it would be to me a genuine pleasure to be the channel of conveying it. You ought to have had it long ago. I may add that in the highest quarter gratification would be felt. I have taken soundings. I think we have done and are doing pretty well. The Government are pretty well the pick of the basket, though there are some good men left out, and I {524} think we can make it a change of policy and not a mere change of men. All seasonable wishes to you and yours.--Yours always,

"H. C. B."

"Knowing you to be a wise man," wrote Lord Selby, who had been Speaker of the House in three of the six Parliaments of which Mr. Labouchere had been a member, "I was not surprised to see that you had made up your mind to eschew Westminster, and enjoy Florence and its climate, but if I were still in the Chair I should miss you in the next Parliament, and I am sure the smoking-room will be a forlorn place without you; and I do not see how the loss is to be repaired, for it takes a good many years to grow a plant of the same kind. I wish you and Mrs. Labouchere long leisure and much pleasure in your Italian home, seasoned with occasional visits to England. The election may be said to have begun with Balfour's speech at Leeds, and Campbell Bannerman's at the Albert Hall...."

The leader of the Irish party wrote from Dublin:

"DEAR LABOUCHERE,--When writing the other day, I did not know that you had any idea of retiring from Parliament. I learned your intention with deep regret. You have been so long one of the truest friends of Ireland that you will be missed by us all, and at a time when we can badly spare a real friend. With heartiest good wishes, and many thanks for your advice and assistance on so many occasions, I remain very truly yours,

"J. E. REDMOND."

"I have just read your farewell to Northampton," wrote Sir Wilfrid Lawson, on December 17, "and it has troubled me. I am going to stand again for Cockermouth (I am older than you!) with a _fair_ chance of success, but, if I win and get back to the House, I shall feel that it is not exactly the same place without you. I therefore just write this to say how sorry I am to lose you. Certainly you have always held up bravely and ably the banner of the Radicalism in which {525} I believe, and it remains to be seen whether we shall get it as well held up in the Parliament which is to be. Any way those who believe in Government 'of, for, and by the people,' ought to be grateful to you for your persistent preaching and teaching of that doctrine.

"The new Government promises well, but I remember a story on which you trenchantly commented in _Truth_ some years ago. When Lord Dudley was married it was proposed in the Kidderminster Corporation that they should give him a wedding present, on which an old weaver rose and suggested that it should be postponed '_till we see how he goes on_.'

"Well, I hope that you will go on well and happily till the end of your days, and, meantime, not forget to give outside help to your old comrades, who for a bit longer are grinding in the Parliamentary mill."

Lord James of Hereford wrote:

"The announcement of your departure from the House of Commons seems almost to affect me personally. I recall a day in the end of August, 1868, when you and I and John Stamforth were sitting in front of the Kursaal at Homburg. You and I were discussing our relative chances in Middlesex and at Taunton, and then you asked Stamforth how he was getting on at Athlone. "I am member for Athlone," replied that unfortunate man, who afterwards, as you know, polled one vote.

"Well, the water has been flowing on since then. You and I have seen a good deal of political life, and taken a fair share in it. I hope we have not done much harm, but Heaven only knows. I am very sorry that you are not continuing in the fight....

"I know how little I can do, for I am three years older than you are--but the House of Lords offers some opportunities for easy going to an old one."

"DEAR LABOUCHERE," wrote Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice,--"We have enjoyed sweet converse together in the House of Commons and in the woods of Marienbad on 'men and {526} things.' We are both leaving the House of Commons at the same time, so I send you a word of greeting--or farewell, or by whatever other name it may be appropriate to describe these words.... A short Parliament generally follows a long Parliament, and I expect to see this canon once more illustrated."

"The _New York Herald_ of this morning announces your appointment as a P. C.," wrote Sir Edmund Monson from Paris. "I am very glad that you have received this distinction, which, in my own case, I have always regarded as the most acceptable of all that have been bestowed on me.... I can quite understand your relinquishing Parliament, and I hope you may long enjoy the _otium cum dignitate_ which no place better than Florence can supply.... Believe me, always your sincere old friend,

"EDMUND MONSON."

Lord Brampton wrote on the last day but one of the year: "I have just received your note. Your reasons for retirement from Parliament are unreasonable. But, as far as I am concerned, although I have not a word of objection to offer, still I remain _sorry_. With all my heart I rejoice in to-day's _Times_, and offer to you, my right honourable friend, my heartiest congratulations to you and all yours, and every good wish for the coming New Year. I wish I could avail myself of your invitation to Florence, but I fear I have no chance, as I am very weak still and can hardly hold a pen."

