XIV. LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS…

XIV. LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

‘Solos imperantium Vespasianus mutatus in melius.’--TACITUS.

‘It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit whom honour amends.’--BACON.

The General Election of 1886 surpassed, in the importance of the issue, in the confusion of parties and the sincerity of the combatants, any election since the first Reform Bill. Partisanship had grown rancorous during the eventful course of the controversy; rancour was fanned into passion by the excitement of decision; and to all was added the extra and unusual bitterness of a party split. The Liberal dissentients were brought at once to the uttermost wrench. Everywhere their own organisations turned against them. Everywhere they struck back with all their force. Everywhere they and the bold minority who stood by them, looked for the aid of their former opponents. The Conservative leaders, on their part, grudged nothing and neglected nothing that could contribute to the strength of the seceders. To every member who voted against the Bill they had promised whole-hearted support; and such was their authority and the discipline of their followers that in nearly every case the local associations obeyed them. Tory candidates withdrew patriotically in favour of their late antagonists. Others were frowned and hustled from the field. Old comradeships and old prejudices faded together. Life-long friends drummed each other out of political clubs. Life-long opponents fought side by side. Home Rule was the one and vital test. The whole force of the machinery of the Liberal party--national and local--was used uncompromisingly. No Liberal-Unionist who could be attacked with any prospect of success, was spared. The purge was complete.

The Home Rulers entered upon the struggle in good hopes. They were assured of the obedience of the organisations. They saw the intense enthusiasm--‘never before equalled’--of the Liberal and Radical masses. They counted vastly upon the Irish vote in the English boroughs; and, above all, they trusted in Mr. Gladstone’s mighty personality. But the forces against them were tremendous. The statesman who would effect a revolution in Great Britain must not only persuade a party, he must convince the nation; and opposed to Mr. Gladstone were almost all the men whose names were widely known or had been long respected--John Bright, by himself a tower; Salisbury and Hartington; Beach and James and Goschen; Chamberlain and Churchill! All the protagonists of former conflicts were formed in one line of battle.

Lord Salisbury in the closing years of his life once said that Mr. Gladstone in struggling for Home Rule, ‘awakened the slumbering genius of Imperialism.’ Beneath the threshold of domestic politics during the long years of Liberal prosperity the modern conception of Britain as a world-power, the heart of an Empire, the inheritor and guardian of a thousand years of sacrifice and valour, had lived and grown. It had been cherished by the somewhat tardy recognition of Lord Beaconsfield. It had been violently stimulated by the disastrous events of the Parliament of 1880. Although Lord Randolph Churchill was never what is nowadays called an Imperialist and always looked at home rather than abroad, his followers in the Tory Democracy were already alive with the new idea. A single touch sufficed to rouse it into a vital and dominant activity which for nearly twenty years has shaped the course of British history, and in spite of extravagances, puerilities and even turpitudes, has left a permanent imprint upon the national mind. It was this rising temper of opinion that Mr. Gladstone’s Irish policy, embodied in his own majestic personality, seemed now to challenge directly.

The personal element was the keynote of Lord Randolph Churchill’s address. That surprising document was made public on June 20, and as a specimen of savage political invective is not likely soon to be excelled.[53] It will no doubt be severely judged, now that nothing remains except the ashes of the great blaze of 1886. At the time many eminently respectable people who stood some distance from the actual fighting, as eminently respectable people are apt to do, were horribly shocked. Even Mr. Chamberlain was startled. ‘Your manifesto,’ he wrote, ‘was “rather strong”; but I suppose the Tories like it.’ But if the Tory candidates blushed when they read it in the morning paper, they did not forget to quote it at the evening meeting. Its jingles and its arguments--for it abounds equally in argument and in abuse--ran like wildfire along the skirmish lines. The working man laughed over them in his home and disputed with his mate upon them in the workshop. People remembered epithets who could remember nothing else, and uttered taunts when other ammunition failed. One phrase at least, ‘An old man in a hurry,’ has become historic. If the address was vulgar, it was also popular. If it was reprobated, it was also used. The anger of that time has cooled, and its expression is worth preserving, though it may now provoke nothing worse than a smile.

