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British Political Leaders

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Title: British Political Leaders

Author: Justin McCarthy


        
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BRITISH POLITICAL LEADERS

       *       *       *       *       *

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._

IN THE

"Story of the Nations" Series.

  Each volume large crown 8vo, cloth, fully Illustrated, 5s.

    MODERN ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORM BILL.

    MODERN ENGLAND UNDER QUEEN VICTORIA.

  _IN PREPARATION._

    PORTRAITS OF THE SIXTIES.

  Demy 8vo, cloth, Illustrated, 16s.


LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.

       *       *       *       *       *


[Illustration: Photograph copyright by Elliott & Fry

ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR]


BRITISH POLITICAL LEADERS

by

JUSTIN McCARTHY

With Portraits







[Illustration]

London
T. Fisher Unwin
Paternoster Square
1903

[All rights reserved.]




CONTENTS


    1. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR                  1

    2. LORD SALISBURY                       25

    3. LORD ROSEBERY                        49

    4. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN                   73

    5. HENRY LABOUCHERE                     99

    6. JOHN MORLEY                         125

    7. LORD ABERDEEN                       151

    8. JOHN BURNS                          177

    9. SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH             203

    10. JOHN E. REDMOND                    229

    11. SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT               255

    12. JAMES BRYCE                        281

    13. SIR HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN       307




ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR


My first acquaintance with Mr. Arthur J. Balfour, who recently became
Prime Minister of King Edward VII., was made in the earliest days of my
experience as a member of the House of Commons. The Fourth party, as it
was called, had just been formed under the inspiration of the late Lord
Randolph Churchill. The Fourth party was a new political enterprise. The
House of Commons up to that time contained three regular and recognized
political parties--the supporters of the Government, the supporters of
the Opposition, and the members of the Irish Nationalist party, of whom
I was one. Lord Randolph Churchill created a Fourth party, the business
of which was to act independently alike of the Government, the
Opposition, and the Irish Nationalists. At the time when I entered
Parliament the Conservatives were in power, and Conservative statesmen
occupied the Treasury Bench. The members of Lord Randolph's party were
all Conservatives so far as general political principles were concerned,
but Lord Randolph's idea was to lead a number of followers who should be
prepared and ready to speak and vote against any Government proposal
which they believed to be too conservative or not conservative enough;
to support the Liberal Opposition in the rare cases when they thought
the Opposition was in the right; and to support the Irish Nationalists
when they believed that these were unfairly dealt with, or when they
believed, which happened much more frequently, that to support the
Irishmen would be an annoyance to the party in power.

The Fourth party was made up of numbers exactly corresponding with the
title which had been given to it. Four men, including the leader,
constituted the whole strength of this little army. These men were Lord
Randolph Churchill, Arthur J. Balfour, John Gorst (now Sir John Gorst),
and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who has during more recent years withdrawn
altogether from parliamentary life and given himself up to diplomacy, in
which he has won much honorable distinction. Sir John Gorst has recently
held office in the Government, and is believed to have given and felt
little satisfaction in his official career. He is a man of great ability
and acquirements, but these have been somewhat thrown away in the
business of administration.

The Fourth Party certainly did much to make the House of Commons a
lively place. Its members were always in attendance--the whole four of
them--and no one ever knew where, metaphorically, to place them. They
professed and made manifest open scorn for the conventionalities of
party life, and the parliamentary whips never knew when they could be
regarded as supporters or opponents. They were all effective debaters,
all ready with sarcasm and invective, all sworn foes to dullness and
routine, all delighting in any opportunity for obstructing and
bewildering the party which happened to be in power. The members of the
Fourth party had each of them a distinct individuality, although they
invariably acted together and were never separated in the division
lobbies. A member of the House of Commons likened them once in a speech
to D'Artagnan and his Three Musketeers, as pictured in the immortal
pages of the elder Dumas. John Gorst he described as Porthos, Sir Henry
Drummond Wolff as Athos, and Arthur Balfour as the sleek and subtle
Aramis. When I entered Parliament I was brought much into companionship
with the members of this interesting Fourth party. One reason for this
habit of intercourse was that we sat very near to one another on the
benches of the House. The members of the Irish Nationalist party then,
as now, always sat on the side of the Opposition, no matter what
Government happened to be in power, for the principle of the Irish
Nationalists is to regard themselves as in perpetual opposition to every
Government so long as Ireland is deprived of her own national
legislature. Soon after I entered the House a Liberal Government was the
result of a general election, and the Fourth party, as habitually
conservative, sat on the Opposition benches. The Fourth party gave
frequent support to the Irish Nationalists in their endeavors to resist
and obstruct Government measures, and we therefore came into habitual
intercourse, and even comradeship, with Lord Randolph Churchill and his
small band of followers.

Arthur Balfour bore little resemblance, in appearance, in manners, in
debating qualities, and apparently in mould of intellect, to any of the
three men with whom he was then constantly allied. He was tall,
slender, pale, graceful, with something of an almost feminine
attractiveness in his bearing, although he was as ready, resolute, and
stubborn a fighter as any one of his companions in arms. He had the
appearance and the ways of a thoughtful student and scholar, and one
would have associated him rather with a college library or a professor's
chair than with the rough and boisterous ways of the House of Commons.
He seemed to have come from another world of thought and feeling into
that eager, vehement, and sometimes rather uproarious political
assembly. Unlike his uncle, Lord Salisbury, he was known to enjoy social
life, but he was especially given to that select order of æsthetic
social life which was "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," a
form of life which was rather fashionable in society just then. But it
must have been clear even to the most superficial observer that he had a
decided gift of parliamentary capacity. He was a fluent and a ready
speaker and could bear an effective part in any debate at a moment's
notice, but he never declaimed, never indulged in any flight of
eloquence, and seldom raised his clear and musical voice much above the
conversational pitch. His choice of language was always happy and
telling, and he often expressed himself in characteristic phrases which
lived in the memory and passed into familiar quotation. He had won some
distinction as a writer by his "Defense of Philosophic Doubt," by a
volume of "Essays and Addresses," and more lately by his work entitled
"The Foundations of Belief." The first and last of these books were
inspired by a graceful and easy skepticism which had in it nothing
particularly destructive to the faith of any believer, but aimed only at
the not difficult task of proving that a doubting ingenuity can raise
curious cavils from the practical and argumentative point of view
against one creed as well as against another. The world did not take
these skeptical ventures very seriously, and they were for the most part
regarded as the attempts of a clever young man to show how much more
clever he was than the ordinary run of believing mortals. Balfour's
style was clear and vigorous, and people read the essays because of the
writer's growing position in political life, and out of curiosity to see
how the rising young statesman could display himself as the avowed
advocate of philosophic skepticism.

Arthur Balfour took a conspicuous part in the attack made upon the
Liberal Government in 1882 on the subject of the once famous Kilmainham
Treaty. The action which he took in this instance was avowedly inspired
by a desire to embarrass and oppose the Government because of the
compromise into which it had endeavored to enter with Charles Stewart
Parnell for some terms of agreement as to the manner in which
legislation in Ireland ought to be administered. The full history of
what was called the Kilmainham Treaty has not, so far as I know, been
ever correctly given to the public, and it is not necessary, when
surveying the political career of Mr. Balfour, to enter into any
lengthened explanation on the subject. Mr. Parnell was in prison at the
time when the arrangement was begun, and those who were in his
confidence were well aware that he was becoming greatly alarmed as to
the state of Ireland under the rule of the late W. E. Forster, who was
then Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and under whose operations
leading Irishmen were thrown into prison on no definite charge, but
because their general conduct left them open in the mind of the Chief
Secretary to the suspicion that their public agitation was likely to
bring about a rebellious movement. Parnell began to fear that the state
of the country would become worse and worse if every popular movement
were to be forcibly repressed at the time when the leaders in whom the
Irish people had full confidence were kept in prison and their guidance,
control, and authority withdrawn from the work of pacification. The
proposed arrangement, whether begun by Mr. Parnell himself or suggested
to him by members of his own party or of the English Radical party, was
simply an understanding that if the leading Irishmen were allowed to
return to their public work the country might at least be kept in peace
while English Liberalism was devising some measures for the better
government of Ireland. The arrangement was in every sense creditable
alike to Parnell and to the English Liberals who were anxious to
cooperate with him in such a purpose. But it led to some disturbance in
Mr. Gladstone's government and to Mr. Forster's resignation of his
office. In 1885, when the Conservatives again came into power and formed
a government, Balfour was appointed President of the Local Government
Board and afterwards became Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant--in
other words, Chief Secretary for Ireland. He had to attempt a difficult,
or rather, it should be said, an impossible task, and he got through it
about as well as, or as badly as, any other man could have done whose
appointed mission was to govern Ireland on Tory principles for the
interests of the landlords and by the policy of coercion.

Balfour, it should be said, was never, even at that time, actually
unpopular with the Irish National party. We all understood quite well
that his own heart did not go with the sort of administrative work which
was put upon him; his manners were always courteous, agreeable, and
graceful; he had a keen, quiet sense of humor, was on good terms
personally with the leading Irish members, and never showed any
inclination to make himself needlessly or wantonly offensive to his
opponents. He was always readily accessible to any political opponent
who had any suggestion to make, and his term of office as Chief
Secretary, although of necessity quite unsuccessful for any practical
good, left no memories of rancor behind it in the minds of those whom he
had to oppose and to confront. More lately he became First Lord of the
Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons, and the remainder of his
public career is too well known to call for any detailed description
here. My object in this article is rather to give a living picture of
the man himself as we all saw him in public life than to record in
historical detail the successive steps by which he ascended to his
present high position, or rather, it should be said, of the successive
events which brought that place within his reach and made it necessary
for him to accept it. For it is only fair to say that, so far as outer
observers could judge, Mr. Balfour never made his career a struggle for
high positions. So clever and gifted a man must naturally have had some
ambition in the public field to which he had devoted so absolutely his
time and his talents. But he seemed, so far as one could judge, to have
in him none of the self-seeking qualities which are commonly seen in the
man whose purpose is to make his parliamentary work the means of
arriving at the highest post in the government of the State. On the
contrary, his whole demeanor seemed to be rather that of one who is
devoting himself unwillingly to a career not quite congenial. He always
appeared to me to be essentially a man of literary, scholarly, and even
retiring tastes, who has a task forced upon him which he does not feel
quite free to decline, and who therefore strives to make the best of a
career which he has not chosen, but from which he does not feel at
liberty to turn away. Most men who have attained the same political
position give one the idea that they feel a positive delight in
parliamentary life and warfare, and that nature must have designed them
for that particular field and for none other. The joy in the strife
which men like Palmerston, like Disraeli, and like Gladstone evidently
felt never showed itself in the demeanor of Arthur Balfour. There was
always something in his manner which spoke of a shy and shrinking
disposition, and he never appeared to enter into debate for the mere
pleasure of debating. He gave the idea of one who would much rather not
make a speech were he altogether free to please himself in the matter,
and as if he were only constraining himself to undertake a duty which
most of those around him were but too glad to have an opportunity of
attempting.

There are instances, no doubt, of men gifted with an absolute genius for
eloquent speech who have had no natural inclination for debate and would
rather have been free from any necessity for entering into the war of
words. I have heard John Bright say that he would never make a speech if
he did not feel it a duty imposed upon him, and that he would never
enter the House of Commons if he felt free to keep away from its
debates. Yet Bright was a born orator and was, on the whole, I think,
the greatest public and parliamentary orator I have ever heard in
England, not excluding even Gladstone himself. Bright had all the
physical qualities of the orator. He had a commanding presence and a
voice of the most marvelous intonation, capable of expressing in musical
sound every emotion which lends itself to eloquence--the impassioned,
the indignant, the pathetic, the appealing, and the humorous. Then I can
recall an instance of another man, not, indeed, endowed with Bright's
superb oratorical gifts, but who had to spend the greater part of his
life since he attained the age of manhood in the making of speeches
within and outside the House of Commons. I am thinking now of Charles
Stewart Parnell. I know well that Parnell would never have made a speech
if he could have avoided the task, and that he even felt a nervous
dislike to the mere putting of a question in the House. But no one
would have known from Bright's manner when he took part in a great
debate that he was not obeying in congenial mood the full instinct and
inclination of a born orator. Nor would a stranger have guessed from
Parnell's clear, self-possessed, and precise style of speaking that he
was putting a severe constraint upon himself when he made up his mind to
engage in parliamentary debate. There is something in Arthur Balfour's
manner as a speaker which occasionally reminds me of Parnell and his
style. The two men had the same quiet, easy, and unconcerned fashion of
utterance, always choosing the most appropriate word and finding it
without apparent difficulty; each man seemed, as I have already said of
Balfour, to be thinking aloud rather than trying to convince the
listeners; each man spoke as if resolved not to waste any words or to
indulge in any appeal to the mere emotions of the audience. But the
natural reluctance to take any part in debate was always more
conspicuous in the manner of Balfour than even in that of Parnell.

Balfour is a man of many and varied tastes and pursuits. He is an
advocate of athleticism and is especially distinguished for his devotion
to the game of golf. He obtained at one time a certain reputation in
London society because of the interest he took in some peculiar phases
of fanciful intellectual inventiveness. He was for a while a leading
member, if not the actual inventor, of a certain order of psychical
research whose members were described as The Souls. More than one
novelist of the day made picturesque use of this singular order and
enlivened the pages of fiction by fancy portraits of its leading
members. Such facts as these did much to prevent Balfour from being
associated in the public mind with only the rivalries of political
parties and the incidents of parliamentary warfare. One sometimes came
into social circles where Balfour was regarded chiefly as the man of
literary tastes and somewhat eccentric intellectual developments. All
this cast a peculiar reflection over his career as a politician and
filled many observers with the idea that he was only playing at
parliamentary life, and that his other occupations were the genuine
realities for him. Even to this day there are some who persist in
believing that Balfour, despite his prolonged and unvarying attention to
his parliamentary duties, has never given his heart to the prosaic and
practical work of administrative office and the business of maintaining
his political party. Yet it has always had to be acknowledged that no
man attended more carefully and more closely to such work when he had to
do it, and that the most devoted worshiper of political success could
not have been more regular and constant in his attention to the business
of the House of Commons. People said that he was lazy by nature, that he
loved long hours of sleep and of general rest, and that he detested the
methodical and mechanical routine of official work. But I have not known
any Minister of State who was more easy of approach and more ready to
enter into the driest details of departmental business than Arthur
Balfour. I may say, too, that, whenever appeal was made to him to
forward any good work or to do any act of kindness, he was always to be
found at his post and was ever ready to lend a helping hand if he could.

I remember one instance of this kind which I have no hesitation in
mentioning, although I am quite sure Mr. Balfour had little inclination
for its obtaining publicity. Not very many years ago it was brought to
my knowledge that an English literary woman who had won much and
deserved distinction as a novel-writer had been for some time sinking
into ill health, had been therefore prevented from going on with her
work, and had in the mean time been perplexed by worldly difficulties
and embarrassments which interfered sadly with her prospects and made
her a subject of well-merited sympathy. Some friends of the authoress
were naturally anxious, if possible, to give her a helping hand, and the
idea occurred to them that she would be a most fitting recipient of
assistance to be bestowed by a department of the State. One of her
friends, himself a distinguished novelist, who happened to be also a
friend of mine, spoke to me with this object, assuming that, as an old
parliamentary hand, I knew more than most writers of books would be
likely to know about the manner in which such help might be obtained.
There is in England a fund--a very small fund, truly--at the disposal of
the Government for the help of deserving authors who happen to be in
distress. This fund is at the disposal of the First Lord of the
Treasury, the office which was then, as now, held by Arthur Balfour. I
was still at that time a member of the House of Commons, and my friend
suggested that, as I knew something about the whole business, I might be
a suitable person to represent the case to the First Lord of the
Treasury and make appeal for his assistance. My friend's belief was that
the application might come with more effect from one who had been for a
long time a member of Parliament, and whose name would therefore be
known to the First Lord of the Treasury, than from a literary man who
had nothing to do with parliamentary life. Nothing could give me greater
pleasure than to become the medium through which the appeal might be
brought under the notice of the First Lord, but I felt some difficulty
and doubt because of the conditions of the time. England was then in the
most distracting period of the South African war. We were hearing every
day of fresh mishaps and disasters in the campaign. Arthur Balfour was
Leader of the House of Commons, and had to deal every day with
questions, with demands for explanation, with arguments and debates
turning on the events of the war. It seemed to me to be rather a
venturesome enterprise to attempt to gain the attention of a minister
thus perplexingly occupied for a matter of merely private and individual
concern. I feared that an overworked statesman might feel naturally
inclined to remit the subject to the care of some mere official, and
that time might thus be lost and the needed helping hand be long
delayed. I undertook the task, however, and I wrote to Mr. Balfour at
once. I received the very next day a reply written in Mr. Balfour's own
hand, expressing his cordial willingness to consider the subject, his
sympathy with the purpose of the appeal, and his hope that some help
might be given to the distressed novelist. Mr. Balfour promptly took the
matter in hand, and the result was that a grant was made from the State
fund to secure the novelist against any actual distress. Now, I do not
want to make too much of this act of ready kindness done by Mr. Balfour.
The appeal was made for a most deserving object; the fund from which
help was to be given was entirely at Mr. Balfour's disposal; and it is
probable that any other First Lord in the same circumstances would have
come to the same decision. But how easy it would have been for Mr.
Balfour to put the whole matter into the hands of some subordinate, and
not to add a new trouble to his own intensely busy life at such an
exciting crisis by entering into the close consideration of a mere
question of State beneficence! I certainly should not have been
surprised if I had not received an answer to my letter for several days
after I had sent it, and if even then it had come from some subordinate
in the Government department. But in the midst of all his incessant and
distracting occupations at a most exciting period of public business Mr.
Balfour found time to consider the question himself, to reply with his
own hand, and to see that the desired help was promptly accorded. I must
say that I think this short passage of personal history speaks highly
for the kindly nature and the sympathetic promptitude of Arthur Balfour.

For a long time there had been much speculation in these countries
concerning the probable successor to Lord Salisbury, whenever Lord
Salisbury should make up his mind to resign the position of Prime
Minister. We all knew that that resignation was sure to come soon,
although very few of us had any idea that it was likely to come quite so
soon. The general opinion was that the country would not be expected,
for some time at least, to put up again with a Prime Minister in the
House of Lords. If, therefore, the new Prime Minister had to be found in
the House of Commons, there seemed to be only a choice between two men,
Arthur Balfour and Joseph Chamberlain. It would be hard to find two men
in the House of Commons more unlike each other in characteristic
qualities and in training than these two. They are both endowed with
remarkable capacity for political life and for parliamentary debate,
"but there," as Byron says concerning two of whom one was a Joseph, "I
doubt all likeness ends between the pair." Balfour is an aristocrat of
aristocrats; Chamberlain is essentially a man of the British middle
class--even what is generally called the lower middle class. Balfour has
gone through all the regular course of university education; Chamberlain
was for a short time at University College School in London, a popular
institution of modern origin which does most valuable educational work,
but is not largely patronized by the classes who claim aristocratic
position. Balfour is a constant reader and student of many literatures
and languages; "Mr. Chamberlain," according to a leading article in a
London daily newspaper, "to put it mildly, is not a bookworm." Balfour
loves open-air sports and is a votary of athleticism; Chamberlain never
takes any exercise, even walking exercise, when he can possibly avoid
the trouble. Balfour is an æsthetic lover of all the arts; Chamberlain
has never, so far as I know, given the slightest indication of interest
in any artistic subject. Balfour is by nature a modest and retiring man;
Chamberlain is always "Pushful Joe." The stamp and character of a
successful municipal politician are always evident in Chamberlain, while
Balfour seems to be above all other things the university scholar and
member of high society. I suppose it must have been a profound
disappointment to Chamberlain that he was not offered the place of Prime
Minister, but it would be hardly fair to expect that such a place would
not be offered to the First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House
of Commons, even if that First Lord did not happen to be a nephew of the
retiring Prime Minister.