Only one other letter must be quoted from the friends of Labby's youth. Sir Henry Lucy wrote on Christmas Day:

"MY DEAR LABOUCHERE,--You will find in the forthcoming issue of _Punch_ some reflections on 'The Sage of Queen Anne's Gate,' from the Diary of Toby, M.P. I believe they echo the feeling of the whole House of Commons, irrespective of party, at the prospect of your withdrawal from the scene.

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"But why cut Westminster altogether? There is still the House of Lords. If I might behold you walking out shoulder to shoulder with the Archbishop of Canterbury to vote 'content' or 'not content' as the case might be, I should feel I had not lived in vain.... With a warmth and friendship dating back nearly thirty years--Eheu! we were colleagues on the _World_ staff in 1875."

Toby, M.P., recalled in a pathetic little article in _Punch_ the way Mr. Gedge had tried to do Labby out of his corner seat below the gangway, where Sir Charles Dilke had sat beside him on one side of the House or the other ever since Mr. Gladstone's Parliament of 1892. In order to secure a seat in the House, members had to be present at the reading of prayers, during which any one could slip a card with his name upon it into the back of the place he wanted. Now Labby was never at prayers, and yet, Mr. Gedge noticed, he had always had the same seat secured to himself in the orthodox manner. Accordingly, one day he allowed his thoughts to wander whilst the House of Commons devotions were proceeding, and his eyes followed his thoughts. Between his fingers held devoutly before his face, he peeped, and noticed Sir Charles Dilke, buried in prayer as usual. Then he saw his devotion relax for a moment. Sir Charles was slipping a card into the back of the seat which he intended to secure for himself, and Mr. Gedge was horrified to see that he proceeded to slip a card with Labby's name upon it into the back of the next one--the coveted corner seat below the gangway. Mr. Gedge subsequently drew the attention of the House to this piece of underhand dealing, but honourable gentlemen did not choose to take any notice of what would clearly not have been observed, if Mr. Gedge had been paying proper attention to his prayers.

A propos to the seating accommodation in the House of Commons, it should be remembered that as far back as 1893, when the disgraceful scrimmage for seats took place at the introduction of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, {528} Mr. Labouchere had begun to agitate for a new House of Commons with seats for every member. He explained to a journalist at the time his plan for an ameliorated House:

"At present," he said, "a man goes before a constituency and, after a lot of trouble and expense, wins a seat--so it is called. He then comes up here to Westminster, and finds he has gone through only half the preliminaries necessary for securing a seat. He has taken only the first steps, which are simply child's play to what he has yet to do. Getting elected is simply nothing comparatively. First I wanted an octagonal chamber," he proceeded, "but I find general opinion will retain the present form. So my idea is to have eight rows of seats on each side of the House, curving round at the end opposite to the Speaker. If each row will seat forty-two members, you will find that will provide a seat for the whole six hundred and seventy-two. Then every one could retain his seat throughout the session. The difficulty about the square shape of the House is that it gives you an equal number of seats for each party and the Government is generally in a majority. That is why I would run the seats round at one end--so that the supporters of the Government could have the whole of one side, and as far as the second gangway on the other. Having a broader House would necessarily mean enlarging the Press and Strangers' Galleries also. All the members are in favour of it, with the exception of the front benches. They have got their seats assured, so they say that the House is cosy, and to enlarge it would force them to pitch their voices higher." The journalist who was interviewing him commented on the extreme moderation of his designs for an ameliorated House of Commons. "Oh," remarked Mr. Labouchere, "these are just the alterations we shall probably make. What I personally should have liked would be to clear the Lords out of their House, which is bigger than the House of Commons, and install ourselves therein."[4] Eight years {529} later he went to Vienna, and poured forth in _Truth_ the story of his envy when he saw the Austrian House of Deputies:

I went to see the Parliament House, and, after inspecting it, I felt that I could with pleasure join a mob to disinter the remains of the eminent architect who built the Palace at Westminster and hang his bones on a gibbet. The Vienna architect has erected a building which is Parliament Architecture. Everything is adapted to the wants and requirements of those who want to use it. The members of each of the two Chambers sit in a semi-circular room, and each member has an armchair and a desk before him. The general objection made to this plan of a deliberative room is that it obliges members to speak from a tribune. But at Vienna they speak from their places, and, owing to the excellent acoustic properties of the Chamber, they can be perfectly heard. I went over the place in the company of a priest who was visiting it at the same time. He perceived that I was an Englishman, and asked me how the place compared with the English Parliament House. "The members in England," I said, "sit in an oblong room, in which there are only places for half their number." "But what do the others do?" he asked. "They do not listen to the debates," I replied; "they seldom know what is under discussion. A bell rings and they come in, and are told to vote as their leader orders them." As a good Radical I felt it necessary to give a further explanation, so I continued: "The majority of the members are the supporters of the Government; it is one of the worst Governments with which a country was ever cursed; it is called the 'stupid party,' and it is composed of Junkers and men who have made much money. They want the laws to be made for their benefit, and not for the benefit of the poor." "But why," he said, "do they have a majority, for I suppose that the poor have votes as well as the rich, and there must be more poor than rich in England?" "They gained their election by corruption and falsehood," I answered. "Their wives and their daughters went about giving the electors feasts, and they went about saying everywhere that the Radicals wanted to destroy the Empire. In this way they {530} bought some with gifts, and others they deceived with falsehoods. Soon the electors discovered how they had been fooled, and for five years they have wanted to take away the Government from the 'stupids,' but, by our laws, a Parliament is elected for seven years, and the country is still obliged to submit to the disgrace of having such a Government for one or perhaps two more years. Then there will be another election, and the 'stupids' will be in a minority, and the Radicals who represent the sense and intelligence of the country will become the Government." "And the Radicals," he said, "will, I suppose, make a Chamber large enough to hold all the members." "I am not sure of that," I answered. This seemed to surprise him, but he thanked me for having made clear to him the party differences in England.[5]

But my story is wandering backwards instead of forwards. And so stories usually do in the City of Flowers, where the present is so full of ease and pleasure that a man's mind is free to linger where it will, either lazily in the middle ages, or to stray with graceful discrimination in the bye paths of memory to find the savour again of some of the deeds of a gallant past. He may choose, perhaps, to grasp contentedly and almost without effort, the gifts of the gods that lie about in profusion, but he must always remember that care and earnestness, strenuousness and ambition have no place in Florence. It was of course a home after Mr. Labouchere's own heart. He went to London in the January of 1906 to be sworn in as a Privy Councillor, and, in February, he came back with delight to his villa to enjoy the merry continental _train de vie_ he had always loved.

Whilst in London, he wrote to Mr. Edward Thornton, who was then in India:

I did not, as you see, stand. At seventy-four one gets bored even with politics. I am only over here for a fortnight, as I have to get sworn into the Privy Council. The Unionists have been {531} beaten badly, because they seem to have gone out of their way to court defeat. One never knows what may happen, but they will remain in a minority for the next twenty years, if they run on Protectionist lines. Joe swaggers and has captured the machine, and Balfour would do well to fight him instead of knocking under to him. The Chinese labour helped us greatly. They ought to have known that the old anti-slavery feeling is still strong, but they seem to imagine that every one has Rand shares.... The really important thing connected with the election is the rise of a Labour Party. I do not think, however, that there are above six M.P.'s returned who are _bona fide_ and Socialists, they are all jealous of each other.

He wrote to Mr. Thornton again on March 10:

I had had enough of Parliament, for one gets bored with everything.... I have not the slightest notion what a Privy Councillor is, except that I had to take half a dozen oaths at a Council, which were mumbled out by some dignitary, and then Fletcher Moulton, who was also being sworn in, and I performed a sort of cake walk backwards. I don't precisely know whither we shall go in the summer--for it is such a relief to let the day take care of the day. It is lucky C. B. has so large a majority, otherwise things would have been difficult with the Labour lot--far more difficult than with the Irish.