Lord Randolph spoke only twice during the election, for the exertions of the Session forced him to seek a rest. He visited Manchester on June 28 and, although he had been there often in the last three years, so great were the crowds that the traffic of the city was completely suspended while he made a triumphal progress through the streets. Two days later he addressed his own constituents in Paddington. His most important work, however, in the 1886 election lay in Birmingham, where only six months before he had led the Conservative attack against Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain. The Tory party in that city, by tremendous efforts, then first asserted itself as a political force; and, although beaten in every division, their minorities were well organised and enthusiastic and amounted in the aggregate to more than 20,000 voters. They did not easily forget that for years and years they had been kept by the Caucus and by the genius of Mr. Schnadhorst in a condition of political subjection. They had almost triumphed in 1885. The turn of events now threw their arch-enemies absolutely into their hands, and there were not wanting among their leaders those to whom the divided state of the Radical party offered the strongest temptations. It was fortunate for the Unionist cause that there was at hand an influence to which the whole Conservative party in Birmingham would readily respond.

Disagreeable speeches made by local politicians filled Mr. Chamberlain with anxiety, and the difficulty and isolation of his own position inclined him at first to take a gloomy view. Lord Randolph hurried down to Birmingham on June 19, and by his influence and that of Mr. Rowlands, the leader of the Conservative party in Birmingham, all difficulties were smoothed away. ‘I have seen the Birmingham Tories to-day,’ he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain (June 19). ‘Henry Matthews has consented, after much pressing, to stand against Cook. We shall run no other candidate and shall give all our support to the Liberal-Unionists, asking for no return and making no boast or taunt.’ This letter he signed ‘Yours ever’--an unusual subscription with him. Again the same day: ‘I will engage that all your Unionist candidates shall have the full support of our party. I have telegraphed to Rowlands to see me on Monday. Schnadhorst’s only chance is that you should seem to be afraid of him. Why does not Mr. Bright intervene? I am looking forward most anxiously to the account of your meeting and speech to-night. I think there is a great deal of froth about the Gladstone proceedings, and all my information up to now makes me confident that the voting will be heavy against him. Don’t get down-hearted.’

‘Thanks to your intervention,’ replied Mr. Chamberlain (June 20), ‘matters look better here. The meeting last night was a tremendous success. Only fifty or one hundred dissentients out of 4,000, all electors marked off on register. This meeting will, I hope, have a great effect in other divisions, and I think we shall get Collings chosen in Bordesley. If so, we ought to carry seven Unionists for Birmingham....’

‘I was greatly relieved,’ replied Lord Randolph (June 21), ‘to see by your letter this morning that you were in better spirits. Your meeting was indeed a tremendous success, and your speech, as usual, most excellent. I hope my address has not given you a fit. I have only said what you and Hartington are longing to say, but dare not.... My own opinion is that we shall roll the old man over.’