It would be idle just now to enter into any speculation as to whether
Mr. Arthur Balfour will long continue to hold the office. If he should
make up his mind, as was at one time thought possible by many observers,
to accept a peerage and become Prime Minister in the House of Lords,
such a step would undoubtedly be a means of pacifying the partisans of
Chamberlain, for Chamberlain would then become, almost as a matter of
course, the leader of the Conservative government in the House of
Commons, and this elevation might well satisfy his ambition and give his
pushful energy work enough to do. But the country has of late become
less and less satisfied with the practice of having a Prime Minister
removed from the centre of active life and hidden away in the enervating
atmosphere of the House of Lords. The friends of Mr. Balfour are
naturally inclined to hope and believe that he will not bury himself in
such a living tomb. His path will in any case be perplexed by many
difficulties and obstructions. My own impression is that the inevitable
reaction is destined to come before long. The next general election may
prove that the country at large is tired of a Conservative
administration. The public mind will soon get over the feverish
excitement created by the South African war, and people will begin to
remember that England had won battles and annexed territory before there
ever was a Transvaal Republic, and found then, as she will find now,
that successes abroad do not relieve her from the necessity of managing
successfully her business at home. It has to be borne in mind, too, that
the House of Commons does not really originate anything in the work of
important legislation. The best business of the Liberal party begins
outside the House of Commons--begins with the people and with those who
take an interest in the welfare of the people and have brains and
foresight enough to find out how it can be most thoroughly promoted. All
great reforms have their origin outside the House of Commons and are
only taken up by the House of Commons when it is felt that the popular
demand is so earnest that it must receive serious consideration. The
country will soon begin to realize the fact that, shamefully mismanaged
as the War Department may have been during the recent campaigns, the War
Department is not by any means the only national institution which needs
the strong hand of reform. The spirited foreign policy has had its
innings, and the condition of the people at home must have its turn very
soon. The Liberal party has its work cut out for it, and where there is
the work to be done a Liberal party will be found to do it. So far as I
can read the signs of the times, I am encouraged to hope that a great
opportunity is waiting for the Liberal party, and I cannot see the
slightest reason to doubt that a Liberal party will be found ready for
the opportunity and equal to it. A Tory Prime Minister has, indeed,
before now had the judgment and the energy to forestall the Liberal
party in the great work of domestic reform, but I do not believe that
even the warmest admirers of Mr. Balfour imagine that he is quite the
man to undertake such an enterprise. Arthur Balfour is, according to my
judgment, the best man for the place to be found in the Conservative
ranks at present, but I do not suppose that he is destined just now to
be anything more than a stop-gap. I admire his great and varied
abilities, I recognize his brilliant debating powers, and I have felt
the charm of his genial and graceful manners, but I do not believe him
capable of maintaining the present administration against the rising
force of a Liberal reaction.




[Illustration: From a painting by Hubert von Herkomer

LORD SALISBURY]




LORD SALISBURY


The retirement of Lord Salisbury from the position of Prime Minister and
the leadership of the Conservative Government withdraws into comparative
obscurity the most interesting and even picturesque figure in the
English Parliamentary life of the present day. Even the most
uncompromising opponents of the Prime Minister and of his political
party felt a sincere respect for the character, the intellect, and the
bearing of the man himself. Every one gave Lord Salisbury full credit
for absolute sincerity of purpose, for superiority to any personal
ambitions or mere self-seeking, for an almost contemptuous disregard of
State honors and political fame.

Yet it was not that Lord Salisbury was habitually careful and measured
in his speech, that he was never hurried into rash utterances, that he
was guided by any particular anxiety to avoid offending the
susceptibilities of others, or, indeed, that, as a rule, he preferred to
use soothing words in political controversy. He has, on the contrary, a
marvelous gift of sarcasm and of satirical phrase-making, and he was
only too ready to indulge occasionally this peculiar capacity at the
expense of political friend as well as of political foe. In his early
days of public life, when he sat in the House of Commons as a nominal
follower of Mr. Disraeli, he was once described in debate by his nominal
leader as "a master of flouts and jeers." On another occasion Disraeli
spoke of him, although not in Parliamentary debate, as a young man whose
head was on fire. In later days, and even when he had held high
administrative office, Lord Salisbury often indulged in sudden outbursts
of contemptuous humor which for a time seemed likely to provoke
indignant remonstrance even from his own followers. One illustration of
this unlucky tendency towards contemptuous utterance may be found in his
famous allusion several years ago to a native of Hindustan, who had been
elected to a seat in the House of Commons, as "a black man." That was a
time when every English public man recognized the great importance of
indulging in no expression which might seem calculated to wound the
susceptibilities of the many races who have been brought under the rule
of the Imperial system in the Indian dominions of the sovereign. The
member of Parliament thus scornfully alluded to was no more a black man
than Lord Salisbury himself. He was one of the Parsee races chiefly
found in the Bombay regions, almost European in the color of their skin,
and he looked more like a German scholar than a native of any sunburnt
land. No one defended Lord Salisbury's rash utterance, but many people
excused it on the ground that it was only Lord Salisbury's way; that he
never meant any harm, but could not resist the temptation of saying an
amusing and sarcastic thing when it came into his mind. The truth is
that Lord Salisbury's odd humor is a peculiarity without which he could
not be the complete Lord Salisbury, and an unlucky expression was easily
forgiven because of the many brilliant flashes of genuine and not unfair
sarcasm with which he was accustomed to illumine a dull debate. When he
succeeded to his father's title, and had, therefore, to leave the House
of Commons and take his place in the House of Lords, every one felt that
the representative chamber had lost one of its most attractive figures,
and that the hereditary chamber was not exactly the place in which such
a man could find his happiest hunting-ground. Yet even in the somber and
unimpressive House of Lords, Lord Salisbury was able, whenever the humor
took him, to brighten the debates by his apt illustrations and his witty
humor.

Lord Salisbury resigns his position as Prime Minister at a time of life
when, according to the present standards of age, a man is still supposed
to have long years of good work before him. Lord Palmerston's career as
Prime Minister was cut short only by his death, an event which occurred
when Palmerston was in his eighty-first year. Gladstone was more than
ten years older than Lord Salisbury is now when he voluntarily gave up
his position as head of a Liberal administration. Lord Beaconsfield's
time of birth is somewhat uncertain, but he must have been some
seventy-seven years of age and had lost none of his powers as a debater
when his brilliant life came to its close. We may take it for granted
that Lord Salisbury had been for a long time growing tired of the
exalted political position which had of late become uncongenial with his
habits and his frame of mind. By the death of his wife he had lost the
most loved companion of his home, his intellectual tastes, and his
political career. A pair more thoroughly devoted to each other than Lord
and Lady Salisbury could hardly have been found even in the pages of
romance. The whole story of that marriage and that married life would
have supplied a touching and a telling chapter for romance. Early in his
public career Lord Salisbury fell in love with a charming, gifted, and
devoted woman, whom a happy chance had brought in his way. She was the
daughter of an eminent English judge, the late Baron Alderson; and
although such a wife might have been thought a suitable match even for a
great aristocrat, it appears that the Lord Salisbury of that time, the
father of the late Prime Minister, who was then only Lord Robert Cecil,
did not approve of the marriage, and the young pair had to take their
own way and become husband and wife without regard for the family
prejudices. Lord Robert Cecil was then only a younger brother with a
younger brother's allowance to live on, and the newly wedded pair had
not much of a prospect before them, in the conventional sense of the
words. Lord Robert Cecil accepted the situation with characteristic
courage and resolve. There seemed at that time no likelihood of his
ever succeeding to the title and the estates, for his elder brother was
living, and was, of course, heir to the ancestral title and property.
Lord Robert Cecil had been gifted with distinct literary capacity, and
he set himself down to work as a writer and a journalist. He became a
regular contributor to the "Saturday Review," then at the height of its
influence and fame, and he wrote articles for some of the ponderous
quarterly reviews of the time, brightening their pages by his animated
and forcible style. He took a small house in a modest quarter of London,
where artists and poets and authors of all kinds usually made a home
then, far removed from West End fashion and courtly splendor, and there
he lived a happy and productive life for many years. He had obtained a
seat in the House of Commons as a member of the Conservative party, but
he never pledged himself to support every policy and every measure
undertaken by the Conservative leaders, whether they happened to be in
or out of office. Lord Robert always acted as an independent member,
although he adhered conscientiously to the cardinal principles of that
Conservative doctrine which was his political faith throughout his life.
He soon won for himself a marked distinction in the House of Commons.
He was always a brilliant speaker, but was thoughtful and statesmanlike
as well as brilliant. He never became an orator in the higher sense of
the word. He never attempted any flights of exalted eloquence. His
speeches were like the utterances of a man who is thinking aloud and
whose principal object is to hold and convince his listeners by the
sheer force of argument set forth in clear and telling language. Many of
his happy phrases found acceptance as part of the ordinary language of
political and social life and became in their way immortal. Up to the
present day men are continually quoting happy phrases drawn from Lord
Robert Cecil's early speeches without remembering the source from which
they came.

Such a capacity as that of Lord Robert Cecil could not long be
overlooked by the leaders of his party, and it soon became quite clear
that he must be invited to administrative office. I ought to say that,
after Lord Robert had completed his collegiate studies at Oxford, he
devoted himself for a considerable time to an extensive course of
travel, and he visited Australasia, then but little known to young
Englishmen of his rank, and he actually did much practical work as a
digger in the Australian gold mines, then newly discovered. He had
always a deep interest in foreign affairs, and it was greatly to the
advantage of his subsequent career that he could often support his
arguments on questions of foreign policy by experience drawn from a
personal study of the countries and States forming successive subjects
of debate. Suddenly his worldly prospects underwent a complete change.
The death of his elder brother made him heir to the family title and the
great estates. He became Viscount Cranborne in succession to his dead
brother. I may perhaps explain, for the benefit of some of my American
readers, that the heir to a peerage who bears what is called a courtesy
title has still a right to sit, if elected, in the House of Commons. It
is sometimes a source of wonder and puzzlement to foreign visitors when
they find so many men sitting in the House of Commons who actually bear
titles which would make it seem as if they ought to be in the House of
Lords. The eldest sons of all the higher order of peers bear such a
title, but it carries with it no disqualification for a seat in the
House of Commons, if the bearer of it be duly elected to a place in the
representative chamber. When the bearer of the courtesy title succeeds
to the actual title belonging to the house, he then, as a matter of
course, becomes a peer, has to enter the House of Lords, and would no
longer be legally eligible to sit in the representative chamber. Lord
Palmerston's presence in the House of Commons was often a matter of
wonder to foreign visitors, for in all the days to which my memory goes
back, Lord Palmerston seemed too old a man to have a father alive and in
the House of Lords. I have had to explain the matter to many a stranger,
and it only gives one other illustration of the peculiarities and
anomalies which belong to our Parliamentary system. Palmerston's was not
a courtesy title; the noble lord was a peer in his own right; but then
he was merely an Irish peer, and only a certain number of Irish peers
are entitled to sit in the House of Lords. The more fortunate, for so I
must describe them, of the Irish peers not thus entitled to sit in the
hereditary chamber are free to seek election for an English constituency
in the House of Commons and to obtain it, as Lord Palmerston did. Lord
Viscount Cranborne, therefore, continued for a time to hold the place in
the House of Commons which he had held as Lord Robert Cecil. In 1866
Lord Cranborne entered office, for the first time, as Secretary of State
for India during the administration of Lord Derby.

The year following brought about a sort of crisis in Lord Cranborne's
political career, and probably showed the general public of England, for
the first time, what manner of man he really was. Up to that period he
had been regarded by most persons, even among those who habitually gave
attention to Parliamentary affairs, as a brilliant, independent, and
somewhat audacious free-lance whose political conduct was usually
directed by the impulse of the moment, and who made no pretensions to
any fixed and ruling principles. That was the year 1867, when the
Conservative Government under Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli took it into
their heads to try the novel experiment, for a Conservative party, of
introducing a Reform Bill to improve and expand the conditions of the
Parliamentary suffrage. Disraeli was the author of this new scheme, and
it had been suggested to him by Mr. Gladstone's failure in the previous
year with his measure of reform. Gladstone's reform measure did not go
far enough to satisfy the genuine Radicals, while it went much too far
for a considerable number of doubtful and half-hearted Liberals, and it
was strongly opposed by the whole Tory party. As usually happens in the
case of every reform introduced by a Liberal administration, a secession
took place among the habitual followers of the Government. The secession
in this case was made famous by the name which Bright conferred upon it
as the "Cave of Adullam" party; and by the co-operation of the seceding
section with the Tory Opposition, the measure was defeated, and Mr.
Gladstone went out of office. Disraeli saw, with his usual sagacity,
that the vast mass of the population were in favor of some measure of
reform, and when Lord Derby and he came into office he made up his mind
that, as the thing had to be done, he and his colleagues might as well
have the advantage of doing it. The outlines of the measure prepared for
the purpose only shaped a very vague and moderate scheme of reform, but
Disraeli was quite determined to accept any manner of compromises in
order to carry some sort of scheme and to keep himself and his party in
power. But then arose a new difficulty on which, with all his sagacity,
he had not calculated. Lord Cranborne for the first time showed that he
was a man of clear and resolute political principle, and that he was not
willing to sacrifice any of his conscientious convictions for the sake
of maintaining his place in a Government. He was sincerely opposed to
every project for making the suffrage popular and for admitting the mass
of the workingmen of the country to any share in its government. I need
hardly say that I am entirely opposed to Lord Cranborne's political
theories, but I am none the less willing to render full justice to the
sincerity, not too common among rising public men, which refused to make
any compromise on a matter of political principle. Lord Cranborne was
then only at the opening of his administrative career, and he must have
had personal ambition enough to make him wish for a continuance of
office in a powerful administration. But he put all personal
considerations resolutely aside, and resigned his place in the
Government rather than have anything to do with a project which he
believed to be a surrender of constitutional principle to the demands of
the growing democracy. Lord Carnarvon and one or two other members of
the administration followed his lead and resigned their places in the
Government. I need not enter into much detail as to the progress of the
Disraeli reform measure. It is enough to say that Disraeli obtained the
support of many Radicals by the Liberal amendments which he accepted,
and the result was that a Tory Government carried to success a scheme of
reform which practically amounted to the introduction of household
suffrage. Lord Cranborne and those who acted with him held firmly to
their principles, and steadily opposed the measure introduced by those
who at the opening of the session were their official leaders and
colleagues. I am convinced that even the most advanced reformers were
ready to give a due meed of praise to the man who had thus made it
evident that he preferred what he believed to be a political principle,
even though he knew it to be the principle of a losing cause, to any
consideration of personal advancement.

Some of us felt sure that we had then learned for the first time what
manner of man Lord Cranborne really was. We had taken him for a bold and
brilliant adventurer, and we found and were ready to acknowledge that he
was a man of deep, sincere, and self-sacrificing convictions. I have
never from that time changed my opinions with regard to Lord Cranborne's
personal character. His career interested me from the first moment that
I had an opportunity of observing it, and I may say that from an early
period of my manhood I had much opportunity of studying the ways and the
figures of Parliamentary life. But until Lord Cranborne had taken this
resolute position on the reform question, I had never given him credit
for any depth of political convictions. The impression I formed of him
up to that time was that he was merely a younger son of a great
aristocratic family, who had a natural aptitude alike for literature and
for politics, and that he was following in Parliament the guidance of
his own personal humors and argumentative impulses, and that he was
ready to sacrifice in debate not only his friends but his party for the
sake of saying a clever thing and startling his audience into reluctant
admiration. From those days of 1867 I knew him to be what all the world
now knows him to be, a man of deep and sincere convictions, ever
following the light of what he believes to be political wisdom and
justice. I can say this none the less readily because I suppose it has
hardly ever been my fortune to agree with any of Lord Salisbury's
utterances on questions of political importance.

In 1868 the career of Lord Cranborne in the House of Commons came to an
end by the death of his father. He succeeded to the title of Marquis of
Salisbury, and became, as a matter of course, a member of the House of
Lords. He was thus withdrawn while still a comparatively young man from
that stirring field of splendid debate where his highest qualities as a
speaker could alone have found their fitting opportunity. I need not
trace out his subsequent public career with any sequence of detail. We
all know how from that time to this he has held high office, has come to
hold the highest offices in the State whenever his political party
happened to be in power. He has been Foreign Secretary; he has been
Prime Minister in three Conservative administrations. For a time he
actually combined the functions of Prime Minister and those of Foreign
Secretary. He was envoy to the great conference at Constantinople in
1876 and 1877, and he took part in the Congress of Berlin, that
conference which Lord Beaconsfield declared brought to England peace
with honor. Everything that a man could have to gratify his ambition
Lord Salisbury has had since the day when he succeeded to his father's
title and estates. His own intellectual force and his political
capacity must undoubtedly have made a way for him to Parliamentary
influence and success even if he had always remained Lord Robert Cecil,
and his elder brother had lived to succeed to the title. But from the
moment when Lord Robert Cecil became the heir, it was certain that his
party could not venture to overlook him. He might have made eccentric
speeches, he might have indulged in sarcastic and scornful allusions to
his political leaders, he might have allowed obtrusive scruples of
conscience to interfere with the interests of his party, but none the
less it became absolutely necessary that the Conservative politicians
should accept, when opportunity came, the leadership of the Marquis of
Salisbury. "Thou hast it all"--the words which Banquo applies to
Macbeth--might have been said of Lord Salisbury when he became for the
first time Prime Minister.