Mr. Labouchere's most regular correspondent up till the time of his death in January, 1911, was Sir Charles Dilke. The friendship between them had continued uninterruptedly since 1880. Two letters that Mr. Labouchere wrote to Sir Charles Dilke in 1910 have an especial interest, bearing as they do upon the problem that had always interested Mr. Labouchere so keenly throughout the whole of his political career, and which, in the first twentieth century Liberal Parliament, had assumed a new aspect. The first of these letters was written on February 11:

MY DEAR DILKE,--What is the Government going to do in regard to the Lords? I can understand a one-Chamber man, in {532} default of getting directly what he wants, trying to get it indirectly, by having a sham Upper Chamber. But if the Government has to appeal to the country on a suspensory veto, I doubt this creating much enthusiasm. If it be carried, this suspensory vote would, of course, be used by the Peers for all that it is worth when a Liberal Government is in to throw _batons dans leurs roues_. I should have thought, with the experience of the last Parliament, that it would be realised that Peer obstruction, cleverly managed, could reduce any Liberal Government to ridicule and contempt. So long as a Reform is hung up by the Lords, the electors have no heart in further Liberal legislation, which, in its turn, would also be hung up. A Party with a H. of C. majority at its back cannot afford to be unable to carry through its measures. Why not go at once for the abolition of the H. of Peers, and its being replaced by some sort of an elected Upper Chamber? Nothing is easier than to contrive one. The basis would be the constitution of the U.S. Senate _mutatis mutandis_. It should have only one half of the membership of the H. of C., and if the two Houses cannot agree, then they should sit and vote together on the issue. Notwithstanding the curious way in which Senators are elected in the Senate of the U.S., I never heard of any serious proposal to alter this. Its main strength is due to its executive powers, and this we need not provide for in our Senate. With any reasonable plan of election, and the members reduced to about 300, it is odds against there ever being a majority of one Party of above 40 or 50. No Government at present can get on long without a certain majority of slaves of more than this in the Commons, so the Commons would always get their way. I have been at times a President of and a member of several Abolition of Lords Associations, and have advocated abolition in thousands of speeches in the country. The feeling was generally against hereditary Legislators, for this comes home to all as an absurd abuse. If I were in the House I would move an amendment on the Address against hereditary Legislators, and the vast majority of the Government supporters would vote for it, as they would most of them be afraid of their electors. What surprises me is that the Unionists do not counter the plans of the Government by many such an amendment. They are sacrificing what is their interest to a lot of obscure Peers, who are of no {533} importance. As for the House of Lords, with only a suspensory veto, it is worthless to them, except for tactical obstruction in order to discredit a Liberal Government.

It is rather curious that if the H. of C. reflects the opinions of the country there is a majority for Tariff Reform, as all the National M.P.'s are Protectionists. As it is, they will find it difficult to vote for the Budget, with O'Brien painting Ireland red against it. He is a power in Ireland, and Redmond is perfectly aware of it. Anyhow the manœuvring in the H. of C. and the Debates will be amusing. There will be difficulties with the Labour men, headed by Keir Hardie. If I were the Unionists I would buy him.--Yours truly,

H. LABOUCHERE.

The second was written on November 17, and ran as follows:

MY DEAR DILKE,--... It is a curious thing that in the discussions about Home Rule all round, no one has pointed out that in the German Empire Bavaria occupies a peculiar position. It has far more independent rights than any other State. It was only on these terms that it came into the Empire, for there is no great love lost between the Prussians and the Bavarians. Yet it sends its quota of representatives to the Reichsrath. Therefore there seems to me no particular reason why, if there be Home Rule all round, the position of Ireland should not be that of Bavaria.

I confess that I do not think much of the Government proposal in regard to the veto. It seems to me a stupid arrangement. The Upper Chamber is a fifth wheel on the coach which only can make itself a nuisance by persistent obstruction, which in two years is swept aside automatically. My experience in going to lots of anti-Lords Meetings led me to the conclusion that the country hates an Upper Chamber on hereditary lines, but does not quite believe in a Single Chamber which is absolute master. Why does no one propose to "scrap" the H. of L. and to have an elected Upper House, one-third of whose members are renewed by election every two years, or some such period? This would be on the lines of the U.S. Senate, only with a popular franchise, {534} instead of the strangely illogical one of the U.S. Such an Upper Chamber would probably be conservative in the real, and not the party sense of the word, and yet command respect. It would rarely act except when the decision of the H. of C. was influenced by a small minority, threatening to turn the Government out if it did not knock under to it. Were the Unionists to come forward with such a scheme, they might very probably get a majority.--Yours truly,

H. LABOUCHERE.

After Sir Charles Dilke's death, Mr. Labouchere wrote the following interesting letter to Lord Channing, dated Feb. 18:

DEAR CHANNING,--No, I am not writing any memoirs. I shall find it more agreeable to read yours than to do so.... I knew him (Dilke) very well since his start in politics. When in the House, he was the only man well up, particularly in domestic legislature, and, really, it is thanks to him that many useful measures were passed. In explaining them, however, he was too apt to lose himself in minor details. In foreign politics he never clearly knew what he wanted, and he was given to believe in mares' nests which he thought he had picked up abroad.... He fancied that he would be able to become the leader of the Labour M.P.'s. They were ready to profit by his speeches, but it soon became clear that they would only have a Labour M.P. for their leader. We started a sort of Labour Party with a Whip. But they came to me and said that it must be understood that he was not to be either President or Chairman. In the main this was due to jealousy of him.... I did all that I could with Campbell Bannerman for him to be in the Cabinet. Campbell Bannerman hesitated. Then Morley made a speech asserting that the Liberals would not be satisfied unless he was included. At once the Bishop of Rochester and a head dissenter (I think it was Clifford) published letters protesting. Campbell Bannerman then pointed to these letters, and said that we should have a split in the party if he were in the Cabinet. Personally, I quite agree with you as to his ostracism from office, but you know what the English are, and particularly the dissenters....

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Why did you resign your seat? It was a perfectly safe one. I resigned because I had got to an age, when I got tired out at a long sitting. It is curious I was with Campbell Bannerman and his wife and mine. She wanted him to give it up, as his doctor had told him that he ought to. I urged him to go on. He said that this was odd advice, when I had said that I should do so, and he was younger than I was. I replied that it was worth taking risks to be Prime Minister, but not for anything else. And he is dead and I alive....

If ever you want to rest calmly you must come down here and see me. I have a big villa close to Florence, and live a vegetable existence.--Yours truly,

H. LABOUCHERE.

A great grief befell Mr. Labouchere in 1910. He and Mrs. Labouchere had been spending the summer as usual at Villa d'Este and Cadenabbia, and had returned to Florence in the early days of October. Never had Mrs. Labouchere appeared to be in better health and spirits. On the evening of the 30th October, she had delighted every one with her inimitable reading aloud of _David Copperfield_, and life at Villa Cristina, on that day, had seemed, if possible, more joyous and serene than usual. The next morning the blow fell, but so gently as to be almost imperceptible. Mrs. Labouchere, feeling a little giddy on rising, had returned to her bed to allow the temporary sickness to pass off. By the afternoon she was beginning to slip away into unconsciousness, and before the bells in the neighbouring convent had begun to welcome the dawn of the Tutti Santi, she had gone forth alone on her last long journey.

The winter of 1910 and 1911 passed quietly away for Mr. Labouchere. His days were cheered by the constant presence of his daughter, who had married Marchesa Carlo di Rudini, the son of the former Prime Minister of Italy, and Mr. Thomas Hart Davies stayed with him till Christmas Day, returning to Florence again in the early spring. A succession of visitors from England and Rome kept the house {536} gay and lively as he loved to have it, always provided that he had to take upon himself none of the activities or responsibility of entertaining. "I am merely a passenger on the ship," he would say, when he wanted to wriggle out of any active participation in the organisation of whatever might be going on. But it always happened to be towards the corner of the ship where that particular passenger was resting that the pleasure and interest of every one converged. It was not so much the charm of his talk, that was, perhaps, more entertaining in his old age than it had ever been, as the extraordinarily youthful and never failing interest that he continued to take in the affairs of every one else that made him the best conversationalist in the world. No little event of the smallest human interest was too trivial to amuse him, and to awake the never failing source of his mother wit. He passed the summer at Villa Cristina and went to Villa d'Este in September. Though his spirits were as gay and unflagging as ever throughout the winter, it was easy to see that his physical strength was beginning to weaken. The walk which he took daily round his garden fatigued him so much that, by Christmas, he had given up even that mild form of exercise.

He experienced another bereavement during the winter in the death of his oldest and most intimately associated friend, Sir George Lewis. He felt his loss very deeply, and I remember that when he told me the news his voice was full of emotion. He related that Sir George Lewis had always looked upon him as his _mascotte_. "As long as you're alive and flourishing, Labby," he used to say, "I shall be all right too, so mind you take care of yourself." "Just shows what nonsense all those things are," continued Mr. Labouchere, "for here am I as well and strong as ever, and there is poor Lewis dead and gone." The return of Mr. Hart Davies to the Villa early in December cheered him up immensely, and his devoted friend did not leave his side {537} again, until the last sad morning when he bade farewell to him on the hill of San Miniato.