So in the end it proved. The elections began on July 1, and from the very first the results were disastrous to the Liberal party. The enthusiasm of the Liberal and Radical masses and the obedience of the organisations were unavailing. They sufficed only to drive from the Liberal ranks into irreconcilable opposition every man who would not accept the Irish policy. They were unable to secure a majority for Home Rule. They wrought havoc, but failed to achieve victory. The bulk of both parties voted in the ordinary way, according to their colours and their watchwords; but in every constituency men who had hitherto fought for the Liberal cause fought fiercely against it. The margin in many seats was so narrow that the resolute resistance of individuals and their adherents turned the scale. The dissentient Liberals with their personal following, supported by the whole Conservative vote, proved the most secure of any class of candidates. Of ninety-four who had voted on June 8, sixty-three were returned to the House of Commons. It had been asserted, and to some extent believed, that the Irish vote would turn the balance in forty constituencies. It was, however, discovered that the entire Irish vote in Great Britain could scarcely exceed 40,000 persons, of whom three-fourths were resident in London, Liverpool and Glasgow, while the remainder were too scattered to be effective. The great city of Birmingham returned a solid body of Unionists in the place of an equal number of Liberals elected in 1885. London became overwhelmingly Tory. The English and Welsh boroughs, which in the previous autumn had returned 118 Conservatives and 118 Liberals, now returned 169 Unionists and only 67 Liberals. The counties were not less remarkable. The 1885 election had returned 152 Liberals and 101 Conservatives; six months later the results showed 81 Liberals and 172 Unionists. Even in Scotland, Mr. Gladstone’s stronghold, his immediate followers fell from 61 to 43. The British Gladstonians (191), with the Nationalists (85), were in a minority of 40 as compared with the Conservatives (316), without counting on either side the 78 dissentient Liberals who followed Lord Hartington or Mr. Chamberlain. The opponents of the Irish policy numbered 394, as against 276 in its favour, and the Unionist majority was therefore 118. Face to face with this decision, which in such a short space of time had altered--and altered, as it proved, for more than a generation--the whole complexion of the English constituencies, Mr. Gladstone did not linger. A Cabinet Council assembled on July 20 and formally decided to resign. The resignations of Ministers were accepted the next day, and Lord Salisbury was for the second time summoned by the Queen.

Lord Randolph, who was himself returned for Paddington by a majority of more than three to one,[54] did not wait for the results of the elections. While politicians crowded around the tape machines in the London clubs or harangued excited meetings in the country, he fled silently and swiftly abroad, and by a Norwegian river awaited the result without impatience or anxiety. To his wife he wrote:--

Torresdal: July 10, 1886.

It is certainly a tremendous journey up here. We arrived last Wednesday, at about eleven o’clock at night, after a very long drive, in carrioles, of seventy miles. We calculate we are about 1,500 miles from Connaught Place. I caught three fish on Thursday--12 lbs., 12 lbs., and 15 lbs.--and lost three; yesterday I killed three--20 lbs., 18 lbs., 20 lbs.--and lost one. The weather has been rainy and raw, but on the other hand we have no flies; I believe, if it is hot, the flies here are terrible. I have heard no election news since Tuesday, when things seemed to be going well. This is doing me a lot of good. I felt very seedy leaving London, and it took me some days to get right.... This is a most delightful spot, and very solitary; no tourists, no natives. The house, which is rough to look at, is comfortable enough inside, and Tommy is as amiable and charming as ever. On Saturday, by law, you may not fish after six in the evening till six on Sunday evening. It certainly is very curious having broad daylight at midnight. Fishing after dinner is very pleasant if the night is fine, and I am very glad to have seen this part of the world.... Post has just come in with telegrams from Moore and Rothschild. Certainly most satisfactory news, which confirms all my expectations.... I believe my address did no end of good, but, of course, no one in London will agree. I expect the Tories will now come in, and remain in some time. It seems to me we want the 5,000_l._ a year badly. But really we must retrench. I cannot understand how we get through so much money....

From Norwegian delights he was soon recalled to the business of Cabinet-making.

_Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Justice FitzGibbon._

Very private.

2 Connaught Place, W.: July 25, 1886.

It was very pleasant to me to find on my return yesterday morning your very interesting letter. I showed it to Smith and Beach, who were much impressed. Things at the present moment are chaotic, and will not commence to resolve themselves into order until Lord S. returns from Osborne to-morrow.

Hartington and Co. definitely decline to join us, but will be the most efficient buttress. They mean to have their own Whips and their own organisation and probably will sit below the gangway on the Ministerial side of the House. If we play our cards well, we ought to remain in office for a long time. I am much in favour myself of the immediate resumption of the policy of January 26, and going on at once with the remaining business of the Session, instead of waiting till October. It will be a big fence to clear, but the horse is fresh; and, once cleared, the government of Ireland would be much simplified.

I fear the ‘periplus’ is very doubtful this year, and might have to be undertaken under the auspices of the R. I. Constabulary assisted by Scotland Yard. Possibly Londonderry will become Lord-Lieutenant. All this, besides being very doubtful, is quite secret.