Lord Salisbury certainly did not achieve his position by any of the
arts, even the less culpable arts, which for a time secured to Macbeth
the highest reach of his ambition. Lord Salisbury's leadership came to
him and was not sought by him. I cannot help thinking, however, that,
after he had once attained that supreme position in his party, the
remainder of his public career has been something in the nature of an
anticlimax. Was it that the chill and deadening influence of the House
of Lords proved too depressing for the energetic and vivacious spirit
which had won celebrity for Lord Robert Cecil in the House of Commons?
Was it that Lord Salisbury, when he had attained the height of his
ambition, became a victim to that mood of reaction which compels such a
man to ask himself whether, after all, the work of ascent was not much
better than the attained elevation? Lord Salisbury's years of high
office coming now thus suddenly to an end give to me at least the
melancholy impression of an unfulfilled career. The influence of the
Prime Minister, so far as mere outsiders can judge of it, has always
been exerted in foreign affairs for the promotion of peace. Even the
late war in South Africa is not understood to have been in any sense a
war of his seeking. The general belief is that the policy of war was
pressed upon him by influences which at the time he was not able to
control--influences which would only have become all the stronger if he
had refused to accept the responsibility of Prime Minister and had left
it to others to carry on the work of government. However this may be,
it can hardly be questioned that of late years Lord Salisbury had become
that which nobody in former days could ever suppose him likely to
become, the mere figurehead of an administration. Lord Salisbury's whole
nature seems to have been too sincere, too free from mere theatrical
arts, to allow him to play the part of leader where he had no heart in
the work of leadership. A statesman like Disraeli might have disapproved
of a certain policy and done his best to reason his colleagues out of
it, but nevertheless, when he found himself likely to be overborne,
would have immersed himself deliberately in all the new-born zeal of the
convert and would have behaved thenceforward as if his whole soul were
in the work which had been put upon him to do. Lord Salisbury is most
assuredly not a man of this order, and he never would or could put on an
enthusiasm which he did not feel in his heart. We can all remember how,
at the very zenith of British passion against China during the recent
political convulsions and the intervention of the foreign allies, Lord
Salisbury astonished and depressed some of his warmest admirers by a
speech which he made at Exeter Hall, a speech which, metaphorically at
least, threw the coldest of cold water on the popular British ardor for
forcing Western civilization on the Chinese people.

Lord Salisbury's frame of mind was one which could never allow him to
become even for a moment a thorough Jingo, and through all the later
years of his power he held the office of Prime Minister at a time when
Jingoism was the order of the day among the outside supporters of the
Conservative Government. He never had a fair chance for the full
development of his intellectual faculties while he remained at the head
of a Conservative administration. Under happier conditions he might have
been a great Prime Minister and a leading force in political movement,
but his intellect, his tastes, and his habits of life did not allow him
to pay much deference to the prejudices and passions of those on whom he
was compelled to rely for support. There was too much in him of the
thinker, the scholar, and the recluse to make him a thoroughly effective
leader of the party who had to acknowledge his command. He loved
reading, he loved literature and art, and he took no delight in
the formal social functions which are in our days an important
part of successful political administration. He could not be
"hail-fellow-well-met" with every pushing follower who made it a pride
to be on terms of companionship with the leader of the party. I have
often heard that he had a singularly bad memory for faces, and that many
a devoted Tory follower found his enthusiasm chilled every now and then
by the obvious fact that the Prime Minister did not seem to remember
anything about the identity of his obtrusive admirer. Much the same
thing has been said over and over again about Mr. Gladstone, but then
Gladstone had the inborn genius of leadership, threw his soul into every
great political movement, and did not depend in the slightest degree on
his faculty for appreciating and conciliating every individual follower.
Lord Salisbury's tastes were for the society of his close personal
friends, and I believe no man could be a more genial host in the company
of those with whom he loved to associate; but he had no interest in the
ordinary ways of society and made no effort to conciliate those with
whom he found himself in no manner of companionship. He did not even
take any strong interest in the study of the most remarkable figures in
the political world around him, if he did not feel drawn into sympathy
with their ways and their opinions. On one occasion, when a report had
got about in the newspapers that Lord Salisbury was often seen in
friendly companionship with the late Mr. Parnell in the smoking-room of
the House of Commons, Lord Salisbury publicly stated that he had never,
to his knowledge, seen Parnell, and had never been once in the House of
Commons smoking-room.

No man has been better known, so far as personal appearance was
concerned, to the general English public than Lord Salisbury. He has
been as well known as Mr. Gladstone himself, and one cannot say more
than that. He was a frequent walker in St. James's Park and other places
of common resort in the neighborhood of the Houses of Parliament. Every
one knew the tall, broad, stooping figure with the thick head of hair,
the bent brows, and the careless, shabby costume. No statesman of his
time was more indifferent than Lord Salisbury to the dictates of fashion
as regarded dress and deportment. He was undoubtedly one of the
worst-dressed men of his order in London. In this peculiarity he formed
a remarkable contrast to Lord Beaconsfield, who down to the very end of
his life took care to be always dressed according to the most recent
dictates of fashion. All this was strictly in keeping with Lord
Salisbury's character and temperament. The world had to take him as he
was--he could never bring himself to act any part for the sake of its
effect upon the public. My own impression is that when he was removed by
the decree of fate into the House of Lords and taken away from the
active, thrilling life of the House of Commons, he felt himself excluded
from his congenial field of political action and had but little interest
in the game of politics any more. He does not seem destined to a place
in the foremost rank of English Prime Ministers, even of English
Conservative Prime Ministers. But his is beyond all question a
picturesque, a deeply interesting, and even a commanding figure in
English political history, and the world will have reason to regret if
his voluntary retirement from the position of Prime Minister should mean
also his retirement from the field of political life.




[Illustration: Photograph copyright by Elliott & Fry

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY]




LORD ROSEBERY


Lord Rosebery was for a prolonged season the man in English political
life upon whom the eyes of expectation were turned. He is a younger man
than most of his political colleagues and rivals, but it is not because
of his comparative youth that the eyes of expectation were and still are
turned upon him. Not one of those who stand in the front ranks of
Parliamentary life to-day could be called old, as we reckon age in our
modern estimate. Palmerston, Gladstone, and Disraeli won their highest
political triumphs after they had passed the age which Lord Salisbury
and Sir William Harcourt have now reached; Mr. Balfour is still regarded
in politics as quite a young man, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman has
but lately been elected leader of the Liberal party in the House of
Commons. Lord Rosebery has already held the highest political offices.
He has been Foreign Secretary and he has been Prime Minister. He has
been leader of the Liberal party. No other public man in England has so
many and so varied mental gifts, and no other public man has won success
in so many distinct fields. We live in days when, for the time at least,
the great political orator seems to have passed out of existence. The
last great English orator died at Hawarden a few short years ago. We
have, however, several brilliant and powerful Parliamentary debaters,
and among these Lord Rosebery stands with the foremost, if he is not,
indeed, absolutely the foremost. As an orator on what I may call great
ceremonial occasions he is, according to my judgment, the very foremost
we now have. As an after-dinner speaker--and after-dinner speaking
counts for a great deal in the success of an English public man--he has
never had an equal in England during my time. Then Lord Rosebery has
delivered lectures or addresses in commemoration of great poets and
philosophers and statesmen which may even already be regarded as certain
of an abiding place in literature. Lord Rosebery is a literary man, an
author as well as a statesman and an orator; he has written a life of
Pitt which is already becoming a sort of classic in our libraries. There
are profounder students, men more deeply read, than he, but I doubt if
there are many men living who have so wide an acquaintance with general
literature. He is a lover as well as a student and a connoisseur of art,
he is an accomplished yachtsman, has a thorough knowledge of horses, is
famous on the turf, and the owner of two horses which won the Derby. The
legendary fairy godmother seems to have showered upon him at his birth
all her richest and most various gifts, and no malign and jealous sprite
appears to have come in, as in the nursery stories, to spoil any of the
gifts by a counteracting spell. He was born of great family and born to
high estate; he married a daughter of the house of Rothschild; he has a
lordly home near Edinburgh in Scotland, a noble house in the finest West
End square of London, and a delightful residence in one of our most
beautiful English counties.

Lord Rosebery is one of the most charming talkers whom it has ever been
my good fortune to meet. He has a keen sense of humor, a happy art of
light and delicate satire, and, in private conversation as well as in
Parliamentary debate, he has a singular facility for the invention of
expressive and successful phrases which tell their whole story in a
flash. One might well be inclined to ask what the kindly fates could
have done for Lord Rosebery that they have left undone. Nevertheless,
the truth has to be told, that up to this time Lord Rosebery has not
accomplished as much of greatness as most of us confidently expected
that he would achieve.

I have been, perhaps, somewhat too hasty in saying that no counteracting
spell had in any way marred the influence of the gifts which the fairies
had so lavishly bestowed on Lord Rosebery. One stroke of ill
fortune--ill fortune, that is, for an English political leader--was
certainly directed against him. Nature must have meant him to be a
successful Prime Minister, and yet fortune denied him a seat in the
House of Commons. He succeeded to his grandfather's peerage at an early
period of his life, and he had to begin his political career as a member
of the House of Lords. He therefore missed all that splendid training
for political warfare which is given in the House of Commons. It would
not, perhaps, be quite easy for an American reader to understand how
little the House of Lords counts for in the education of fighting
statesmen.

When Charles James Fox was told in his declining years that the King, as
a mark of royal favor, intended to make him a peer and thus remove him
from the House of Commons into the House of Lords, he struck his
forehead and exclaimed: "Good Heaven! he does not think it has come to
that with me, does he?" Fox had had all the training that his genius
needed in the House of Commons, and he was not condemned to pass into
the House of Lords. Nothing but the inborn consciousness of a genius for
political debate can stimulate a man to great effort in the House of
Lords. Nothing turns upon a debate in that House. If a majority in the
House of Lords were to pass a vote of censure three times a week on the
existing Government, that Government would continue to exist just as if
nothing had happened, and the public in general would hardly know that
the Lords had been expressing any opinion on the subject. An ordinary
sitting of the House of Lords is not expected to last for more than an
hour or so, and the whole assembly often consists of some half a dozen
peers. Now and again, during the course of a session, there is got up
what may be called a full-dress debate when some great question is
disturbing the country, and the peers think that they ought to put on
the appearance of being deeply concerned about it, and some noble lord
who has a repute for wisdom or for eloquence gives notice of a formal
motion, and then there is a lengthened discussion, and perhaps, on some
extraordinary occasion, the peers may sit to a late hour and even take a
division. But on such remarkable occasions the peer who induces the
House to come together and listen to his oration is almost sure to be
one who has had his training in the House of Commons and has made his
fame as an orator there.

Now, I cannot but regard it as a striking evidence of Lord Rosebery's
inborn fitness to be an English political leader that he should have got
over the dreary discouragement of such a training-school, and should
have practiced the art of political oratory under conditions that might
have filled Demosthenes himself with a sense of the futility of trying
to make a great speech where nothing whatever was likely to come of it.
Lord Rosebery, however, did succeed in proving to the House of Lords
that they had among them a brilliant and powerful debater who had
qualified himself for success without any help from the school in which
Lord Brougham and the brilliant Lord Derby, Lord Cairns, and Lord
Salisbury had studied and mastered the art of Parliamentary eloquence.

But, indeed, Lord Rosebery appears to have had a natural inclination to
seek and find a training-school for his abilities in places and pursuits
that might have seemed very much out of the ordinary British
aristocrat's way. Until a comparatively recent period, we had nothing
that could be called a really decent system of municipal government in
the greater part of London. We had, of course, the Lord Mayor and the
municipality of the City of London, but then the City of London is only
a very small patch in the great metropolis that holds more than five
millions of people. London, outside the City, was governed by the
old-fashioned parish vestries, and to some extent by a more recent
institution which was called the Metropolitan Board of Works. Now, the
Metropolitan Board of Works did not manage its affairs very well. There
were disagreeable rumors and stories about contracts and jobbing and
that sort of thing, and although matters were never supposed to have
been quite so bad as they were in New York during days which I can
remember well, the days of Boss Tweed, there was enough of public
complaint to induce Parliament, at the instigation of Lord Randolph
Churchill, to abolish the Board of Works altogether and set up the
London County Council, a thoroughly representative body elected by
popular suffrage and responsible to its constituents and the public.
Lord Rosebery threw himself heart and soul into the promotion of this
better system of London municipal government. He became a member of the
London County Council, was elected its first Chairman, and later on was
re-elected to the same office. Now, I think it would be hardly possible
for a man of Lord Rosebery's rank and culture and tastes to give a more
genuine proof of patriotic public spirit than he did when he threw
himself heart and soul into the work of a municipal council.

Up to that time the business of a London municipality had been regarded
as something belonging entirely to the middle class or the lower middle
class, something with which peers and nobles could not possibly be
expected to have anything to do. A London Alderman had been from time
out of mind a sort of figure of fun, a vulgar, fussy kind of person,
who bedizened himself in gaudy robes on festive occasions, and was
noted for his love of the turtle in quite a different sense from that
which Byron gives to the words. Lord Rosebery set himself steadily to
the work of London municipal government at a most critical period in its
history; his example was followed by men of rank and culture, and some
of the most intellectual men of our day have been elected Aldermen of
the London County Council. Only think of Frederic Harrison, the
celebrated Positivist philosopher, the man of exquisite culture and
refinement, the man of almost fastidious ways, the scholar and the
writer, becoming an Alderman of the London County Council, and devoting
himself to the duties of his position! Lord Rosebery undoubtedly has the
honor of having done more than any other Englishman to raise the
municipal government of London to that position which it ought to have
in the public life of the State.

All that time Lord Rosebery was not neglecting any of the other
functions and occupations which had been imposed upon him, or which he
had voluntarily taken upon himself. He held the office of First
Commissioner of Works in one of Mr. Gladstone's administrations, an
office involving the care of all the State buildings and monuments and
parks of the metropolis. He was always to be seen at the private views
of the Royal Academy and the other great picture galleries of the London
season. He was always starting some new movement for the improvement of
the breed of horses, and, indeed, there is a certain section of our
community among whom Lord Rosebery is regarded, not as a statesman, or a
London County Councilor, or a lover of literature, but simply and
altogether as a patron of the turf. Meanwhile we were hearing of him
every now and then as an adventurous yachtsman, and as the orator of
some great commemoration day when a statue was unveiled to a Burke or a
Burns.

A more delightful host than Lord Rosebery it would not be possible to
meet or even to imagine. I have had the honor of enjoying his
hospitality at Dalmeny and in his London home, and I shall only say that
those were occasions which I may describe, in the words Carlyle employed
with a less gladsome significance, as not easily to be forgotten in this
world. No man can command a greater variety of topics of conversation.
Politics, travel, art, letters, the life of great cities, the growth of
commerce, the tendencies of civilizations, the art of living, the
philosophy of life, the way to enjoy life, the various characteristics
of foreign capitals--on all such topics Lord Rosebery can speak with the
clearness of one who knows his subject and the vivacity of one who can
put his thoughts into the most expressive words. I suppose there must be
some eminent authors with whose works Lord Rosebery is not familiar, but
I can only say that if there be any such, I have not yet discovered who
they are--and I have spent a good deal of my time in reading. I have
seen Lord Rosebery in companies where painters and sculptors and the
writers of books and the writers of plays formed the majority, where
political subjects were not touched upon, and I have observed that Lord
Rosebery could hold his own with each practitioner of art on the
artist's special subject. Lord Rosebery does not profess to be a
bookworm or a great scholar, but I do not know any man better acquainted
with general literature. Such a man must surely have got out of life all
the best that it has to give.

Yet it is certain that the eyes of expectation are still turned upon
Lord Rosebery. There is a general conviction that he has something yet
to do--that, in fact, he has not yet given his measure. He has been
Prime Minister, and he has been leader of the English Liberal party, but
in neither case had he a chance of proving his strength. When Mr.
Gladstone made up his mind to retire finally from political life, the
Queen sent for Lord Rosebery and invited him to form an administration.
Now, it is no secret that at that time there were men in the Liberal
party whose friends and admirers believed that their length of service
gave them a precedence of claims over the claims of Lord Rosebery. There
were those who thought Sir William Harcourt had won for himself a right
to be chosen as the successor to Mr. Gladstone. On the other side--for
there was grumbling on both sides--there were members of the Liberal
administration who positively declined to continue in office if Sir
William Harcourt were made Prime Minister. These men did not object to
serve under Sir William Harcourt as leader of the House of Commons, but
they objected to his elevation to the supreme place of Prime Minister.
Also, there were Liberals of great influence, who, while they had the
fullest confidence in Lord Rosebery and were not fanatically devoted to
Sir William Harcourt, objected to the idea of having a Prime Minister
in the House of Lords, and a Prime Minister, too, who had never sat in
the House of Commons. Now, it would be idle to deny that there was some
practical reason for this objection. The House of Commons is the field
on which political battles are fought and won. The Commander-in-Chief
ought always to be within reach. A whole plan of campaign may have to be
changed at a quarter of an hour's notice. It must obviously often be
highly inconvenient to have a Prime Minister who cannot cross the
threshold of the House of Commons in order to get into instant
communication with the leading men of his own party who are fighting the
battle.

At all events, I am now only concerned to say that these doubts and
difficulties and private disputations did arise, and that, although Lord
Rosebery did accept the position of Prime Minister, he must have done so
with some knowledge of the fact that certain of his colleagues were not
quite satisfied with the new conditions. Lord Rosebery had been most
successful as Foreign Secretary during each term when he held the
office, but it was well known, before Mr. Gladstone's retirement, that
there were some questions of foreign policy on which the old leader and
the new were not quite of one opinion. In English political life, and I
suppose in the political life of every self-governing country, there are
seasons of inevitable action and reaction which must be observed and
felt, although they cannot always be explained.

To a distant observer the policy of the Liberal party might have seemed
just the same after Mr. Gladstone had retired from politics as it was
when he was in the front of political life. But just as the policy which
sustained him in his early days as Prime Minister was helped by the
reaction which had set in against the aggressive policy of Lord
Palmerston, so there came, with the close of Gladstone's Parliamentary
career, a kind of reaction against his counsel of peace and moderation.
Lord Rosebery was believed to have more of what is called the
Imperialist spirit in him than had ever guided the policy of his great
leader. Certainly some of Mr. Gladstone's former colleagues in the House
of Commons appear to have thought so, and there began to be signs of a
growing division in the party. Lord Rosebery's Prime Ministership lasted
but a short time. The Government sustained one or two Parliamentary
discomfitures, and there followed upon these a positive defeat in the
nature of a sort of vote of censure carried by a small majority against
a department of the administration, on the ground of an alleged
insufficiency in some of the supplies of ammunition for military
service. Many a Government would have professed to think little of such
a defeat, would have treated it only as a mere question of departmental
detail, and would have gone on as if nothing had happened. But Lord
Rosebery refused to take things so coolly and so carelessly. Probably he
was growing tired of his position under the peculiar circumstances.
Perhaps he thought the most manly course he could take was to give the
constituencies the opportunity of saying whether they were satisfied
with his administration or were not. The Government appealed to the
country. Parliament was dissolved, and a general election followed. Then
was seen the full force of the reaction which had begun to set in
against the Gladstone policy of peace, moderation, and justice. The
Conservatives came into power by a large majority. Lord Rosebery was now
merely the leader of the Liberal party in Opposition. Even this
position he did not long retain. Some of the most brilliant speeches he
ever made in the House of Lords were made during this time, but somehow
people began to think that his heart was not in the leadership, and
before long it was made known to the public that he had ceased to be the
Liberal Commander-in-Chief.