It was fitting perhaps that almost the last letter that Mr. Labouchere should have written, should have been to one of his old theatrical friends. Mr. Charles James Sugden, the actor, wrote to him and asked him to write a preface to his (Sugden's) forthcoming volume of Reminiscences. Here is Mr. Labouchere's reply:

VILLA CRISTINA, Jan. 4, 1912.

MY DEAR SUGDEN--You ask me to write a preface to your forthcoming book. I don't think that I ever read one in my life, for they always seem to be platitudes, impertinently thrust forward by some person who has an exaggerated idea of his own importance, in order to hinder me from getting at what I really do want to read. Good wine needs no bush, and I shall be greatly disappointed if I do not derive great pleasure from reading yours, for you have been brought into close contact with so many persons of note in their day, and some of whom are still in this world, and can throw many sidelights on them, and know many anecdotes about them. Pray bring it out as soon as possible. I am now over eighty, and at about that age senile imbecility commences, so I do not want it to make progress before I have had the opportunity to read the book and can appreciate it.[6]--Yours truly,

H. LABOUCHERE.

But it was not until the beginning of the second week in January that we all felt certain that he would never be well again. He was sauntering along so gently and carelessly, as only Labby knew how to saunter, towards the brink of the dark river. When the little heaps of cigarettes, that were arranged about his library so as to be always ready to his hand, ceased to dwindle as usual, it became clear to each and all that he must be very ill indeed. As simply as a child, tired with play, he took to his bed on the 11th of January, {538} and did not get up again. He died peacefully at midnight on January 15, 1912.

The earliest remark of Mr. Labouchere's that I have recorded in this book was a jest, and so was the last I heard him utter. On the afternoon of the day before he died, as I was sitting at his bedside, the spirit lamp that kept the fumes of eucalyptus in constant movement about his room, through some awkwardness of mine, was overturned. Mr. Labouchere, who was dozing, opened his eyes at the sound of the little commotion caused by the accident, and perceived the flare-up. "Flames?" he murmured interrogatively, "not yet, I think." He laughed quizzically, and went off to sleep again.

* * * * * * *

The words in which Mr. Hart Davies conveyed the news of his end to Carteret Street are so beautiful in their simple directness that no others can fitly replace them in this biography:

"His mind always remained perfectly clear. He took a lively interest in the German elections, the political crisis in France, and the events of the Italian-Turkish War. He was ever one for whom nothing that concerned the human race (_nihil humani_) was alien to his vivid intelligence. But his bodily powers were constantly declining, and on Monday, January 15, just before midnight, the end came, peacefully and painlessly, a fitting termination to the career of one who had ever been a fighter and ever in the forefront of the battle.

"He was buried on Wednesday morning, under the cold drizzling rain of the Florentine winter, at San Miniato, in the same grave with his wife, who died some fifteen months before him. There, his tomb, at the edge of the western battlement of San Miniato, looks over the Tower of Galileo and the dark cypresses of Arcetri. It may be said of him, as Heine said of himself, that on his grave should be placed 'not a wreath, but a sword, for he was a brave soldier in the war for the liberation of humanity.'"

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Before his death, he had expressed a strong wish as to the place of his burial. He wanted to rest beside his wife at San Miniato. But, when the arrangements for the funeral were about to be made, it was remembered that only Catholics were permitted to lie in the beautiful cemetery of the Florentines. The difficulty seemed insuperable, and the preliminary steps had already been taken to bury him in the Protestant graveyard. His daughter, however, determined to leave no stone unturned so that she might carry out her father's dying wishes. An appeal was made to some municipal authority, and, by an extraordinary coincidence, that seemed to make Labby's funeral fit in with all the rest of his strange paradoxical career, it was ascertained that, just at that moment, the possession of the cemetery was passing out of the hands of the religious body to whom it had hitherto belonged, and was becoming the property of the lay ecclesiastical authority of the city, and there had been no time for new regulations or restrictions to be formulated. There were, therefore, from a legal point of view, none in existence, and so it turned out that Mr. Labouchere was permitted to lie in the spot that he had himself chosen.