Lord Salisbury accepted the commission from the Queen in 1886, with leave to resign it, if necessary, to Lord Hartington. Forthwith he strongly pressed the leader of the Whigs to form a Government and assured him, if he did so, of Conservative support. Lord Hartington knew that any Government he could form would be practically Conservative in its composition, and must be called by that name. He believed that in these circumstances the Liberal Unionist party would dissolve, Mr. Chamberlain and the Radical section splitting off and probably rejoining the Liberals. He therefore declined; but the fact that the offer had been fairly made placed him in much closer relation with Lord Salisbury, and seemed to secure for a Conservative Administration definite assurances of Whig and Liberal Unionist support. Lord Salisbury, having explained these proceedings to the satisfaction of a meeting of his party at the Carlton Club, then proceeded to form a regular Conservative Ministry. As is usual on these occasions, every rumour found its believers and every conceivable appointment had its advocates. Lord Randolph was variously named for the Indian, the Irish and the Foreign Secretaryships. It was also spitefully suggested in many newspapers that an intrigue in his interests was on foot to eject Sir Michael Hicks-Beach from the Leadership of the House of Commons.

After the meeting at the Carlton Lord Salisbury sent for Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Lord Randolph Churchill. ‘I declined,’ wrote Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in after years, ‘to continue Leader of the House of Commons. I felt that Lord Randolph Churchill was superior in eloquence, ability and influence to myself; that the position of Leader in name, but not in fact, would be intolerable; and that it was better for the party and the country that the Leader in fact should be Leader also in name. Lord Salisbury very strongly pressed me to remain, saying that character was of most importance, and quoting Lord Althorp as an instance; but I insisted. I had very great difficulty in persuading Lord Randolph to agree. I spent more than half an hour with him in the Committee Room of the Carlton before I could persuade him, and I was much struck by the hesitation he showed on account of what he said was his youth and inexperience in taking the position. He insisted on my going to Ireland, pointing out that I could only honourably give up the Leadership by taking what was at the moment the most difficult position in the Government.’ The matter was arranged accordingly, and Lord Randolph became in addition Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Leadership of the House of Commons having been settled, other appointments proceeded rapidly. Lord Randolph secured the appointment of Mr. Henry Matthews to the Home Office. Mr. Raikes took the Post Office ‘with a growl.’ Mr. Chaplin indignantly declined the Presidency of the Local Government Board[55] because the offer was unaccompanied by a seat in the Cabinet; and Lord Salisbury, having consulted with Lord Randolph, appointed Mr. Ritchie to that office. Mr. Chaplin received from the Chancellor of the Exchequer a fatherly letter of remonstrance, written more in sorrow than in anger, which he may have read over with satisfaction by the light of subsequent events. One letter on these delicate matters may, perhaps, be printed without impropriety:--

Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury.

2 Connaught Place, W.: July 30, 1886.

Dear Lord Salisbury,--Your letter received this morning contains so much good news that I am encouraged to press you very earnestly to consider--if possible, favourably--the arrangement of Stanhope for India, Holland for the Colonies, with Gorst as Education Minister. I feel certain that this arrangement would be agreeable to all your colleagues and encouraging to the party, while to the general public it gives an appearance of symmetry to the Government which the appointment of ---- would hopelessly disfigure....

I do not press Gorst for Education, because, if Stanley takes the Board of Trade, you may want to put Ritchie or Forwood at the Education Office; but I feel certain you would be pleased with the effect of Holland and Stanhope in the two high offices. In case you should wish to see me, I shall be in town until four o’clock this afternoon.