Everybody, of course, was ready with an explanation as to this sudden
act, and perhaps, as sometimes happens in such cases, the less a man
really knew about the matter the more prompt he was with his
explanation. Two reasons, however, were given by observers who appeared
likely to know something of the real facts. One was that Lord Rosebery
did not see his way to go as far as some of his colleagues would have
gone in arousing the country to decided action against the Ottoman
Government because of the manner in which it was allowing its Christian
subjects to be treated. The other was that Lord Rosebery was too
Imperialistic in spirit for such men as Sir William Harcourt and Mr.
John Morley. No one could impugn Lord Rosebery's motives in either case.
He might well have thought that too forward a movement against Turkey
might only bring on a great European war or leave England isolated to
carry out her policy at her own risk, and in the other case he may have
thought that the policy bequeathed by Mr. Gladstone was tending to
weaken the supremacy of England in South Africa.

Lord Rosebery then ceased to lead a Government or a party, and became
for the time merely a member of the House of Lords. I do not suppose his
leisure hung very heavy on his hands. I cannot imagine Lord Rosebery
finding any difficulty in passing his day. The only difficulty I should
think such a man must have is how to find time to give a fair chance to
all the pursuits that are dear to him. Lord Rosebery spent some part of
his leisure in yachting, gave his usual attention to the turf, was to be
seen at picture galleries, and occasionally addressed great public
meetings on important questions, and was a frequent visitor to the House
of Commons during each session of Parliament. The peers have a space in
the galleries of the House of Commons set apart for their own
convenience, and, although that space can hold but a small number of the
peers, yet on ordinary nights its benches are seldom fully occupied. But
when some great debate is coming on, then the peers make a rush for the
gallery space in the House of Commons, and those who do not arrive in
time to get a seat have to wait and take their chance, each in his turn,
of any vacancy which may possibly occur. I am not a great admirer of the
House of Lords as a legislative institution, and I must say that it has
sometimes soothed the rancor of my jealous feelings as a humble Commoner
to see a string of peers extending across the lobby of the House of
Commons, each waiting for his chance of filling some sudden vacancy in
the peers' gallery.

Lord Rosebery continued to attend the debates when he had ceased to be
Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal party just as he had done
before. His fine, clearly cut, closely shaven face, with features that a
lady novelist of a past age would have called chiseled, and eyes lighted
with an animation that seemed to have perpetual youth in it, were often
objects of deep interest to the members of the House, and to the
visitors in the strangers' galleries, and no doubt in the ladies'
gallery as well. The appearance of Lord Rosebery in the peers' gallery
was sure to excite some talk among the members of the House of Commons
on the green benches below. We were always ready to indulge in
expectation and conjecture as to what Lord Rosebery was likely to do
next, for there seemed to be a general consent of opinion that he was
the last man in the world who could sit down and do nothing. But what
was there left for him to do? He had held various administrative
offices: he had twice been Foreign Secretary; he had twice been Chairman
of the London County Council; he had been Prime Minister; he had been
leader of the Liberal party; he had been President of all manner of
great institutions; he had been President of the Social Science
Congress; he had been Lord Rector of two great Universities; he had
twice won the Derby. What was there left for him to do which human
ambition in our times and in the dominions of Queen Victoria could care
to accomplish? Yet the general impression seemed to be that Lord
Rosebery had not yet done his appointed work, and that impression has
grown deeper and stronger with recent events.

Since the day when Lord Rosebery withdrew from the leadership of the
Liberal party the division in that party has been growing wider and
deeper. The war in South Africa has done much to broaden the gulf of
separation. Lord Rosebery is an Imperialist, Sir William Harcourt and
Mr. John Morley are not Imperialists. The opponents of Sir William
Harcourt and Mr. Morley call them Little Englanders. The opponents of
Lord Rosebery and those who think with him would no doubt call them
Jingoes. The Imperialist, or, as his opponents prefer to call him, the
Jingo, accepts as the ruling principle of his faith the right and the
duty of England to spread her civilization and her supremacy as far as
she can over all those parts of the world which are still lying in
disorganization and in darkness. The Little Englander, as his opponents
delight to describe him, believes that England's noblest work for a long
time to come will be found in the endeavor to spread peace, education,
and happiness among the peoples who already acknowledge her supremacy. I
am not going to enter into any argument as to the relative claims of the
two political schools. It has been said that a man is born either of the
school of Aristotle or of the school of Plato. Perhaps an Englishman of
modern times is born a Jingo or a Little Englander. I am not an
Englishman, and therefore am not called upon to rank myself on either
side of the controversy, but I know full well which way my instincts
and sympathies would lead me if I were compelled to choose. I could not,
therefore, account myself a political follower of Lord Rosebery; and,
indeed, on the one great question which concerned me most as a member of
the House of Commons, that of Irish Home Rule, Lord Rosebery is not
quite so emphatic as I should wish him to be. I am therefore writing the
eulogy, not of Lord Rosebery the politician, but of Lord Rosebery the
orator, the scholar, the man of letters and arts and varied culture, the
man who has done so much for public life in so many ways, the helpful,
kindly, generous friend.

The common impression everywhere is that the Conservative Government, as
it is now constituted, cannot last very long. The sands of the present
Parliament are running out; the next general election may be postponed
for some time yet, but it cannot be very far off. Are the Liberals to
come back to power with Lord Rosebery at their head? Can the Liberal
party become so thoroughly reunited again, Jingoes and Little
Englanders, as to make the formation of a Liberal Government a possible
event so soon? Or is it possible, as many observers believe, that Lord
Rosebery may find himself at the head of an administration composed of
Imperialist Liberals and the more enlightened and generally respected
members of the present Government? I shall not venture upon any
prediction, having seen the unexpected too often happen in politics to
have much faith in political prophecy. I note it as an evidence of the
position Lord Rosebery has won for himself that, although he became
Prime Minister only to be defeated, and leader of the Liberal party only
to resign, he is still one of the public men in England about whom
people are asking each other whether the time for him to take his real
position has not come at last.




[Illustration: Photograph copyright by Elliott & Fry

JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN]




JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN





Mr. Chamberlain was once described by an unfriendly critic as the
Rabagas of English political life. We all remember Rabagas, the hero of
Sardou's masterpiece of dramatic satire, who begins his public career
and wins fame among certain classes as a leveler and a demagogue of the
most advanced views, an unsparing enemy of the aristocracy, a man who
will make no terms with the privileged orders, and will bow to no
sovereign but the sovereign people. Now, I have said that it was an
unfriendly critic who likened Mr. Chamberlain to Sardou's creation, but
it was not in the earlier career of the real or the imaginary politician
that the resemblance was especially to be traced. Rabagas is brought by
tempting conditions under the influence of the privileged classes, the
aristocracy, and the reigning sovereign of the small state in which he
lives; and his leveling and revolutionary tendencies melt away under the
genial influence of his new associations. He becomes, before long, the
admirer of the aristocracy and the Prime Minister of the Prince, and is
ready to devote all his energies to the defense of the privileged
orders, to the repression of the vile democracy, and the silencing of
Radical orators.

In this contrast between the earlier and the later parts of the
political career the malevolent critic, no doubt, found the materials
for his comparison between Rabagas and Mr. Chamberlain. For there can be
no denying that Mr. Chamberlain began his public life as an eloquent, an
unsparing, and apparently a convinced champion of democracy against the
aristocracy, the privileged orders, and the Conservative party, and that
he is now a leading member of a Conservative Government, and goes
further than most of his colleagues would be likely to go in his
hostility to Radical measures and to Radical men.

Moreover, Mr. Chamberlain, who during the earlier part of his public
life belonged to the party most strenuously opposed to all unnecessary
wars, and especially wars which had annexation for their object, has
been the chief Ministerial promoter of the late war in South Africa, a
war which had for its object the subjugation of two independent
republics in order to bring them under the Imperial flag of England. No
one, therefore, could have been much surprised when the unfriendly
critic fancied that he could discover at least a certain superficial
resemblance between the career of Rabagas and the career of Mr.
Chamberlain.

I have been a close observer of much of Mr. Chamberlain's public life,
and for some time we were thrown a good deal into Parliamentary and
political association. He came into the House of Commons not very long
before I had the honor of obtaining a seat there, and his fame had
preceded him so far that his entrance into Parliament was looked upon by
everybody as a coming event, in the days when he had not yet been
elected to represent the constituency of Birmingham. Birmingham was at
that time one of the most thoroughly Radical cities in England. John
Bright once said that as the sea, wherever you dip a cup into it, will
be found to be salt, so the constituency of Birmingham, wherever you
test it, will be found to be Radical. Birmingham could claim the merit
of being one of the best organized municipalities in England. Its
popular educational institutions were excellent; its free libraries
might have won the admiration of a citizen of Boston, Massachusetts; its
police arrangements were efficient; its sanitation might well have been
the envy of London, and the general intelligence of its citizens was of
the highest order. Now, it was in this enlightened, progressive, and
capable community that Mr. Chamberlain won his first fame. He is not a
Birmingham man by birth. He was, I believe, born and brought up on the
south side of London, and was educated at University College School,
London. But at an early age he settled in Birmingham, and became a
member of his father's manufacturing firm there. Very soon he rose to
great distinction as a public speaker and as a member of the local
corporation, and three times was elected chief magistrate of Birmingham.
We began soon to hear a great deal of him in London. It must have been
clear to anybody who knew anything of Birmingham that a man could not
have risen to such distinction in that city without great intelligence
and a marked capacity for public life. All this time he was known as a
Radical of the Radicals. The Liberal party in London began to look upon
him as a coming man, and as a coming man who was certain to take his
place, and that probably a leading place, in the advanced Radical
division of the Liberals. His political speeches showed him to be a
democrat of the leveling order--a democrat, that is to say, of views
much more extreme than had ever been professed by John Bright or Richard
Cobden. He was an unsparing assailant of the aristocracy and the
privileged classes, and, indeed, went so far in his Radicalism that the
Conservatives in general regarded him as a downright Republican.

I can well remember the sensation which his first speech in the House of
Commons created among the ranks of the Tories after his election to
Parliament as one of the representatives of Birmingham. The good Tories
made no effort to conceal their astonishment at the difference between
the real Chamberlain as they saw and heard him and the Chamberlain of
their earlier imaginings. I talked with many of them at the time, and
was made acquainted with their emotions. Judging from his political
speeches, they had set him down as a wild Republican, and they expected
to see a rough and shaggy man, dressed with an uncouth disregard for the
ways of society, a sort of Birmingham Orson who would probably scowl
fiercely at his opponents in the House and would deliver his opinions
in tones of thunder. The man who rose to address the House was a pale,
slender, delicate looking, and closely shaven personage, very neatly
dressed, with short and carefully brushed hair, and wearing a dainty
eyeglass constantly fixed in his eye. "He looks like a ladies' doctor,"
one stout Tory murmured. "Seems like the model of a head clerk at a West
End draper's," observed another. Certainly there was nothing of the
Orson about this well-dressed, well-groomed representative of the
Birmingham democracy. Mr. Chamberlain's speech made a distinct
impression on the House. It was admirably delivered, in quietly
modulated tones, the clear, penetrating voice never rising to the level
of declamation, but never failing to reach the ear of every listener.
The political opinions which it expressed were such as every one might
have expected to come from so resolute a democrat, but the quiet,
self-possessed delivery greatly astonished those who had expected to see
and hear a mob orator. Mr. Chamberlain's position in the House was
assured after that first speech. Even among the Tories everybody felt
satisfied that the new man was a man of great ability, gifted with a
remarkable capacity for maintaining his views with ingenious and
plausible argument, a man who could hold his own in debate with the
best, and for whom the clamors of a host of political opponents could
have no terrors.

I may say at once that Mr. Chamberlain has, ever since that time, proved
himself to be one of the ablest debaters in the House of Commons. He is
not and never could be an orator in the higher sense, for he wants
altogether that gift of imagination necessary to the composition of an
orator, and he has not the culture and the command of ready illustration
which sometimes lift men who are not born orators above the mere
debater's highest level. But he has unfailing readiness, a wide
knowledge of public affairs, a keen eye for all the weak points of an
opponent's case, and a flow of clear and easy language which never fails
to give expression, at once full and precise, to all that is in his
mind. He was soon recognized, even by his extreme political opponents,
as one of the ablest men in the House of Commons, and it seemed plain to
every one that, when the chance came for the formation of a Liberal
Ministry, the country then being in the hands of a Tory Government, Mr.
Chamberlain would beyond question find a place on the Treasury Bench.

Meanwhile Mr. Chamberlain's democratic views seemed to have undergone no
modification. He was as unsparing as ever in his denunciation of the
aristocracy and the privileged classes, and he was especially severe
upon the great landowners, and used to propound schemes for buying them
out by the State and converting their land into national property. His
closest ally and associate in Parliamentary politics was Sir Charles
Dilke, who had entered the House of Commons some years before Mr.
Chamberlain, and who was then, as he is now, an advanced and determined
Radical. Sir Charles Dilke, in fact, was at that time supposed to be
something very like a Republican, at least in theory, and he had been
exciting great commotion in several parts of the country by his
outspoken complaints about the vast sums of money voted every year for
the Royal Civil List. It was but natural that Sir Charles Dilke and Mr.
Chamberlain should become close associates, and there was a general
conviction that the more advanced section of the Liberal party was
destined to take the command in Liberal politics.

Outside the range of strictly English politics there was a question
arising which threatened to make a new division in the Liberal party.
This was the question of Home Rule for Ireland as it presented itself
under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell. For years the subject
of Home Rule had been the occasion, under the leadership of Mr. Butt, of
nothing more formidable to the House of Commons than an annual debate
and division. Once in every session Mr. Butt brought forward a motion
calling for a measure of Home Rule for Ireland, and, after some eloquent
speeches made in favor of the motion by Irish members, a few speeches
were delivered on the other side by the opponents of Home Rule, Liberals
as well as Tories, and then some leading member of the Government went
through the form of explaining why the motion could not be accepted. A
division was taken, and Mr. Butt's motion was found to have the support
of the very small Irish Nationalist party, as it then was, and perhaps
half a dozen English or Scotch Radicals; and the whole House of Commons,
except for these, declared against Home Rule. About the time, however,
of Mr. Chamberlain's entrance on the field of politics a great change
had taken place in the conditions of the Home Rule question. Charles
Stewart Parnell had become in fact, although not yet in name, the leader
of the Irish National party, and Parnell's tactics were very different
indeed from those of his nominal leader, Mr. Butt. Butt was a man who
had great reverence for old constitutional forms and for the traditions
and ways of the House of Commons, and he had faith in the power of mere
argument to bring the House some time or other to see the justice of his
cause. Parnell was convinced that there was only one way of compelling
the House of Commons to pay any serious attention to the Irish demand,
and that was by making it clear to the Government and the House that
until they had turned their full attention to the Irish national claims,
they should not be allowed to turn their attention to any other business
whatever. Therefore he introduced that policy of obstruction which has
since become historical, and which for a time literally convulsed the
House of Commons. Now, I am not going again into the oft-told tale of
Home Rule and the obstruction policy, and I touch upon the subject here
only because of its direct connection with the career of Mr.
Chamberlain. Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain supported Mr. Parnell
in most of his assaults upon the Tory Government. It was Parnell's
policy to bring forward some motion, during the discussion of the
estimates for the army and navy or for the civil service, which should
raise some great and important question of controversy connected only in
a technical sense with the subject formally before the House, and thus
to raise a prolonged debate which had the effect of postponing to an
indefinite time the regular movement of business. Thus he succeeded in
stopping all the regular work of the House until the particular motion
in which he was concerned had been fully discussed and finally settled,
one way or the other. It was by action of this kind that he succeeded in
prevailing upon the House of Commons to condemn the barbarous system of
flogging in the army and the navy, and finally to obtain its abolition.
In this latter course he was warmly supported by Mr. Chamberlain and Sir
Charles Dilke, and by many other Liberal members.

But it was not only in obstructive motions which concerned the common
interests of the country that Parnell obtained the support of Sir
Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain. These two men boldly and vigorously
maintained him in his policy of obstruction when it only professed to
concern itself with Irish national questions. They identified themselves
so thoroughly with his Irish policy that it became a familiar joke in
the House of Commons to describe Dilke and Chamberlain as the
Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General of the Home Rule party. I was
then a member of the House, and had been elected Vice-President of the
Irish party, Parnell being, of course, the President. Naturally, I was
brought closely into association with Mr. Chamberlain, and I had for
many years been a personal friend of Sir Charles Dilke. Again and again
I heard Mr. Chamberlain express his entire approval of the obstructive
policy adopted by Parnell, and declare that that was the only way by
which Parnell could compel the House of Commons to give a hearing to the
Irish claims. Mr. Chamberlain, indeed, expressed, on more than one
occasion, in speeches delivered during a debate in the House, just the
same opinion as to Parnell's course which I had heard him utter in
private conversation. In one of these speeches I remember well his
generous declaration that he was sorry he had not had an opportunity of
expressing that opinion to the House of Commons long before. Now, of
course, I always thought, and still think, that all this was much to the
credit of Mr. Chamberlain's political intelligence, courage, and manly
feeling, and I regarded him as one of the truest English friends the
Home Rule cause had ever made. I had the opportunity, on more than one
occasion, of hearing Dilke and Chamberlain define their respective
positions on the subject of Home Rule. Dilke regarded Home Rule as an
essential part of a federal system, which he believed to be absolutely
necessary to the safety, strength, and prosperity of the British Empire.
He would have made it a Federal system, by virtue of which each member
of the Imperial organization governed its own domestic affairs in its
own way, while the common wishes and interests of the Empire were
represented, discussed, and arranged in a central Imperial Parliament.
Therefore, even if the Irish people had not been themselves awakened to
the necessity for a Home Rule Legislature in Ireland, Dilke would have
been in favor of urging on them the advantages of such an arrangement.
This, in point of fact, is the system which has made the Canadian and
the Australasian provinces what they are at this day, contented, loyal,
and prosperous members of the Imperial system. Chamberlain was not so
convinced an advocate of the general system of Home Rule as Dilke, but
he was always emphatic in his declarations that, if the large majority
of the Irish people desired Home Rule, their desire should be granted to
them by the Imperial Parliament.

When I first entered the House of Commons, the Conservative party was in
office. About a year after, the general election of 1880 came on, almost
in the ordinary course of events, and the result of the appeal to the
country was that the Liberals came back to power with a large majority.
Mr. Gladstone was at the head of the Liberal party, and he became Prime
Minister. Everybody assumed that two such prominent Radicals as Dilke
and Chamberlain could not be overlooked by the new Prime Minister in his
arrangements to form an administration. I think I am entitled to say, as
a positive fact, that Dilke and Chamberlain entered into an
understanding between themselves that unless one at least of them was
offered a place in the Cabinet, neither would accept office of any kind.
Of course when a new Government is in process of formation all these
arrangements are matters of private discussion and negotiation with the
men at the head of affairs; and the result of interchange of ideas in
this instance was that Chamberlain became President of the Board of
Trade, with a seat in the Cabinet, and Dilke accepted the office of
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, without a place in the inner
Ministerial circle. This was done, not only with Dilke's cordial
consent, but at his express wish, for it was his strong desire that the
higher place in the administration should be given to his friend.