For many days after his death, the letters of condolence and sympathy from all quarters of the globe continued to pour into the deserted home. Of these one must assuredly be published, for it bears witness to the loyalty and affection that was unfailingly manifested to him by the borough he had represented for twenty-five years in Parliament. It was addressed to Marchesa di Rudini, by Mr. Edwin Barnes, the Secretary of the Northampton Liberal and Radical Association, and ran as follows:

At a special meeting of the Executive Committee of the above Association, held last night, the following resolution was unanimously passed, which I was directed to send to you: "The Liberals and Radicals of Northampton have heard with the deepest regret of the death of the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere, {540} who, for more than a quarter of a century, faithfully represented the Borough in the House of Commons. The members of the Executive of the Northampton Liberal and Radical Association hereby place on record the profound gratitude of all its members for the loyal service which Mr. Labouchere rendered to the cause of Democracy during so many years. Whoever faltered, he stood firm, and it will always be a proud remembrance that Northampton also stood firm, and that there was no break in the mutual confidence of member and constituents. To his daughter, the Marchesa di Rudini, and other members of Mr. Labouchere's family, we offer our sincerest sympathy in the irreparable loss that they have sustained, and trust they may find some consolation in the warm tributes that have been paid by men of all parties to his life, character, and work." Having known Mr. Labouchere for many years, and being his agent in the important election of 1900 (during the Boer War), allow me to add my own personal sympathy and condolence with you.

[1] May 12, 1905.

[2] _M.A.P._, Dec. 30, 1905.

[3] _Morning Post_, Dec. 23, 1905.

[4] _Penny Illustrated Paper_, Feb. 25, 1893.

[5] _Truth_, Sept. 21, 1900.

[6] _The Referee_, Jan. 21, 1912.

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INDEX

Abbeville, Labouchere at, 141

Abbot, Labouchere's action against, 108, 109

Abdulal Pasha, exile of, 221

Abercorn, Duke of, 85

Aberdeen, Earl of, 262; Col. Turner as _aide_ to, 361

Adelphi Theatre, Green at the, 29

Affirmation Act, passing of the, 160

Afghan War, the, 143

Afrikanders, National League of, 437

Aix, Provence, Fouché exiled to, 12

Albert, Prince, 67

Albret, Jeanne d', founder of the Protestant University at Orthez, 1

Alexander II., Emperor of Russia, watches Labouchere at écarté, 57

Alexandria, bombardment of, 71, 194, 195, 196, 218

Aliens Bill, 170

Alison on Mexico, 33

Alison, Sir Archibald, his command in Egypt, 209

Alliance Loan, the, 13

Allsopp, Labouchere on, 239

America, Bradlaugh in, 161-64; Fenianism in, 81, 170, 288, 309-10, 385; its constitution an example for England and Ireland, 237-8, 293, 294, 298, 531-33; its diplomats in Paris during the siege, 43; its interest in Labouchere's Paris letters, 96; its labour system compared with English, 461, 471, 479; its surgery and its girls in the Franco-Prussian War, 44, 45; its system of education, 42; Labouchere's prediction for, 14, 41, 44, 226; Lord Taunton travels in, 14-15; unpopularity of Parnell in, 378

Amiens, Labouchere at, 140

Amsterdam, house of Hope at, 2, 10

Anarchist party, the, 418

Anglo-American War, 9

Anne, Queen, Labouchere on, 245

Antwerp, 7, 10

Appeals in the House of Lords, Labouchere on, 83

Appropriation Act, the, 354

Arabi Pasha, exile of, 203-9, 219-24; rebellion of, 70-1, 195-98, 202, 215

Arago, Mayor of Paris, 127

Arklow, Parnell at, 258

Armenian persecutions, the, 435

Arms Bill, the, 172

Army, Labouchere on the, 478

Arrears Bill, the passing of, 176, 179, 181, 183, 187, 252, 361

Ascot, Labouchere at, 106

Ashbourne, his Irish policy, 279

Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., counsel for Parnell _v._ Walter, 374 _n._, 407

Assouan, 209

Athlone, Stamforth contests, 525

Atkinson, American statist, 468

Atkinson, counsel for the _Times_, 374 _n._

Audiffret-Pasquier, Duc d', _Histoire de Mon Temps_, 13 _n._

Austen, Charles, correspondent in Paris during the siege, 141 _n._

Australia, J. R. Cox in, 223

Austria, customs union with, 418