Yours most sincerely, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

Lord Randolph Churchill accepted the responsibilities of his high offices without elation. ‘How long will your leadership last?’ asked a Liberal friend. ‘Six months,’ replied Lord Randolph gaily. ‘And after that?’ ‘Westminster Abbey!’ He had neither the time nor the inclination to dwell upon the many twists of fortune that had served him or the dangers and obstacles he had escaped. If he had cherished the ambition of leading a great party, he had not scrambled for place. He had driven Sir Stafford Northcote from the House of Commons, but he had not counted upon being his successor. He would have been perfectly content to serve under Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. He had fought fiercely and ruthlessly for his opinions and to have things settled as he thought they should be settled; but not consciously for his own interests. These had followed in the track of the fighting. His advancement had been the result, and not the reason, of his exertions. Real leaders of men do not come forward offering to lead. They show the way, and when it has been found to lead to victory they accept as a matter of course the allegiance of those who have followed. His personal ascendency was not the result of calculations. It was natural; and it was everywhere recognised, even by those who disliked and distrusted him--and that was a numerous band--as a fact ascertained and indisputable. It could not have been created by any process of scheming. Indeed, as this account has witnessed, he had more than once offered to stand aside to promote a coalition which must have excluded him for years from any chance of leading the House of Commons. He had lingered at his salmon-fishing, after the election was determined, in the expectation of a coalition and anxious not to disturb it.

It is easy to deal with men whose motive is self-interest. Others can cypher out the chances, too. The influence which Lord Randolph Churchill exerted upon the men with whom he came in closest contact, upon Lord Salisbury and upon Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, could never have been acquired by a self-seeker, however brilliantly endowed. A veil of the incalculable shrouded the workings of his complex nature. No one could tell what he would do, or by what motive, lofty or trivial, of conviction or caprice, of irritation or self-sacrifice, he would be governed; and in these good days of fortune the double fascination of mystery and success lent him an air of authority which neither irreverent language nor the impulsive frankness of youth could dispel. He became Leader of the House of Commons, not because he had schemed for it, nor because it was his right in lawful succession, not assuredly because the Conservatives loved him or felt they would be safe in his hands. He was the leader at that moment--natural, inevitable and, as it seemed, indispensable.

Yet the world, when confronted with the result, was astonished. No appointment--not all the appointments together--created such a stir of interest and dispute. Not only at home, but in Europe and in the United States, it was universally the subject of anxious or sympathetic comment. In the House of Commons, where men eye each other so narrowly and where capacity can be judged so exactly, the fact was accepted without demur. It was right, it seemed, that the prizes of that assembly should go to those who were in fact its leading spirits. The part he had played in the decision of the Home Rule battle had been unsurpassed in importance. He had never wavered. He had named the Unionist Party. He had been a principal agent in the electoral compact on which it was based. He was the link with Chamberlain. His authority had roused Belfast and soothed Birmingham. His dexterous energy had foiled Mr. Gladstone’s last attempt at compromise. Much, though not all, of this was understood by politicians.

To the Tory Democracy no news could be so good as his success. The English like to be governed by men they know. The working-class electors, who had voted at two rapidly succeeding elections against Mr. Gladstone, saw in Lord Randolph Churchill their favourite and champion. They recalled the disasters and depression of their party in the past and the political convulsion from which it had at length emerged. They saw it triumphant where it had lately been despised. They saw it united where it had lately been distracted; and, with what measure of reason the reader can judge, they attributed this revolution to Lord Randolph Churchill more than to any other man.

But other classes have to be considered in Great Britain besides politicians and working men. All sorts of persons of influence and station in their different spheres had been offended by the very process which had attracted the democracy. ‘An insular people,’ wrote Disraeli in ‘Endymion,’ ‘subject to fogs and possessing a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen.’ And there were many who saw in Lord Randolph only an audacious fellow, whose methods were shocking to serious folk, whose violence impaired the dignity of public life and whose headlong career seemed strewn with the wreckage of overturned authority. How, they asked, was such an impatient person to endure the vexations of a Parliamentary session? How could a young man of thirty-six possess or obtain the knowledge necessary to deal with the varieties of complicated questions upon which a Leader is required to pronounce? How was this spirit of strife and revolt to reconcile differences between colleagues and exact discipline from a party? How was the flagrant obstructionist of 1884 to direct the course of business in 1886? How was the writer of the letter to Lord Granville and the erstwhile leader of the Fourth Party to maintain the dignity and principles of Unionist and Imperial administration? To all these questionings an answer was found even in the very short time that remained.