Now, at this time Mr. Gladstone was not a convinced Home Ruler. I know
that the importance of the question was entering his mind and was
absorbing much of his attention. I know that he was earnestly
considering the subject, and that his mind was open to conviction; but I
know also that he was not yet convinced. Chamberlain, therefore, would
apparently have had nothing to gain if he merely desired to conciliate
the favor of his leader by still putting himself forward as the friend
and the ally of the Home Rule party. But he continued, when in office,
to be just as openly our friend as he had been in the days when he was
only an ordinary member of the House of Commons. There were times when,
owing to the policy of coercion pursued in Ireland by the then Chief
Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, the relations between the Liberal
Government and the Home Rule party were severely strained. We did battle
many a time as fiercely against Mr. Gladstone's Government as ever we
had done against the Government of his Tory predecessor. Yet Mr.
Chamberlain always remained our friend and our adviser, always stood by
us whenever he could fairly be expected to do so in public, and always
received our confidences in private. When Mr. Parnell and other members
of our party were thrown into Dublin prison, Mr. Chamberlain did his
best to obtain justice and fair treatment for them and for the Home Rule
cause and for the Irish people.

Many American readers will probably have a recollection of what was
called the Kilmainham Treaty--the "Treaty" being an arrangement which it
was thought might be honorably agreed upon between Mr. Gladstone and the
leaders of the Irish party, and by virtue of which an improved system
of land-tenure legislation was to be given to Ireland, on the one hand,
and every effort was to be made to restore peace to Ireland on the
other. I do not intend to go into this old story at any length, my only
object being to record the fact that the whole arrangements were
conducted between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Parnell, and that Chamberlain
was still understood to be the friend of Ireland and of Home Rule. These
negotiations led to the resignation of office by the late Mr. William
Edward Forster, Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and
then came the important question, Who was likely to be put in Mr.
Forster's place? I believe that, as a matter of fact, the place was
offered, in the first instance, to Sir Charles Dilke, but was declined
by him on the ground that he was not also offered a seat in the Cabinet,
and Dilke was convinced that unless he had a seat in the Cabinet he
could have no chance of pressing successfully on the Government his
policy of Home Rule for Ireland.

Mr. Chamberlain then had reason to believe that the office would be
tendered to him, and he was willing to accept it and to do the best he
could. I know that he believed that the place was likely to be offered
to him and that he was ready to undertake its duties, for he took the
very frank and straightforward course of holding a conference with
certain Irish Nationalist members to whom he made known his views on the
subject. The Irish members whom he consulted understood clearly from him
that if he went to Ireland in the capacity of Chief Secretary he would
go as a Home Ruler and would expect their co-operation and their
assistance. There was no secret about this conference. It was held
within the precincts of the House of Commons, and Mr. Chamberlain's
action in suggesting and conducting it was entirely becoming and proper
under the conditions. For some reason or other, which I at least have
never heard satisfactorily explained, the office of Chief Secretary was
given, after all, to the late Lord Frederick Cavendish. Then followed
the terrible tragedy of the Phoenix Park, Dublin, when Lord Frederick
and Mr. Thomas Burke, his official subordinate, were murdered in the
open day by a gang of assassins. When the news of this appalling deed
reached London, Mr. Parnell and I went at once, and as a matter of
course, to consult with Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Chamberlain as to the
steps which ought to be taken in order to vindicate the Irish people
from any charge of sympathy with so wanton and so atrocious a crime. We
saw both Dilke and Chamberlain and consulted with them, and I can well
remember being greatly impressed by the firmness with which Mr.
Chamberlain declared that nothing which had happened would prevent him
from accepting the office of Chief Secretary in Ireland if the
opportunity were offered to him. I go into all this detail with the
object of making it clear to the reader that, up to this time, Mr.
Chamberlain had the full confidence of the Irish Nationalist party and
was understood by them to be in thorough sympathy with them as to
Ireland's demand for Home Rule.

Mr. Chamberlain did not, however, become Irish Secretary, but retained
his position as President of the Board of Trade, and many foreign
troubles began in Egypt and other parts of the world which diverted the
attention of Parliament and the public for a while from questions of
purely domestic policy. Mr. Gladstone, however, succeeded in carrying
through Parliament a sort of new reform bill which reconstructed the
constituencies, expanded the electorate, and, in fact, set up in the
three countries something approaching nearly to the old Chartist idea of
equal electoral division and universal suffrage. The foreign troubles,
however, were very serious, the Government lost its popularity, and at
last was defeated on one of its financial proposals and resigned office.
The Tories came into power for a short time. Mr. Chamberlain stumped the
country in his old familiar capacity as a Radical politician of the
extreme school, and he started a scheme of policy which was commonly
described afterwards as the unauthorized programme, in which he
advocated, among other bold reforms, a peasant proprietary throughout
the country by the compulsory purchase of land, the effect of which
would be to endow every deserving peasant with at least three acres and
a cow. The Tories were not able to do anything in office, owing to the
combined attacks made upon them by the Radicals and the Irish Home
Rulers, and in 1886 another dissolution of Parliament took place and a
general election came on. The effect of the latest reform measure
introduced by Mr. Gladstone now told irresistibly in Mr. Gladstone's
favor, and the newly arranged constituencies sent him back into office
and into power. Mr. Chamberlain once again joined Mr. Gladstone's
Government, and became President of the Local Government Board.

Then comes a sudden change in the story. The extension of the suffrage
gave, for the first time, a large voting power into the hands of the
majority of the Irish people, for in Ireland up to that date the right
to vote had been enjoyed only by the landlord class and the well-to-do
middle class; and the result of the new franchise was that Ireland sent
into Parliament an overwhelming number of Home Rule Representatives to
follow the leadership of Parnell. Gladstone then became thoroughly
satisfied that the vast majority of the Irish people were in favor of
Home Rule, and he determined to introduce a measure which should give to
Ireland a separate domestic Parliament. Thereupon Mr. Chamberlain
suddenly announced that he could not support such a measure of Home
Rule, and it presently came out that he could not support any measure of
Home Rule. He resigned his place in Mr. Gladstone's Government, and he
became from that time not only an opponent of Home Rule but a proclaimed
Conservative and anti-Radical. When a Tory Government was formed, after
the defeat of Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule measure, Mr. Chamberlain
became a member of the Tory Government, and he is one of the leading
members of a Tory Government at this day.

Now, it is for this reason, I suppose, that the unfriendly critic, of
whom I have already spoken more than once, thought himself justified in
describing Mr. Chamberlain as the Rabagas of English political life. It
is, indeed, hard for any of us to understand the meaning of Mr.
Chamberlain's sudden change. At the opening of 1886 he was, what he had
been during all his previous political life, a flaming democrat and
Radical. In the early months of 1886 he was a flaming Tory and
anti-Radical. During several years of frequent association with him in
the House of Commons I had always known him as an advocate of Home Rule
for Ireland, and all of a sudden he exhibited himself as an
uncompromising opponent of Home Rule. Many English Liberal members
objected to some of the provisions of Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule
Bill, but when these objections were removed in Mr. Gladstone's second
Home Rule Bill they returned at once to their places under his
leadership. But Mr. Chamberlain would have nothing to do with any
manner of Home Rule measure, and when he visited the province of Ulster
in the north of Ireland he delighted all the Ulster Orangemen by the
fervor of his speeches against Home Rule. Moreover, it may fairly be
asked why an English Radical and democrat of extreme views must needs
become an advocate of Toryism all along the line simply because he has
ceased to be in favor of Home Rule for Ireland. These are questions
which I, at least, cannot pretend to answer.

Of course we have in history many instances of conversions as sudden and
as complete, about the absolute sincerity of which even the worldly and
cynical critic has never ventured a doubt. There was the conversion of
Constantine the Great, and there was the sudden change brought about in
the feelings and the life of Ignatius of Loyola. But then somehow Mr.
Chamberlain does not seem to have impressed on his contemporaries,
either before or after his great change, the idea that he was a man cast
exactly in the mold of a Constantine or an Ignatius. Only of late years
has he been dubbed with the familiar nickname of "Pushful Joe," but he
was always set down as a man of personal ambition, determined to make
his way well on in the world. We had all made up our minds, somehow,
that he would be content to push his fortunes on that side of the
political field to which, up to that time, he had proclaimed himself to
belong, and it never occurred to us to think of him as the associate of
Tory dukes, as a leading member of a Tory Government, and as the
champion of Tory principles. Men have in all ages changed their
political faith without exciting the world's wonder. Mr. Gladstone began
as a Tory, and grew by slow degrees into a Radical. Two or three public
men in our own days who began as moderate Liberals have gradually turned
into moderate Tories. But Mr. Chamberlain's conversion was not like any
of these. It was accomplished with a suddenness that seemed to belong to
the days when miracles were yet worked upon the earth. Mr. Chamberlain
may well feel proud in the consciousness that the close attention of the
political world will follow with eager curiosity his further career.




[Illustration: Photograph copyright by Elliott & Fry

HENRY LABOUCHERE]




HENRY LABOUCHERE


Henry Labouchere is the most amusing speaker in the House of Commons.
Eclipse is first and there is no second--to adopt the words once used by
Lord Macaulay--at least, if there be a second, I do not feel myself
qualified for the task of designating him. It is hardly necessary to say
that whenever Labouchere rises in the House of Commons--and he rises
very often in the course of a session--he is sure of an immediate
hearing. He seldom addresses himself to any subject with the outward
appearance of seriousness. He always puts his argument in jesting form;
sends a shower of sparkling words over the most solemn controversy; puts
on the manner of one who has plunged into the debate only for the mere
fun of the thing; and brings his display to an end just at the time when
the House hopes that he is only beginning to exert himself for its
amusement. I do not know that he has ever made what could be called a
long speech, and I think I may fairly assume that he has never made a
speech which his audience would not have wished to be a little longer.

Now, I must say at once that it would be the most complete
misappreciation of Henry Labouchere's character and purpose to regard
him as a mere jester, or even a mere humorist endowed with the faculty
of uttering spontaneous witticisms. Labouchere is very much in earnest
even when he makes a joke, and his sharpest cynicism is inspired by a
love of justice and a desire to champion the cause of what he believes
to be the right. I heard him once make a speech in the House of Commons
on behalf of some suffering class or cause, and when coming to a close
he suddenly said: "I may be told that this is a sentimental view of the
case; but, Mr. Speaker, I am a man of sentiment." The House broke into a
perfect chorus of laughter at the idea thus presented of Labouchere as a
man of sentiment. Probably many, or most, of his listeners thought it
was only Labouchere's fun, and merely another illustration of his love
for droll paradox. I have no doubt that Labouchere knew very well in
advance what sort of reception was likely to be given to his
description of himself, and that he heartily enjoyed the effect it
produced. But, all the same, there was a good deal of truth in the
description. I have always regarded Labouchere as a man of intensely
strong opinions, whose peculiar humor it is to maintain these opinions
by sarcasm and witticism and seeming paradox.

Certainly no public man in England has given clearer evidence of his
sincerity and disinterestedness in any cause that he advocates than
Labouchere has done again and again. I remember hearing it said many
years ago in New York of my old friend Horace Greeley that whereas some
other editors of great newspapers backed up their money with their
opinions, Greeley backed up his opinions with his money. The meaning, of
course, was that while some editors shaped their opinions in order to
make their journals profitable, Horace Greeley was ready to sacrifice
his money for the sake of maintaining the newspaper which expressed his
sincere convictions. Something of the same kind might fairly be said of
Henry Labouchere. He is the proprietor and editor of the weekly
newspaper "Truth," in which he expresses his own opinions without the
slightest regard for the commercial interests of the paper, or, indeed,
for the political interests of the party which he usually supports in
the House of Commons. I believe that, as a matter of fact, "Truth" is a
most successful enterprise, even as a commercial speculation, for
everybody wants to know what it is likely to say on this or that new and
exciting question, and nobody can tell in advance what view Labouchere's
organ may be likely to take. Labouchere has, however, given proof many
times that he keeps up his newspaper as the organ of his individual
opinions, and not merely as a means of making money or sustaining the
interests of a political party. He has again and again hunted out and
hunted down evil systems of various kinds, shams and quacks of many
orders, abuses affecting large masses of the poor and the lowly, and has
rendered himself liable to all manner of legal actions for the recovery
of damages. If, because of some technical or other failure in his
defense to one of those legal actions, Labouchere is cast in heavy
damages, he pays the amount, makes a jest or two about it, and goes to
work at the collection of better evidence and at the hunting out of
other shams with as cheery a countenance as if nothing particular had
happened. Fortunately for himself, and, I think, also very fortunately
for the public in general, Labouchere is personally a rich man, and is
able to meet without inconvenience any loss which may be brought upon
him now and then by his resolute endeavors to expose shams.

Labouchere spent ten years of his earlier manhood in the diplomatic
service, and was attaché at various foreign courts and at Washington. He
had always a turn for active political life, and entered the House of
Commons in 1865, and in 1880 was elected as one of the representatives
for the constituency of Northampton. His colleague at that time in the
representation of the constituency was the once famous Charles
Bradlaugh. It would not be easy to find a greater contrast in appearance
and manners, in education and social bringing up, than that presented by
the two representatives of Northampton. Labouchere is a man of barely
medium stature; Bradlaugh's proportions approached almost to the
gigantic. One could not talk for five minutes with Labouchere and fail
to know, even if they had never met before, that Labouchere was a man
born and trained to the ways of what is called good society; Bradlaugh
was evidently a child of the people, who had led a hard and roughening
life, and had had to make his way by sheer toil and unceasing exertion.
Bradlaugh as a public speaker was powerful and commanding in his
peculiar style--the style of the workingman's platform and of the
open-air meetings in Hyde Park. He had tremendous lungs, a voice of
surprising power and volume, and his speeches were all attuned to the
tone of open-air declamation. Most observers, even among those who
thoroughly recognized his great intellectual power and his command of
language, would have taken it for granted beforehand that he never could
suit himself to the atmosphere of the House of Commons. Labouchere's
speeches, even when delivered to a large public meeting, were pitched in
a conversational key, and he never attempted a declamatory flight. His
speeches within the House of Commons and outside it always sparkled with
droll and humorous illustrations, and when he was most in earnest he
seemed to be making a joke of the whole business. Bradlaugh was always
terribly in earnest, and seemed as if he were determined to bear down
all opposition by the power of his arguments and the volume of his
voice. In Labouchere you always found the man accustomed to the polished
ways of diplomatic circles; in Bradlaugh one saw the typical champion of
the oppressed working class. Labouchere comes, as his name would
suggest, from a French Huguenot family of old standing; Bradlaugh was
thoroughly British in style even when he advocated opinions utterly
opposed to those of the average Briton.

The House of Commons is, on the whole, a fair-minded assembly, and even
those who were most uncompromising in their hostility to some of
Bradlaugh's views came soon to recognize that by his election to
Parliament the House had obtained a new and powerful debater. Both men
soon won recognition from the House for their very different
characteristics as debaters, and at one time I think that the
college-bred country gentlemen of the Tory ranks were inclined, on the
whole, to find more fault with Labouchere than with Bradlaugh. They
seemed willing to make allowances for Bradlaugh which they would not
make for his colleague in the representation of Northampton. One can
imagine their reasoning out the matter somewhat in this way: This man
Bradlaugh comes from the working class, is not in any sense belonging to
our order, and we must take all that into account; while this other man,
Labouchere, is of our own class, has had his education at Eton, has been
trained among diplomatists in foreign courts, is in fact a gentleman,
and yet is constantly proclaiming his hostility to all the established
institutions of his native country. Even the Tory country gentlemen,
however, found it impossible wholly to resist the wit, the sarcasms, and
the droll humors of Labouchere, and whenever he spoke in the House he
was sure to have attentive listeners on all the rows of benches.

Bradlaugh's actual Parliamentary career did not last very long. When he
was first elected for Northampton, he refused to take the oath of
allegiance, on the ground that he could not truthfully make that appeal
to the higher power with which the oath concludes. He was willing to
make an affirmation, but the majority of the House would not accept the
compromise. A considerable period of struggle intervened. The seat was
declared to be vacant, but Mr. Bradlaugh was promptly re-elected by the
constituents of Northampton, and then there set in a dispute between
the House and the constituency something like that which, in the days of
Daniel O'Connell, ended in Catholic emancipation. Bradlaugh was enabled
to enter the House in 1886, and he made himself very conspicuous in
debate. His manners were remarkably courteous, and he became popular
after a while even among those who held his political and religious
opinions in the utmost abhorrence. His career was closed in 1891 by
death.

I can well remember my first meeting with Henry Labouchere. It was at a
dinner party given by my friend Sir John R. Robinson, then and until
quite lately manager of the London "Daily News." The dinner was given at
the Reform Club, and took place, I think, some time before Labouchere's
election for Northampton. I had never seen Labouchere before that time,
and had somehow failed to learn his name before we sat down to dinner.
We were not a large party, and the conversation was general. I was soon
impressed by the vivid and unstrained humor of Labouchere's talk and by
the peculiarity of his manner. He spoke his sentences in quiet, slow,
and even languid tones; there was nothing whatever of the "agreeable
rattle" in his demeanor; he had no appearance of any determination to be
amusing, or even consciousness of any power to amuse. He always spoke
without effort and with the air of one who would just as soon have
remained silent if he did not happen to have something to say, and
whatever he did say in his languorous tones was sure to hold the
attention and to delight the humorous faculties of every listener. My
curiosity was quickly aroused and promptly satisfied as to the identity
of this delightful talker, and thus began my acquaintanceship with
Labouchere, which has lasted ever since, and is, I hope, likely to last
for some time longer. Labouchere is a wonderful teller of stories drawn
from his various experiences in many parts of the world, and, unlike
most other story-tellers, he is never heard to repeat an anecdote,
unless when he was especially invited to do so for the benefit of some
one who had not had an opportunity of hearing it before. If he were only
a teller of good stories and an utterer of witty sayings, he would well
deserve a place in the social history of England during our times; but
Labouchere's skill as a talker is one of his least considerable claims
upon public attention. Nature endowed Labouchere with what might be
called a fighting spirit, and I believe that whenever he sees any
particular cause or body of men apparently put under conditions of
disadvantage, his first instinctive inclination is to make himself its
advocate, so far at least as to insist that the cause or the men must
have a fair hearing.

In the House of Commons it could not have happened very often that Henry
Labouchere was found on the side of the strong battalions. I know that
during the heaviest and the fiercest struggles of the Irish National
party against coercive laws and in favor of Ireland's demand for Home
Rule, Henry Labouchere was always found voting with us in the division
lobby. Some of those days were very dark indeed. Before Gladstone had
become converted to the principle of Home Rule for Ireland, and before
the later changes in the system of Parliamentary representation had
given an extended popular suffrage to the Irish constituencies, the
number of Irish representatives who followed the leadership of Charles
Stewart Parnell was for many sessions not more than seven or eight.
There were some English members who always voted with us, and
conspicuous and constant among these were Sir Wilfred Lawson and Henry
Labouchere. Unquestionably neither Labouchere nor Lawson had anything
whatever to gain in Parliamentary or worldly sense by identifying
himself with our efforts in the House of Commons. As soon as Ireland got
her fair share of the popular franchise, Parnell was followed by some
eighty or ninety members out of the hundred and three who constitute the
whole Irish representation. This was the very fact which first brought
Gladstone, as I heard from his own lips, to see that the demand of
Ireland was in every sense a thoroughly national demand, and that the
whole principle of the British constitution claimed for it the
consideration of genuine statesmanship. Labouchere had identified
himself with the national cause in the days before that cause had yet
found anything like representation in the House of Commons. Through all
his political career he remained faithful to that principle of
nationality, and in the time--I hope not distant--when the Irish claim
for Home Rule is recognized and accepted by the British Parliament,
Ireland is not likely to forget that Henry Labouchere was one of the
very few English members who recognized and championed her claim in the
hour when almost every man's hand was against it.

Perhaps the inborn spirit of adventure which makes itself so apparent in
Labouchere's temperament and career may have had something to do with
his championship of the oppressed. I do not say this with any intention
to disparage Labouchere's genuine desire to uphold what he believes to
be the right, but only to illustrate the peculiarities of his nature.
Certainly his love of adventure has made itself conspicuous and
impressive at many stages of his varied career. There is a legend to the
effect that Labouchere joined at one time the company of a traveling
circus in the United States for the novelty and amusement of the
enterprise. I do not know whether there is any truth in this story, but
I should certainly be quite prepared to believe it on anything like
authentic evidence. The adventure would seem quite in keeping with the
temper of the man. Most of us know what happened when the Germans were
besieging Paris during the war of 1870. It suddenly occurred to
Labouchere that it would be a most interesting chapter in a man's life
if he were to spend the winter in the besieged city. No sooner said, or
thought, than done. Labouchere was then one of the proprietors of the
London "Daily News," and he announced his determination to undertake the
task of representing that journal in Paris as long as the siege should
last. Of course he obtained full authority for the purpose, and he
contrived to make his way into Paris, and when there he relieved the
regular correspondent of the "Daily News" from his wearisome and
perilous work by sending him off, in a balloon, I believe, to Tours,
where he was out of the range of the German forces, and could continue
his daily survey of events in general. Then Labouchere set himself down
to enjoy all the hardships of the siege, to live on the flesh of horse
and donkey and even cat and rat, to endure the setting in of utter
darkness when once the sun had gone down, and to chronicle a daily
account of his strange experiences. This was accomplished in his "Diary
of a Besieged Resident," which appeared from day to day in the columns
of the "Daily News," and was afterwards published as a volume, and a
most entertaining, humorous, realistic, and delightful volume it made.
The very difficulties of its transmission by means of balloons and
pigeons and other such floating or flying agencies must have been a
constant source of amusement and excitement to the adventurous besieged
resident.

Labouchere has always been in the habit of seeking excitement by
enterprises on the Stock Exchange. I do not believe that these ventures
have been made with the commonplace desire to make money, but I can
quite understand that they are prompted by the very same desire for new
experiences which prompted the residence in besieged Paris. I remember
meeting Labouchere one day many years ago in a West End London street,
and being told by him that he had just incurred a very heavy loss by one
of his financial ventures on the Stock Exchange. He told me in his usual
tones of almost apathetic languor the amount of his loss, and it seemed
to my modest experiences in money affairs to be a positive fortune
sacrificed. He was smiling blandly while recounting his adventure, and I
could not help asking him how he had felt when the loss was first made
known to him. "Well," he replied, in the same good-humored tone, "it was
an experience, like another." That, I think, is a fair illustration of
Labouchere's governing mood. The great thing was to get a new
sensation. At one time Labouchere became the founder and the owner of a
new theater in London, and he took part in many a newspaper enterprise.
He was, as I have said, for a long time one of the proprietors of the
"Daily News," and he entered into that proprietorship at the very time
when the "Daily News" was making itself most unpopular in capitalist
circles and in what is known as society, by its resolute and manly
adherence to the side of the Federal States during the great American
Civil War. It suited Labouchere's pluck and temper to join in such an
undertaking at the time when the odds seemed all against it; and it is
only fair to say that I am sure no love for a new sensation could induce
Labouchere to take up any cause which he did not believe to be the cause
of right.

Labouchere was one of those who went in with the late Edmund Yates in
founding "The World," then quite a new venture as a society journal.
Labouchere, however, did not long remain a sharer in this enterprise.
Yates was the editor of the paper, and Yates went in altogether for
satirical or at least amusing pictures of West End life, and did not
care anything about politics and the struggles of this or that
political movement. Labouchere could not settle down to any interest in
a newspaper which dealt only with changes of fashion and the
whimsicalities of social life. His close interest in political questions
filled him with the resolve to start a journal which, while dealing with
the personages and the ways of society, should also be the organ of his
own views on graver subjects. He therefore withdrew from all concern in
Edmund Yates's "World" and started his own weekly newspaper, "Truth,"
which has since enjoyed a life of vigor and success. There is room
enough for both papers apparently. The "World" has not lost its circle
of readers, while "Truth" is beyond question a great power in political
and financial as well as in social movements.

One of Labouchere's special delights is to expose in "Truth" some
successful adventurer in pretentious financial schemes, some
hypocritical projector of sham philanthropic institutions, some
charlatan with whom, because of his temporary influence and success,
most other people are unwilling to try conclusions. Such an impostor is
just the sort of man whom Labouchere is delighted to encounter.
Labouchere's plan is simple and straightforward. He publishes an
article in "Truth" containing the most direct and explicit charges of
imposture and fraud against the man whom he has determined to expose,
and he invites this man to bring an action against him in a court of law
and obtain damages, if he can, for slander. Labouchere usually intimates
politely that he will not avail himself of any preliminary and technical
forms which might interpose unnecessary delay, and that he will do all
in his power as defendant to facilitate and hasten the trial of the
action. It happens in many or most cases that the personage thus invited
to appeal to a court of law cautiously refrains from accepting the
invitation. He knows that Labouchere has plenty of money, perceives that
he is not to be frightened out of his allegations, and probably thinks
the safest course is to treat "Truth" and its owner with silent
contempt. Sometimes, however, the accused man accepts battle in a court
of law, and the attention of the public is riveted on the hearing of the
case. Perhaps Labouchere fails to make out every one of his charges, and
then the result is formally against him and he may be cast in damages,
but he cares nothing for the cost and is probably well satisfied with
the knowledge that he has directed the full criticism of the public to
the general character of his opponent's doings and has made it
impossible for the opponent to work much harm in the future. Even the
strongest political antagonists of Labouchere have been found ready to
admit that he has rendered much service to the public by his resolute
efforts to expose shams and quackeries of various kinds at whatever
pecuniary risk or cost to himself.

I do not know whether it would be quite consistent with the realities of
the situation if I were to describe Labouchere as a favorite in the
House of Commons. He has provoked so many enmities, he has made so many
enemies by his sharp sarcasms, his unsparing ridicule, and his sometimes
rather heedless personalities, that a great many members of the House
must be kept in a state of chronic indignation towards him. A man who
arouses a feeling of this kind and keeps it alive among a considerable
number of his brother members could hardly be described with strict
justice as a favorite in the House of Commons. Yet it is quite certain
that there is no man in the House whose sayings are listened to with a
keener interest, and whose presence would be more generally missed if
he were to retire from public life.

One of the many stories which I have heard about Labouchere's peculiar
ways when he was in the diplomatic service is worth repeating here. It
has never been contradicted, so far as I know. When Labouchere was
attaché to the British Legation at Washington--it was then only a
Legation--his room was invaded one day by an indignant John Bull, fresh
from England, who had some grievance to bring under the notice of the
British Minister. That eminent personage was not then in the house, and
the man with the grievance was shown into Labouchere's room. Labouchere
was smoking a cigarette, according to his custom, and he received the
visitor blandly, but without any effusive welcome. John Bull declared
that he must see the Minister at once, and Labouchere mildly responded
that the British Minister was not in the Legation buildings. "When will
he return?" was the next demand, to which Labouchere could only make
answer that he really did not know. "Then," declared the resolute
British citizen, "I have only to say that I shall wait here until he
returns." Labouchere signified his full concurrence with this proposal,
and graciously invited his countryman to take a chair, and then went on
with his reading and noting of letters and his cigarette just as before.
Hours glided away, and no further word was exchanged. At last the hour
came for closing the official rooms, and Labouchere began to put on his
coat and make preparations for a speedy departure. The visitor thereupon
saw that the time had come for some decided movement on his part, and he
sternly put to Labouchere the question, "Can you tell me where the
British Minister is just now?" Labouchere replied, with his usual
unruffled composure, "I really cannot tell you exactly where he is just
now, but I should think he must be nearly halfway across the Atlantic,
as he left New York for England last Saturday." Up rose John Bull in
fierce indignation, and exclaimed, "You never told me that he had left
for England." "You never asked me the question," Labouchere made answer,
with undisturbed urbanity, and the visitor had nothing for it but to go
off in storm.

Labouchere is the possessor of a beautiful and historic residence on the
banks of the Thames--Pope's famous villa at Twickenham. There he is in
the habit of entertaining his friends during the summer months, and
there one is sure to meet an interesting and amusing company. I have had
the pleasure of being his guest many times, and I need hardly say that I
have always found such visits delightful. Labouchere is a most charming
host, and although he is himself a wonderful talker, full of anecdote
and reminiscence, he never fails to see that the conversation is
thoroughly diffused, and that no guest is left out of the talk. In
London he always mixes freely with society, and his London home is ever
hospitable. Many of his friends were strongly of opinion that he ought
to have been invited to become a member of a Liberal administration. I
suppose, however, that most of the solid and steady personages who form
a Cabinet would have been rather alarmed at the idea of so daring and
damaging a free lance being appointed to a high place in the official
ranks of a Government, and it would have been out of the question to
think of offering any subordinate position to so brilliant a master of
Parliamentary debate. For myself I do not feel any regret that
Labouchere, so far, has not taken any place in an administration. He has
made his fame as a free lance, and has done efficient public work in
that capacity, such as he could hardly have accomplished if he had been
set down to the regular and routine duties of an official post. He has
made a name for himself by his independent support of every cause and
movement which he believed to have justice on its side, and I could not
think with any satisfaction of a so-called promotion which must submerge
his individuality in the measured counsels and compromises of a number
of administrative colleagues. I prefer still to think of him as Henry
Labouchere, and not as the Right Honorable Gentleman at the head of
this, that, or the other department of State.




[Illustration: Photograph copyright by London Stereoscopic Co.

JOHN MORLEY]




JOHN MORLEY


No English public man of the present day has had a more remarkable
political career than that of John Morley. Almost everything that could
be against success in political life was against John Morley when he
arose from the student's desk to take his place on the political
platform. I am not now making any allusion to the difficulties set in a
man's way by those accidents which the first Lord Lytton described
grandiloquently as the "twin gaolers of the human heart, low birth and
iron fortune." I am not quite certain what iron fortune may be, but if I
assume it to be early poverty I do not regard it as a very formidable
obstruction to human genius in our times. We have many successful men in
public life just now who were born in humble station and had to struggle
hard for a long time against poverty. John Morley was not born in humble
life, as the phrase goes, and had not, so far as I know, to struggle
against early poverty. He had an Oxford University education and was
called to the bar, but did not make any effort after success in that
profession. The difficulties to which I have alluded as standing in his
way when he determined to seek a career in political and Parliamentary
life had nothing to do with birth and with poverty--they were of quite a
different order.

Morley had taken to literature as a profession, and had made for himself
a distinguished name as a writer of books and an editor of reviews and
newspapers before he obtained a seat in the House of Commons. Now, there
is, or used to be, a sort of fixed belief in the British public mind
that a literary man is not, in the nature of things, qualified for
success in Parliamentary work. We are somewhat getting over this idea of
late, and indeed there were at all times living evidences enough to
shake such a faith. The generation which recognized the success won in
Parliamentary debate by a Macaulay, a Disraeli, and a Bulwer-Lytton
might well have got over the notion that literary men cannot succeed in
Parliament; but even up to the time of John Morley's election to the
House of Commons the idea found still a very general acceptation.
Another and much more serious difficulty in John Morley's way was the
fact that he was a proclaimed agnostic in questions of religious faith.
Now, the average Englishman can hardly be described as one imbued with
profound and exalted religious convictions, but it may be taken for
granted that he thinks every respectable person who is fit to be a
member of Parliament ought to conform to some recognized creed and to
attend some authorized place of worship. John Morley was at one time not
merely an agnostic, but an avowed and somewhat aggressive agnostic, and
his brilliant pen had often been employed to deal satirically with some
established doctrine.

In England there is little or no general objection to freedom of opinion
so long as it is a question merely of opinion. We may know that a man
holds free-thinking opinions, but we feel no wish to inflict any manner
of punishment or deprivation on him so long as he keeps his opinions to
himself and does not endeavor to make them prevail with others. This,
however, was what John Morley had got into the way of doing. When he
felt a strong conviction on any subject which seemed to him important,
he always endeavored to justify his faith by argument and to bring
others round to his views of the question.

I can well remember that many of Morley's admirers and friends were but
little gratified when it was first made known that he intended to seek
for a seat in the House of Commons. Their impression was that he was
just then doing in effective and admirable style the very kind of work
for which he was best qualified, and that it was a pity he should run
the risk of marring such a career for the sake of entering a political
field in which he might possibly win no success, and in which success,
even if won, would be poor compensation for the sacrifice of better
work. Morley, however, seems to have made up his mind, even at an early
period of his career, that he would try his chance in Parliament. So
long ago as 1865 he became a candidate for a constituency in the North
of England, but was not successful; and in 1880, after he had won
genuine celebrity by his biography of Edmund Burke, that of Voltaire,
that of Rousseau, and other books of the same order, he became a
candidate for the great metropolitan division of Westminster. Here
again he was unsuccessful, and it was only in 1883 that he first
obtained a seat in the House of Commons as the representative of
Newcastle-on-Tyne. I can well remember listening with the deepest
interest to his maiden speech in the House of Commons. The general
impression of the House was that the speech would prove a failure, for
only too many members had already made up their minds, according to the
usual fashion of the day, that a successful literary man was not likely
to become a Parliamentary success. There was a common impression also
that, despite his great gifts as a writer and his proved capacity as a
journalist and editor, John Morley must be an impracticable sort of
person. He had been at one time well known as an associate of the famous
Positivist order of thinkers--the order to which men like Frederic
Harrison and Richard Congreve belonged. The average member of Parliament
could see no chance for a disciple of that school, which this average
member regarded merely as a group of dreamers, to make any mark in a
practical assembly where the routine business of legislation had to be
carried on. Morley's speech was, however, a distinct and unmistakable
success.

What first impressed the House of Commons was the ready, quiet force of
Morley's delivery. He had a fine, clear voice, he spoke without notes
and without any manifest evidence of preparation, every sentence
expressed without effort the precise meaning which he wished to convey,
and his style had an eloquence peculiarly its own. What most men
expected of him was the philosophical discourse of a student and a
thinker no longer in his fitting place, and what was least expected of
him was just that which he delivered, a ready, telling, and powerful
Parliamentary speech. He had some unexpected difficulties to encounter,
because he gave out his opinions so forcibly and so boldly that their
utterance called forth frequent interruptions--an unusual event in the
case of a maiden speech, which is generally regarded as a mere
introductory ceremonial and is taken politely as a necessary matter of
form. The House soon found, however, that John Morley's speech did not
by any means belong to the ordinary category of maiden performances, and
the very interruptions were therefore a positive tribute to the
importance of the new member's argument. The interruptions were in every
sense fortunate for Morley, because they enabled him at this very first
opportunity to prove his ready capacity for debate. He replied on the
spur of the moment to every interruption and every interjected question,
and he showed all the composure, all the promptitude and the command, of
a practiced Parliamentary debater. Every man in the House whose opinion
was worth having at once recognized the fact that a new force had come
up in Parliamentary debate, and when John Morley resumed his seat he
must have known that he had accomplished a complete success. From that
time onward John Morley has always been recognized as one of the most
powerful speakers in the House of Commons. His voice is clear, resonant,
and musical, the light of intellect gleams in his earnest eyes, his
argument is always well sustained and set off with varied and
appropriate illustration, and whenever he rises to speak he is sure to
have a deeply attentive audience.

Morley is not in the highest sense one of the orators of Parliament. He
is not to be classed, and has never sought to be classed, with such men
as Gladstone and Bright. But, short of the highest gift of eloquence, he
has every quality needed to make a great Parliamentary debater. When he
addresses the House of Commons, one ceases to think of him merely as
the scholar and the author, and he becomes the man who can command the
House by the arguments and the eloquence which the House best
understands. There are many men of high intellectual capacity who
occasionally take part in a Parliamentary debate and who are always
regarded as in the House but not of it. John Morley proved from his very
first effort that he was of the House as well as in it. I have heard him
make great platform speeches, and I think he comes nearer to the highest
order of eloquence when addressing an ordinary political meeting than
even when addressing the House, but it is quite certain that at the
present time the House of Commons has no member who can more completely
command its attention. It must be said, too, that the character of the
man himself, his transparent sincerity, his absolute devotedness to
principle, his fearless and unselfish consistency, count for much in the
commanding position which he has obtained. The integrity of Morley's
career is absolutely beyond criticism or cavil. It never entered into
the mind of his bitterest opponent to suspect for a moment that Morley
could be influenced by any personal consideration in the course which he
took or the words which he uttered. Other men of high position in
Parliament are commonly set down as having taken this or that course,
modified or suppressed this or that opinion, for the sake of personal
advancement, or at least for the sake of maintaining the interests of a
party. But everybody knows that John Morley has never sought for office,
and could never be induced to make any compromise of political principle
even for the sake of maintaining in power the political party to which
he belongs. The universal recognition of that great quality in him has
added unspeakably to his influence in Parliament. He was not at any time
a frequent speaker in the House of Commons, and of course he never was a
mere talker. He speaks only when he has something to say which he
believes ought to be said and to be said by him, and he never seems to
have any temptation to enter into debate for the mere pleasure of taking
part in the controversy. If a man is really a good speaker, the House is
always ready to listen to him no matter how often he may speak, for the
plain reason that debate has to go on for a certain number of hours each
day, and it is more pleasant to listen to a member who talks well than
to one who talks badly. But, no matter how effective and eloquent a
speaker may be, it is quite certain that the House will give him a more
attentive ear if it knows beforehand that whenever he rises to take part
in debate it is sure to hear something which up to that moment has not
been spoken. John Morley, therefore, very soon became one of that small
body of men in the House of Commons whose rising to speak is always
regarded as an event of interest and importance.