Much was also said of his going to the Treasury. It is amusing to read, by the light of after days, the lectures, kindly yet severe, in which the Times sought to warn him against fiscal temptations. ‘A Budget on ordinary lines, framed with the aid and advice of experienced permanent officials,’ would alone avoid ‘injurious innovations’ and ‘the raising of disquieting problems.’ He was adjured to remember how utterly fatal to the Unionist alliance any departure from ‘sound principles of finance, understood and acted upon by successive Administrations, Conservative as well as Liberal,’ would inevitably prove. For the sake of the Liberal-Unionists, for the sake, at least, of Mr. Chamberlain, he must forbear. Other newspapers reminded him of his declarations in favour of economy. ‘The first and most vital interest of the nation,’ he had said, ‘is finance. Upon finance everything connected with government hinges. Good finance ensures good government and national prosperity; bad finance is the cause of inefficient government and national depression.’ And, again: ‘I should like to see the House of Commons devote one or even two entire sessions to nothing but finance. I should like to turn the House of Commons loose into our public departments on a voyage of discovery. I should like to see every one of our public departments rigorously inquired into by small Committees of about seven experienced and practical members of Parliament each.... I firmly believe that such an inquiry would demonstrate that those useful arrangements of economy of time, economy of labour and economy of money are absolutely unknown in our public departments.’ How would all these fine opinions fare now that he was himself the Minister responsible? And the Liberal papers did not delay to prophesy ‘his certain repudiation in office of every principle of economy and of that policy of inquiry which he had so eloquently professed in Opposition.’ And that, again, was a matter which time would soon resolve.

One shrewd warning came from a friend. ‘Can Goschen by any means whatever,’ wrote Lord Justice FitzGibbon on July 27, ‘be induced to take the Exchequer? I suppose you think me uncomplimentary in such a suggestion. I am not. Age and financial experience have immense weight in that post out-of-doors, and I confess I fear that you would bring down upon yourself a weight of hostility from the front, and would have a dead weight of jealousy from behind and beside you, that might make the place unbearable to yourself or so laborious that you could not stand it. Of course, if “the lead” must not be separated from the Exchequer, it can’t be helped; but if I were you I would rather not be obliged to carry as Leader the financial reputation of the State in addition to the rest of the load. The English are your sheet-anchor, and finance is their pole-star; and a middle-aged commercial Chancellor would make them easy in their minds, when you could not.’ Of this more anon.

The re-election of Mr. Matthews on his appointment to the Home Office caused various embarrassments in East Birmingham and elsewhere. His opponent, Mr. Alderman Cook, who had been defeated as a Gladstonian Liberal at the General Election, now promised to oppose anything like the Land Bill of the late Government, to insist upon the retention of the Irish members at Westminster and to grant to Ireland only a Parliament subordinate to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Mr. Chamberlain was thus placed in a position of extreme difficulty, for it was clear that without his support the Home Secretary would probably be defeated; and yet how could Mr. Chamberlain oppose the Radical candidate who had almost exactly adopted his platform? Lord Randolph Churchill, however, put the greatest possible pressure upon him. ‘The election of Matthews,’ he wrote (August 7), ‘is almost vital to me; and I feel sure, if other things are equal, you will stretch a point in my favour.’ And again on the 9th: ‘This much arises clear and plain out of all that is doubtful and dark in Birmingham politics. If Matthews wins, the credit goes to you; it is your victory. If he loses, it is Schnadhorst’s victory, and a pretty hulla-balloo he will make.’ Thus exhorted Mr. Chamberlain took a very definite and decided step forward. The Radical Unionists refused at his instance to support Mr. Cook, and the Home Secretary was ultimately returned unopposed. ‘I am delighted,’ wrote Lord Randolph (August 12). ‘I expect the Midland Conservative Club will put up a statue to you, which I shall have to unveil.’

Mr. Matthews’ appointment caused heart-burnings in another quarter.

The Secretary of the Scottish Protestant Alliance wrote in haste to Lord Randolph Churchill:--

I have the honour to inform you that at a meeting in Glasgow yesterday of the directors of the Scottish Protestant Alliance the recent appointment of a Roman Catholic to the Cabinet office of Home Secretary was considered, when the following resolution was unanimously adopted: ‘That as the Papacy claims universal supremacy over all Sovereigns and their subjects, as Roman Catholics can no longer render an undivided allegiance to Protestant Princes, and as the avowed aim of the Papacy is to reduce Britain to the subjection of the Vatican, this meeting protests against the elevation of Roman Catholics to positions of power and trust in the British Empire.’

The Chancellor of the Exchequer sent an answer without undue delay:--

Treasury Chambers, Whitehall: September 9.

Sir,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter enclosing a copy of a resolution passed by the directors of the Scottish Protestant Alliance, and, in reply, to remark that I observe with astonishment and regret that, in this age of enlightenment and general toleration, persons professing to be educated and intelligent can arrive at conclusions so senseless and irrational as those which are set forth in the aforesaid resolution.

I am, Sir, Yours faithfully, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

Of the two courses which lay open--to reassemble in October for an autumn session or to sit through August and obtain enough money at once to last till February--the Cabinet selected the second. In the interval necessitated by the re-election of Ministers the policy to be submitted to Parliament was settled.

Lord Salisbury to Lord Randolph Churchill.

Confidential.

10 Downing Street, Whitehall: August 20, 1886.

My dear Randolph,--It has occurred to me, thinking over the list of measures of private members you read to me this morning, that if we have to make up our Cabinet mind over all of them we shall have a great deal of trouble and possibly some friction. A difficulty arises specially in the case of the Peers. With these small measures the Peers can practically do what they like. But what they like may very often be inconvenient for the Cabinet to profess and act upon in the House of Commons. It may often happen that some of the followers, or even of the members, of the Government in the Commons could not, without offending their constituents, take the line which the Conservative Peers would naturally take, and which they will not be withheld from taking without a great deal of discontent. I want you to think whether the following modus vivendi might not be possible. Our position as a Ministry is very peculiar. We have not a majority except on certain vital questions. Might we not fairly say that we will only be responsible for the guidance of Parliament on the questions which we ourselves submit to it? All questions submitted by independent members, unless they affect our Executive action or the measures we have proposed, we shall treat as open questions, taking no collective responsibility for the decision of Parliament upon them. This is in the sense of Chamberlain’s recommendation that we should have no vital questions. We cannot go quite as far as that, but it is sound advice up to a certain point. Open questions were much more common when I entered Parliament than they are now; but as we are entering again upon the period of precarious majorities the system will have to be resumed. Pray think of this. I see great difficulties if we have to decide, as a Government, on all the fads.

Yours very truly, SALISBURY.

The new Parliament, having re-elected Mr. Peel Speaker on August 5, met for the transaction of business on the 19th. The Royal Speech briefly declared that the ordinary work of the year had been interrupted, ‘in order that the sense of Her Majesty’s people might be taken on certain important proposals with regard to the government of Ireland,’ and that the result of that appeal had been ‘to confirm the conclusion to which the late Parliament had come.’ In view of the ‘prolonged and exceptional labours’ to which the members had been subjected, the Sovereign abstained from recommending any measures except those which were essential to the conduct of the public service during the remaining portion of the financial year. As, furthermore, the Chancellor of the Exchequer drily announced that ‘for the convenience of honourable members’ the Government would take on themselves the responsibility of putting down notices of opposition to all the private members’ Bills and notices of motion which appeared on the order paper, the only task demanded of the House of Commons was to terminate the provisional arrangements which had been made for Supply and to vote the remaining Estimates of the last Parliament.