In the retrospect of John Morley's career one is brought up with
something approaching to a shock of surprise when he remembers that at
the opening of Morley's Parliamentary life he was closely associated
with Joseph Chamberlain. I remember having heard people say at the time
that Chamberlain took much credit to himself on the ground that he had
urged and prevailed upon John Morley to persevere in seeking a seat in
the House of Commons. Mr. Chamberlain was at that time an extreme and
uncompromising Radical. He was an avowed and constant supporter of the
Home Rule party; was in close alliance with Parnell; took a leading part
in the arrangement of the so-called Kilmainham Treaty, and delivered a
warm panegyric on Parnell himself and Parnell's policy to a crowded and
for the most part an indignant House of Commons. There was, therefore,
nothing surprising in the fact that Morley and Chamberlain were at that
time friends and allies in political affairs, nor had any one then the
faintest reason to believe that Chamberlain was ever destined to undergo
a sudden and miraculous conversion to ultra-Tory principles. When Mr.
Gladstone came into office in 1886 with what was known to be a Home Rule
administration, John Morley obtained the position of Chief Secretary to
the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, with a seat in the Cabinet. It is not by
any means a matter of course that the Irish Chief Secretary should be a
Cabinet Minister. Sometimes the Lord-Lieutenant himself has a place in
the Cabinet and the Chief Secretary is merely an ordinary member of the
Government; sometimes, when the Chief Secretary is regarded as a very
strong man, he is invited to a seat in the Cabinet and his official
master remains outside. John Morley was recognized from the first by
Gladstone as a man of the highest political capacity and character, and
when the new administration came to be formed Gladstone made evident
this estimate of Morley by offering him a place in the Cabinet. The
keenest interest was felt alike both by political friends and political
enemies in Morley's management of Irish affairs. The new Secretary for
Ireland was entering bravely on an enterprise the immediate success of
which was, under the conditions, absolutely impossible. I have no doubt
whatever that success could have been easily and completely accomplished
if John Morley had been allowed his own way in dealing with the whole
Irish question--if, for instance, he had been placed in such a position
of dictatorship as that which was given to Lord Durham when Durham was
sent out to deal with the rebellion in Canada. Durham saw but one remedy
for the long discontents and troubles of the Canadian populations, and
that remedy he found in the system of Home Rule which has since made
Canada peaceful, prosperous, and well content with the place she holds
in the British Empire. If John Morley could have been invested with such
powers as those given to Lord Durham, he might have made of Ireland
another prosperous and contented Canada. But Morley had to administer
the affairs of Ireland at a time when the opinion of the English
majority had not yet risen to the principle of Home Rule, at least so
far as Ireland was concerned, and without such recognition it was beyond
the reach of statesmanship to satisfy the national demands of the Irish
people. Every Irish Nationalist knew perfectly well that John Morley's
heart and intellect alike were with the cause of Irish Home Rule. All
that Morley could do to mitigate the troubles of the country and the
people he did bravely and steadfastly. Ireland was then the victim of an
accumulation of coercion laws which made almost every popular movement,
every attempt to maintain an oppressed tenant against an oppressive
landlord, every protest against despotic legislation, liable to be
treated as an offense calling for the interference of the police. John
Morley did all that could be done to mitigate the rigors of such a
system, and to administer Ireland on something like the principles of
civilization and freedom. He had in this task the full support,
encouragement, and sympathy of the statesman who was then
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland--the Earl of Aberdeen, a man of the most
thoroughly Liberal principles and a sincere friend to Ireland. But, of
course, neither Lord Aberdeen nor John Morley could abolish at a word
of command a whole system of penal legislation, and all that could be
done was to take care that the laws should be administered in a
temperate and reasonable spirit, and that the rulers of Ireland should
show themselves to be at heart the friends of Ireland.

There comes back to my memory a somewhat curious illustration of the
difficulties which then stood in the way of any cordial intercourse
between the representatives of English rule in Ireland and the
representatives of the Irish national cause, and I cannot resist the
temptation to tell the story here. During Morley's first term of office
as Chief Secretary I made some visits to Dublin. I had many meetings
with Morley, of course, and he invited me to dine with him at the Chief
Secretary's Lodge in Phoenix Park. Now, there had been during all my
time a rigorous rule among Irish Nationalists not to accept any of the
hospitalities of those who exercised imperial authority in Dublin. No
true Nationalist would make one at any social gathering in the official
residence of the Viceroy or the Chief Secretary. There were more than
merely sentimental reasons for such a principle. In former days the
Irish people had in several well-remembered instances seen some vehement
advocate of the Irish National cause won over by the promises and the
blandishments of Dublin Castle to take office under the Government and
to renounce the political faith the profession of which had won for him
his seat in Parliament. Therefore it was above all things necessary, in
order to maintain the confidence of the Irish people, that the national
representatives should show themselves determined not to be drawn into
any familiar social relations with the representatives of English rule
in Ireland. This was especially a part of Parnell's policy, and on it
Parnell laid much stress. John Morley came over to Ireland in a spirit
of full friendship towards the Irish people, and he had every reason to
believe that the Irish people thoroughly understood his feelings and his
hopes. He and I had known each other during many years in London, and
when we met in Dublin, he, being still new to the conditions of the
place, invited me to dine with him. I explained to him that, however
delighted I should be to dine with my friend John Morley, it was quite
impossible that I should dine with the Chief Secretary at his official
residence in Dublin. I assured him that if I were to accept such an
invitation the Tory papers of Dublin would be certain to make
characteristic comments on the fact that the Chief Secretary to the
Lord-Lieutenant and the Vice-Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary party
had been dining together in the Chief Secretary's official home, and
that we should both alike find ourselves the objects of something
approaching to a public scandal. Morley was surprised at first and then
a good deal amused, but he accepted my explanation, and thoroughly
understood that it was not any want of friendly feeling which led me to
decline his invitation. So we parted as good friends as ever. We still
met frequently and talked over questions relating to Irish
administration. One day Morley came to see me at the Shelburne Hotel,
which was then my home in Dublin. We had a long talk, and, as the hour
was growing late, I asked him to stay and dine with me, not remembering
at the time that the eye of the public was supposed to be on our
movements. One of Morley's happiest gifts is a delightful sense of
humor. He rose to the situation at once. Addressing me in solemn tones,
but with a gleam of the comic in his eyes, he informed me that if my
principles did not allow me to dine with the Chief Secretary in Dublin,
so neither did the Chief Secretary's principles allow him to dine there
with me. Thus, as some newspaper writers would say, the incident
terminated, and we made no further effort at convivial meetings in
Dublin.

John Morley's quick sense of humor is not one of the qualities which a
stranger would naturally look for in him. Those who have not met him and
have known him only through his writings are apt to think of him as a
grave and even an austere man, a man wholly immersed in the serious
contemplation of life and history, and, if endowed with any sense of
humor, only with a sense of its more grim and saturnine aspects. The man
himself is altogether and curiously unlike the impression thus formed of
him very commonly by those to whom he is not personally known. John
Morley has a quick, keen, and delightful sense of humor. He can talk on
any subject from grave to gay, from lively to severe. He is one of the
most charming of companions, and he is a great favorite among women,
even among those who do not greatly concern themselves with the question
of woman's political emancipation. There is nothing of the stern
philosopher about his manner of comporting himself in social life.
Indeed, for all the clear composure of his philosophic contemplations,
he has a temperament far too quick and sensitive to allow of his meeting
all life's vexatious questions in the mood of stoical endurance. He is
by nature somewhat nervous, is decidedly quick in temper, frankly
acknowledges that he is rather impatient of contradiction, and is likely
to become overheated in the course of an eager argument. I feel the less
hesitation in noticing these little peculiarities on the part of my
friend because I have heard Morley himself speak of them with perfect
frankness as some of his troubles in political controversy. I must say
that, so far as I know, these unphilosophical qualities of Morley's
temperament only tend to make him all the more a charming friend to his
friends. We may admire the marble-like composure of the stern
philosopher who yields to no passing human weaknesses of temper, but it
must be very hard to keep always on friendly terms with so superhuman a
personage.

Mr. Morley goes into society a good deal in London, is often to be seen
at the theaters on first nights, seems to enjoy a dinner party or an
evening party as well as the most commonplace among us might do, but I
do not believe that he has any liking for great shows and pompous
celebrations and the other formal demonstrations of Court festivity and
Ministerial display. In his quiet London home he leads the life of a man
of culture, a scholar and a writer, so far as his political and
Parliamentary engagements allow him leisure for such recreation, and he
neither seeks the madding crowd nor shuns it. It has always been a
wonder to me how such a man can find time for his many and diverse
studies and occupations, and should never either neglect the work of his
life or shut himself away from its reasonable enjoyments. John Morley is
indeed a rare and almost unique combination of the philosophical
thinker, the vivid biographer, the Parliamentary debater, and the
practical administrator. His life of Richard Cobden is one of the most
complete and characteristic pieces of biography accomplished during our
time. There would not seem to have been much that was congenial between
the temperament of Richard Cobden and that of John Morley. Cobden was
not a laborious student of the past; he had no widespread and varied
literary or artistic sympathies; he did not concern himself much with
any scientific studies except those which have to do with the actual
movements of man's working lifetime; he was a great practical reformer,
not a scholar, a philosopher, or even a devoted lover of books. I do not
know that John Morley was personally well acquainted with Cobden, and I
am rather inclined to believe that in his biography of the great
free-trader he relied mainly on Cobden's correspondence and on the
information given to him by members of Cobden's family. Yet he has
created a perfect living picture of Cobden as Cobden's friends all knew
him, and he has shown to coming generations, not merely what Cobden said
and did, what great reforms he accomplished, and what further reforms he
ever had in view, but he has shown what Cobden actually was, and made
the man himself a familiar figure to all who read the book. So far as I
can judge, he has achieved the same success when telling us of Burke, of
Voltaire, and of Rousseau, and has made us feel that with his guidance
we come to know the men themselves as well as the parts they performed
in politics or in literature.

Morley has for a long time been engaged in preparing his life of
Gladstone, and the mind of England, which has lately been distracted by
the vicissitudes of war, is now free to turn to quieter thoughts, and to
look with eager expectation for the completion of the book. No other
living man could have anything like John Morley's qualifications as the
biographer of Gladstone. He is one of the greatest masters of lucid and
vigorous English prose. He has been what I may call a professional
student of the lives of great men; he is a profound political thinker;
and he has the faculty of describing to the life and making his subject
live again. In addition to all these claims to the position of
Gladstone's authorized biographer comes the fact that Morley was for
many years intrusted with Gladstone's fullest confidence. To no one did
Gladstone make his feelings and his purposes on all political questions
more fully known than to John Morley; and I think I am justified in
saying that at more than one critical period in his later political
history Gladstone chose Morley as his especial and, for the time, his
only confidant. I can say of my own knowledge that in the later years of
Gladstone's active political life there were momentous occasions when
John Morley acted as the one sole medium of private communication
between Gladstone and the leaders of the Irish party. I know, too, how
careful and methodical Morley showed himself on all such occasions, and
with what ample and accurate notes he preserved the exact record of
every day's intercommunications. This is, indeed, one of Morley's
characteristic peculiarities--the combination of exalted thought with
the most minute attention to the very routine of practical work. That
combination of qualities will display itself, I feel quite certain, with
complete success in Morley's history of Gladstone's life. John Morley
has still, we may well hope, a long political career before him. When
the Liberal party next comes into power, John Morley will unquestionably
have one of its most commanding offices placed at his disposal.
Meanwhile he has ample work on hand even for his energy and
perseverance. He is just finishing his life of Gladstone, and is to take
charge of the magnificent library which belonged to the late Lord Acton,
the greatest English scholar and book-lover of our time. Mr. Carnegie's
gift of this great library, lately bought by him, to John Morley, is an
act which does honor to the intellect as well as to the heart of the
generous donor. Whatever positions, honors, or responsibilities maybe
yet before John Morley, it may be taken for granted that he has already
won for himself a secure place in the literature and the political life
of his country, and that his name will live in its history.




[Illustration: Photograph by William Notman & Son

THE EARL OF ABERDEEN]




THE EARL OF ABERDEEN


The Earl of Aberdeen will always be associated in my mind with a most
hopeful season of our political life, a season none the less cherished
in memory and none the less auspicious because its hopes were doomed to
temporary disappointment. That bright season was the time when Mr.
Gladstone was endeavoring to carry out his policy of Home Rule for
Ireland. I need hardly tell my American readers that Gladstone's policy
was condemned to failure, partly because of a secession of Liberals who
went over to the Conservative ranks for the purpose of opposing the
measure, and then because of the attitude taken by the House of Lords,
who, thus encouraged, rejected the bill after it had passed the House of
Commons. The season, therefore, which I am now recalling to memory was
that which came between Mr. Gladstone's promulgation of his Home Rule
policy and the rejection of his second measure of Home Rule. The
interval was one full of the brightest hopes for all true British
Liberals and all Irish Nationalists. For the first time during my
recollection, British Liberalism and Irish Nationalism were in true
companionship and concord. We fraternized as English and Irish
politicians had probably never fraternized before. On both sides we were
filled with the fond belief that the disunion of Great Britain and
Ireland was soon to come to an end, and that the true and lasting union
of the two peoples would be accomplished by Gladstone's policy of giving
to Ireland her national self-government. It was a season of much
festivity in London, and the Irish Nationalist members of Parliament
were welcome guests in all the great Liberals' houses. No figures are
more thoroughly associated in my memory with that time than those of
Lord Aberdeen and his gifted and noble-minded wife.

Lord Aberdeen is the grandson of that Earl of Aberdeen whose coalition
ministry, a luckless effort at a temporary compromise between hostile
political forces, came to a disastrous end during the Crimean War. The
present Earl succeeded to the title in 1870. He was educated at the
University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, and afterwards at University
College, Oxford. Lord Aberdeen was a Conservative in his political
principles when he entered the House of Lords. But he had too much
intellect and too much independence of mind to remain long in
subserviency to the traditional creed of a mere party. He differed from
his leaders on several important questions before he had fully seen his
way to take up his position as a recognized member of the Liberal
organization. Most of us who had followed his career thus far with any
attention felt sure that the Conservatives would not long be able to
keep such a man among their slow-going and unenlightened ranks, and no
surprise was felt on either side when he took his natural place as a
follower of Mr. Gladstone. Lord Aberdeen became an earnest advocate of
the Home Rule policy, and all the noble influence that he and his wife
could bring to bear publicly and privately was exerted in support of the
cause. Then it was that I first came to know Lord and Lady Aberdeen. I
have before me just now a book called "Notables of Britain," described
on its title-page as "An Album of Portraits and Autographs of the Most
Eminent Subjects of Her Majesty in the Sixtieth Year of Her Reign." This
book was published at the office of the "Review of Reviews," and was
understood to be the production of Mr. W. T. Stead. It contains an
excellent full-length photograph of Lord Aberdeen, who, I may say, has a
face and figure well worthy to be preserved by painter and photographer
for the benefit of those who in coming days are interested in the
notables of Britain. The portrait, like all the other portraits in the
volume, is accompanied by an autograph line or two. Lord Aberdeen's
written words seem to me peculiarly characteristic of the writer's
bright and hopeful spirit. I quote his words--the writing is clear and
well formed:--

    I think this is a good motto:
      "_Transeunt nubes--manet cælum._"
                                        ABERDEEN.

The temper in which Lord Aberdeen conducted all his political
intercourse during this period of promise was one of unchanging courage
and hopefulness. He was one of the most active and ready among the
supporters of Mr. Gladstone, and he found an untiring and invaluable
companion in his charming wife. At that time we used to hold political
gatherings in private houses as well as in public halls, and I have
taken part in more than one Home Rule demonstration held in the private
dwellings of some of Mr. Gladstone's colleagues in office. We used to
have many social meetings for the purpose of bringing Englishmen and
Irishmen into close association. Even Parnell himself was prevailed upon
to abandon for the time his rule of seclusion from society, and to meet
Mr. Gladstone and Lord Spencer and other leading Englishmen at private
dinner parties. Lord Aberdeen was one of the most conspicuous and one of
the most attractive figures in these political and social gatherings,
and I could not, indeed, recall that period to memory for a moment
without finding his figure photographed prominently in it. It was an
interesting sight during all that time to see some of the most extreme
and most aggressive members of the Irish Parliamentary party mingling in
social life with British peers and magnates who only a few years before
would probably have regarded those Irish members as traitors to the
Queen and fitting inmates of the prison cell. On the other hand, too, it
must be said that only a very few years before the Irish Nationalist
member who was known to make his appearance in the London drawing-rooms
of English aristocracy would have been set down by the majority of his
countrymen as a flunkey in spirit and a traitor to his cause. There was
a time not long before when an Irish Nationalist member would have
needed some courage to enable him to meet his constituents on election
day if the local papers had made it known that he was in the habit of
showing himself in the drawing-rooms of English peers. All this sudden
and complete change had been brought about by the genius and policy of
Gladstone when he came to see the true meaning and the true claims of
the demand for Irish Home Rule. My memory goes back with a somewhat
melancholy pleasure to those days of hope and confidence when the true
union of Great Britain and Ireland seemed actually on the verge of
consummation. Nor have I the slightest doubt that the lessons taught
during that season will have their full influence once again when the
period of reaction is over, and that Gladstone's policy of 1886 will
come to life again before very long and will accomplish its work once
for all.

In that year, 1886, Gladstone appointed Lord Aberdeen to the office of
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The position was given to Lord Aberdeen with
the frankly proclaimed purpose that he was to be the Lord-Lieutenant of
a Home Rule policy, and, indeed, on no other conditions would Lord
Aberdeen have consented to accept the office. Lord Aberdeen's short term
of rule in Ireland was a complete success. There was not much that the
most Liberal Lord-Lieutenant could do in the way of positive
administration for the benefit of the island. There was already in
existence a whole code of repressive legislation compiled during
successive ages of despotic government, and this existing code it was
not in the power of Lord Aberdeen or any other Viceroy to abolish or
even to modify. All that the new Lord-Lieutenant could do in the way of
political relief to the Irish people was to discourage as much as
possible the too frequent application of the coercive laws and to make
it known that the sympathies of the new Government were in favor of
political freedom for Ireland, as well as for England and Scotland. Lord
Aberdeen fulfilled this part of his public duty with a brave heart and
with all the success possible to the task. Every one who had any
acquaintance with the state of Ireland at the time must have known what
difficulties were likely to be set in the way of Lord Aberdeen's
endeavor to mitigate the severities of the coercion system. The most
serious of those difficulties would in all probability have come from
the permanent official staff in Dublin Castle. American readers in
general can have but little idea as to the peculiarities of that
singular institution Dublin Castle, the center and fortress of Irish
government. It has become, from generations of usage, a very bulwark
against the progress of Irish national sentiment. The fresh current of
feeling from the outside seems to make little impression on its stagnant
and moldy atmosphere. It is ruled by tradition, and to that tradition
belongs the rule of hostility to every popular feeling and every
national demand. Lord Aberdeen had to encounter all the resistance which
the dead weight of Dublin Castle's antiquated systems could bring to
bear against his liberal and enlightened efforts at the pacification of
the country. He carried out his purpose with unflinching resolve and
unruffled temper, and, so far as the existing laws allowed him, he
mitigated the harshnesses of the system under which Ireland had been
governed since the Act of Union. But there was, of course, much more
within Lord Aberdeen's capacity to accomplish than the mere mitigation
of existing laws which it was not in his power to abolish. His presence
and the entire conduct of his viceroyalty were as a proclamation to the
Irish people that the whole sympathies of the Gladstone Government went
with the national demands.

Then, indeed, a strange sight was to be seen in Dublin--the sight of a
thoroughly popular welcome, a national welcome, given to the
representative of English rule in Ireland. A new chapter in Irish
history seemed to open, and the heart of Ireland was filled with hope.
It is told of Swift that when Carteret, Earl Granville, was appointed
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland--Swift afterwards became one of Granville's
close friends--he exclaimed in his sarcastic fashion that he could not
understand why such a man should be appointed to such an office, and he
thought the Government ought to keep on sending its bullies and
blockheads just as before. A satirical Nationalist might have been
expected to break forth into a similar expression of wonder when a man
like Lord Aberdeen was sent to Ireland to carry on the rule of Dublin
Castle. Lord Aberdeen and his wife made themselves popular everywhere
among the Irish people, showed a living and a constant interest in
everything that concerned the welfare of the population, and did all
they could to break down the long-existing barricades which made England
and Ireland hostile nations. When Mr. Gladstone failed in carrying his
Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons and his Government came to
an end, Lord Aberdeen took his leave of Ireland amid demonstrations of
popular regard, affection, and regret which must have deeply touched his
generous heart. In 1893, when the Liberals were again in power, Lord
Aberdeen was made Governor-General of Canada, and he held that position
until 1898. His term of service in Canada was as successful as might
have been expected, and the French as well as the other provinces looked
up to him with admiration and gratitude. Then, for the time, his
official career came to an end. In the interval between the Irish and
the Canadian appointment Lord Aberdeen and his wife made a tour round
the world, visiting on their way India and most of the British colonies.
The name of Lady Aberdeen is associated with all great movements which
have to do with the education and the general advancement of women, and
with many good works undertaken for the benefit of the Irish peasantry.
Lady Aberdeen, it should be said, is the youngest daughter of the first
Lord Tweedmouth, and is sister of the Lord Tweedmouth who, as Edward
Marjoribanks, was so well known for a long time as one of the leading
Whips of the Liberal party. Lady Aberdeen's name is Ishbel Maria, and I
may ask my American readers not to make the mistake, sometimes made even
in England, of assuming her name to be the more familiar one of Isabel.
She has always been one of the most prominent, influential, and graceful
figures in English society, and every charitable association which
deserves her support has the advantage of her help, her protection, and
her guidance. I know from my own experience what valuable and untiring
service she has given to the promotion of the lace-making and the
cottage industries of Ireland. I had the great honor of being associated
with her in some of these efforts, and I never can forget her unsparing
devotion to the best interests of every such effort. I have among my
books a series of large and handsome volumes devoted to a record of the
proceedings which took place at the International Council of Women held
in London during July of 1899 and presided over by the Countess of
Aberdeen. This series, published by Mr. Fisher Unwin, is edited by Lady
Aberdeen and has an introduction written by her. I may quote the closing
paragraph of the introduction:--

    It is a great inspiration to be bound together in the pursuance
    of high ideals; it is also a grave responsibility--and during
    our recent Council meeting both these thoughts have been made
    very real to us. I pray God that they may abide within the
    hearts of all who, in every country, are the guardians of the
    honor of our Council, so that it may prove true to the lofty
    profession it has made.

The series contains seven volumes, every one of which has been carefully
edited by Lady Aberdeen, and is enriched with many commentaries of her
own. One can easily imagine the amount of time and trouble which such a
work must have imposed on a busy woman, and those who know anything of
her will know the thought and care and devotion which she must have
given to such a labor of love.

Not a few persons are still apt to associate the idea of a woman
advocating the advancement of women with something unfeminine,
ungracious, self-assertive, and overbearing. When Lady Aberdeen first
began to be known in social movements, the memory of the late Mrs. Lynn
Linton's diatribes about "the Shrieking Sisterhood" was still fresh in
the public mind, and much prejudice yet lingered against the women who
publicly devoted themselves to the advancement of their sex. Lady
Aberdeen might have seemed as if she were specially created to be a
living refutation of all such absurd ideas. No fashionable woman given
up to social success and distinction in drawing-rooms, dining-rooms,
balls, and Court ceremonials could have been more feminine, graceful,
and charming in her ways and her demeanor than this noble-hearted woman,
who was not afraid to advocate the genuine rights of women, and who
stood by her husband's side in all his efforts for political reform. One
might adopt the words which Sheridan has made the opening of a song in
"The Duenna," and proclaim that a pair was never seen more justly formed
to meet by nature than Lord and Lady Aberdeen. Such an impression was
assuredly formed in Ireland and in Canada, and indeed in every place
where Lord and Lady Aberdeen were able to assert their unostentatious
and most beneficent influence.

Lord Aberdeen succeeded to the title and its responsibilities at too
early an age to allow him any opportunity of proving his capacity for
Parliamentary life in the House of Commons. His elder brother was
drowned on a voyage from Boston to Melbourne, and the subject of this
article then became Earl of Aberdeen, with, as a matter of course, a
seat in the House of Lords. There is nothing like a real Parliamentary
career to be found in the House of Lords. A man of great natural gifts
can, of course, give evidence even there that he is born for
statesmanship and can command attention by his eloquence. Lord Aberdeen
made it certain even in the House of Lords that he was endowed with
these rare qualifications. But the House of Lords has no influence over
the country, unless, indeed, when it exerts itself to stay for the time
the progress of some great and popular measure. Even this is only for
the time, and if the measure be really one of national benefit and
deserving of public support, it is sure to be carried in the end, and
the Lords have to give in and to put up with their defeat. But the
hereditary chamber is not even a commanding platform from which an
eloquent speaker can address and can influence the whole country, and
the temptations there to apathy and indolence must often be found to be
almost irresistible. On rare occasions, two or three times in a session,
perhaps, there comes off what is popularly called a full-dress debate,
and then the red benches of the House, on which the peers have their
seats, are sure to be crowded, and the galleries where members of the
House of Commons are entitled to sit and the galleries allotted to
strangers are also well occupied. The Lords have even the inspiriting
advantage, denied to the House of Commons, of open galleries where
ladies can sit in the full glare of day or of gaslight, and can
encourage an orator by their presence and their attention. In the House
of Commons, as everybody knows, the small number of ladies for whom
seats are provided are secreted behind a thick grating, and thus become
an almost invisible influence, if, indeed, they can hope to be an
influence at all. Yet even this inspiration does not stir the peers to
anything more than the rarest attempts at a great debate. On ordinary
occasions--and these ordinary occasions constitute nearly the whole of a
session--the peers sit for only an hour or so every day, and then mutter
and mumble through some formal business, and the outer public does not
manifest the slightest interest in what they are doing or trying to do.
There are many men now in the House of Lords who proved their eloquence
again and again during some of the most important and exciting debates
in the representative chamber, and who now hardly open their lips in the
gilded chamber, as the House of Lords has been grandiloquently titled. A
rising member of the House of Commons succeeds to the family title and
estates, and as a matter of course he is transferred to the House of
Lords, and there, in most cases, is an end to his public career. Or
perhaps a rising member of the House of Commons has in some way or other
made himself inconvenient to his leading colleagues who have now come
into power and are forming an administration, and as they do not know
how to get rid of him gracefully in any other way, they induce the
Sovereign to confer on him a peerage, and so he straightway goes into
the House of Lords. Perhaps, as he had been an active and conspicuous
debater in the House of Commons, he cannot bring himself to settle down
into silence when he finds himself among the peers. So he delivers a
speech every now and then on what are conventionally regarded in the
House of Lords as great occasions, but his career is practically at an
end all the same. I have in my mind some striking instances of this
curious transition from Parliamentary prominence in the House of Commons
to Parliamentary nothingness in the House of Lords. I know of men who
were accounted powerful and brilliant debaters in the House of Commons,
where debates are sometimes great events, who, when, from one cause or
other, translated to the House of Lords, were hardly ever heard of as
debaters any more. Probably there seemed no motive for taking the
trouble to seek the opportunity of delivering a speech in the hereditary
assembly, where nothing particular could come of the speech when
delivered, and the new peer allows the charms of public speaking to lose
their hold over him, to pass with the days and the dreams of his youth.

Lord Aberdeen would in all probability have made a deep mark as a
Parliamentary debater if the kindly fates had left to him the
possibility of a career in the House of Commons. He has a fine voice, an
attractive presence, and a fluent delivery; he has high intellectual
capacity, wide and varied culture, and much acquaintance with foreign
States and peoples. Probably the best services which Lord Aberdeen
could render to his country would be found in such offices as Ireland
and Canada gave him an opportunity of undertaking; viceroyalty of some
order, it would seem, must be the main business of his career. But I
must say that I should much like to see his great intellectual
qualities, his varied experience, and his noble humanitarian sympathies
provided with some opportunity of exercising themselves in the work of
domestic government. I may explain that I do not call the administration
of Ireland under the old conditions a work of domestic government in the
true sense. The vice-regal system in Ireland is a barbaric anachronism,
and the abilities and high purposes of a man like Lord Aberdeen were
wholly thrown away upon such work. There is much still in the social
condition of England which could give ample occupation to the
administrative abilities and the philanthropic energies of Lord
Aberdeen. The work of decentralization in England is rapidly going on.
The development of local self-government is becoming one of the most
remarkable phenomena of our times. Parliament is becoming more and more
the fount and origin of national rule, but it is wisely devoting its
energies to the creation of a system which shall leave the working out
of that national rule more and more to localities and municipalities. At
one time, and that not very long ago, it was believed even by many
social reformers that, while self-government might easily be developed
in the cities and towns, it would not be possible, during the present
generation at least, to infuse any such principle of vitality into the
country districts.

Of late years, however, it is becoming more and more apparent that the
principle of local government is developing itself rapidly and
effectively in the rural districts, and that the good old times when the
squire and the rector could manage by divided despotism the whole
business of a parish are destined soon to become a curious historical
memory. The system of national education, established for the first time
in England by Gladstone's Government in 1870, has naturally had much to
do with the quickening of intelligent activity all over the British
Islands. A new generation has grown up, in which localities are no
longer content to have all their business managed for them by their
local magnates, and the recent statutes passed by Parliament for the
extension everywhere of the local government principle are a direct
result of the legislation which has made education compulsory in these
countries. All over the agricultural districts we now find county boards
and parish councils conducting by debates and divisions the common
business of each district, just as it is done in the great cities and
towns. It seems to me that this spread of the principle of local
self-government opens a most appropriate field for the intellect and the
energies of such statesmen as Lord Aberdeen. Only in recent times have
great noblemen condescended to trouble themselves much, so far at least
as their Parliamentary careers were concerned, with municipal or other
local affairs. A peer, if he happened to have any taste or gift for
Parliamentary and official work, was willing to become Foreign
Secretary, Viceroy of India, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or Governor of
a Colony. Not infrequently, too, he consented to devote his energies to
the office of Postmaster-General. But he was not likely to see any scope
for a Parliamentary career in the management of local business. In his
own particular district, no doubt, he was accustomed to direct most of
the business in his own way and might be a local benefactor or a local
mis-manager, according as his tastes and judgment qualified him. But the
general business of localities did not create any Parliamentary
department which seemed likely to deserve his attention. The condition
of things is very different now, and Lord Aberdeen is one of the men to
whom the country is mainly indebted for that quickening and outspreading
of the local self-governing principle which is so remarkable and so
hopeful a phenomenon of our national existence at present. In every
movement which pretends to the development and the strengthening of that
principle Lord Aberdeen has always taken a foremost part.

I am not myself an unqualified admirer of that part of the British
constitutional system which makes the House of Lords one of three great
ruling powers. I should very much doubt whether Lord Aberdeen himself,
if he were set to devise a constitutional system for these countries,
would make the House of Lords as at present arranged a component part of
our legislative system. But I am quite willing to admit that, since we
have a House of Lords and while we have a House of Lords, a man like the
Earl of Aberdeen does all that can be done to turn the existing
constitution to good account and make it in some degree worthy of
national toleration. While there exists an aristocracy of birth, even
the most uncompromising advocate of democracy and the equal rights of
men might freely admit that a career like the political and social
career of Lord Aberdeen does much to plead in defense of the system.
Lord Aberdeen has always proved that he thoroughly understands the
responsibilities as well as the advantages of his high position. Not one
of the Labor Members, as they are called, of the House of Commons--the
chosen representatives of the working classes--could have shown a deeper
and more constant sympathy with every measure and every movement which
tends to improve the condition and expand the opportunities of those who
have to make a living by actual toil. Lord Aberdeen has yet, I trust, a
long and fruitful career before him. The statesmanship of England will
soon again have to turn its attention to the social movements which
concern the interests of the lowly-born and the hard-working in these
islands. If a better time is coming for the statesmen of England,
whether in office or in opposition, who love peace and who yearn to
take a part in measures which lead to genuine national prosperity, we
may safely assume that in such a time Lord Aberdeen will renew his
active career, to the benefit of the people whom he has served so
faithfully and so well.




[Illustration: Photograph copyright by W. & D. Downey

JOHN BURNS]




JOHN BURNS


John Burns stands out a distinct and peculiar figure in the House of
Commons. He is the foremost representative of that working class which
is becoming so great a power in the organization of English political
and industrial life. "Be not like dumb driven cattle," says Longfellow
in his often-quoted lines--"Be a hero in the strife." The British
workingmen were until very lately little better than dumb driven cattle;
in our days and under such leadership as that of John Burns they have
proved themselves capable of bearing heroic part in the struggle for
great reforms. I can remember the time when the House of Commons had not
in it any member actually belonging to the working classes. At that time
the working classes had no means of obtaining Parliamentary
representation, for it may be said with almost literal exactness that no
workingman had a vote, or the means of obtaining a vote, at a
Parliamentary election. The conditions of the franchise were too
limited in the constituencies to enable men who worked for small daily
or weekly wages to become voters at elections. In order to become a
voter a man must occupy a house rated at a certain yearly amount, and he
must have occupied it for a specified and considerable space of time,
and there were very few indeed of the working class who could hope to
obtain such legal qualifications. In more recent days the great
reformers of these islands have succeeded in establishing what may be
fairly described as manhood suffrage in these countries, and have also
secured a lodger franchise; have established the secret ballot as the
process of voting; and by these and other reforms have put the
workingman on a level with his fellow-citizens as a voter at
Parliamentary elections. My own recollection goes back to the time when
the law in Great Britain and Ireland insisted on what was called a
"property qualification" as an indispensable condition to a candidate's
obtaining a seat in the House of Commons. I have known scores of
instances in which clever and popular candidates got over this
difficulty by prevailing on some wealthy relative or friend to settle
legally on them an amount of landed property necessary to qualify them
for a seat in the House. It was perfectly well known to every one that
this settlement was purely a formal arrangement, and that the new and
nominal possessor of the property was no more its real owner than the
child who is allowed for a moment to hold his father's watch in his hand
becomes thereby the legal owner of the valuable timepiece. In our days
no property qualification of any kind is needed either for a vote at a
Parliamentary election or for a seat in the House of Commons, and
therefore the workingmen form an important proportion of the voters at
Parliamentary elections and are enabled in certain constituencies to
choose men of their own class to represent them in the House of Commons.

I have thought it well to make the short explanation of the changes
which have taken place in the condition of the British workingmen during
recent years as a prelude to what I have to say concerning that foremost
of British workingmen, John Burns. It is only fair to say that the
workingmen of these countries have made judicious and praiseworthy use
of the new political powers confided to them, and have almost invariably
sent into Parliament as the representatives of their class men of
undoubted ability and of the highest character, men who win the respect
of all parties in the House of Commons. Of these men John Burns is the
most conspicuous. He has never, indeed, held a place in an
administration, as two, I think, of his order have already done; but
then John Burns is a man of resolutely independent character, and it
would not be easy thus far to form even a Liberal Government which
should be quite up to the level of his views on many questions of
domestic and foreign policy.

John Burns would hardly be taken personally as a typical representative
of the British workingman. He is short in stature, very dark in
complexion and in the color of his hair, and a stranger seeing him for
the first time might take him for an Italian or a Spaniard. His physical
strength is something enormous, and I have seen him perform with the
greatest apparent ease some feats of athletic vigor which might have
seemed to demand the proportions of a giant. His whole frame is made up
of bone and muscle, and although he is broadly and stoutly built, he
does not appear to have any superfluous flesh. If I had to make my way
through a furious opposing crowd, I do not know of any leader whom I
should be more glad to follow than John Burns. But although Burns is
physically made for a fighting man, there is nothing pugnacious or
aggressive in his temperament. He is by nature kind, conciliatory, and
generous, tolerant of other men's opinions, and only anxious to advance
his own by fair argument and manly appeals to men's sense of humanity
and justice. I have seen him carry a great big elderly man who had
fainted at a public meeting and take him to a quiet spot with all the
ease and tenderness of a mother carrying her child. But if I were an
overbearing giant who was trying his strength upon a weaker mortal, I
should take good care not to make the experiment while John Burns was
anywhere within reach. He is an adept at all sorts of athletic sports
and games, skating, rowing, foot-racing, boxing, cricket, and I know not
what else. He is essentially a man of the working class, and has, I
believe, some Scottish blood in his veins, but he is a Londoner by
birth, and passed all his early life in a London district. He was born
to poverty, and received such education as he had to begin with at a
humble school in the Battersea region on the south side of London.

Now, I should think that a boy born in humble life who had in him any
gift of imagination and any faculty for self-improvement could hardly
have begun life in a better place than Battersea. The Battersea region
lies south of the Thames, and is a strange combination of modern
squalidness and picturesque historical associations and memorials. The
homes of the working class poor stand under the very shadow of that
famous church in Old Battersea where Bolingbroke, the high-born, one of
the most eloquent orators known to English Parliamentary life, and one
of the most brilliant writers who adorn English literature, lies buried,
and where strangers from all parts of the world go to gaze upon his
tombstone. Everywhere throughout the little town or village one comes
upon places associated with the memory of Bolingbroke and of other men
famous in history. Cross the bridge that spans the Thames and you are in
the Chelsea region, which is suffused with historical and literary
associations from far-off days to those recent times when Thomas Carlyle
had his home in one of its quiet streets. To a boy with any turn for
reading and any taste for history and literature, all that quarter of
London on both sides of the Thames must have been filled with
inspiration. John Burns had always a love of reading, and I can easily
fancy that the memories of the place must have been a constant stimulant
and inspiration to his honorable ambition for self-culture. His school
days finished when he was hardly ten years old, and then he was set to
earn a living, first in a candle factory and afterwards in the works of
an engineer. Thus he toiled away until he had reached manhood's age, and
all the time he was steadily devoting his spare hours or moments to the
task of self-education. He read every book that came within his reach,
and studied with especial interest the works of men who set themselves
to the consideration of great social problems.

Burns naturally became very soon impressed with the conviction that all
could not be quite right under a political and social system which made
the workingman a mere piece of living mechanism and gave him no share
whatever in the constitutional government of the country. At that time
there was no system of national education in England, and the child of
poor parents had to get his teaching through some charitable
institution, or to go without any teaching whatever. So far as the
education of the poorest classes was concerned, England was at that time
far below Scotland, below Germany and Holland, and below the United
States.

As regards the political system, a man of the class to which John Burns
was born had little chance i

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