The Address to the Crown was moved by Colonel King-Harman. Lord Randolph Churchill arranged that Mr. Maclean, the member for Oldham, who had formerly opposed him at such a critical moment on the Council of the National Union, should second it. Mr. Gladstone spoke with admirable temper, as not forgetting ‘what is due to a Government which has just taken office.’ But the interest of the assembly was concentrated upon the young Minister who had cut so swift and strange a path to power. When Lord Randolph rose, as Leader of the House, to follow Mr. Gladstone, an intense hush of expectancy and anxiety prevailed. In spite of all his skill and ease as a speaker, his nervousness was apparent. Mr. Smith dwells on it in a letter to his wife which has since been published. But he spoke with dignity and strength and his lucid, ordered statement left no feeling of inequality in the minds of those who had just listened to the greatest of Parliamentarians. Although the Irish were inclined to interrupt derisively, the House was generally sympathetic; and loud and long were the Tory cheers when the speaker ended.

The policy towards Ireland which he declared, was definite and simple. It is the same policy which the reader will already have remarked in a memorandum to Lord Salisbury after the election of 1885, from which during the remainder of his life Lord Randolph never diverged either in one direction or the other. The Irish Question presented itself, he said, in three aspects--social order, the Land question and Local Government. The late Administration were of opinion that these three questions were indissolubly connected and their policy was to deal with them all by one measure. The new Government proposed to treat them to a very large extent as separate and distinct. The law was to be uncompromisingly maintained, whether against Orangemen in Belfast, which was still distracted by savage riots, or against Nationalists in Kerry, where a grave increase in ‘Moonlighting’ and boycotting had been recorded. Sir Redvers Buller would be sent forthwith to take all necessary measures. In regard to land--which subject a Royal Commission was also to examine--the Government would not encourage any extension of the principle of revision of rent by the direct interposition of the State; but would rather aim at the creation of a general system of single ownership by the influence and leverage of the credit of the State. The material resources of Ireland were to be developed after inquiry by grants from the British Exchequer in three distinct channels: first, the creation of a deep-sea fishing industry on the west coast of Ireland by the construction of harbours of refuge and the connection of those harbours with the main lines of rapid communication; secondly, the improvement and extension of the railway, light railway and tramway system; and, thirdly, the construction of those great arterial drainage works for the Shannon, the Bann, and the Barrow, which prosperous agriculture seemed to require, but which were far too considerable to be attempted by the resources of single localities.

Upon Local Government, decisive action would be taken. ‘When Parliament reassembles at the beginning of February next, the Government are sanguine that they will be prepared with definite proposals on that large question. Their object will be, as far as possible, to eliminate party feelings and to secure for the consideration of the question as large an amount of Parliamentary co-operation as can be obtained; so that whatever settlement may be arrived at may not be regarded as a political triumph of either party, but rather in the nature of a final and lasting settlement.... The great sign-posts of our policy are equality, similarity and, if I may use such a word, simultaneity of treatment, so far as is practicable, in the development of a genuinely popular system of government in all the four countries which form the United Kingdom.’ He ended by declaring in simple terms that the verdict of the constituencies for the maintenance of the Parliamentary Union must be considered final and irreversible.

Such was the policy which Lord Randolph Churchill was permitted to declare with the assent of the Prime Minister and of the Cabinet. In order that there might be no misunderstandings, he took the precaution of writing out the actual words and submitting them beforehand to the principal Ministers. It was the policy of his own heart. It is the policy which, in spite of some lamentable lapses, of many purposeless and vexatious delays and of more than one incident of prejudice or even tyranny, has upon the whole, as history records, been carried laboriously forward by Unionist Administrations during nearly twenty years and which in the end, whatever problems it has left unsolved, has notably advanced the social, political and economic stability of the Irish people.

Lord Randolph Churchill was much praised for his speech. The Conservatives were in high spirits, and the newspapers next morning emphasised the favourable impression which had been produced. Yet he does not seem himself to have been much affected by these tributes; for on being asked the next day ‘whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce any changes in the fiscal laws of the country by placing duties on imported manufactures, by taxing foreign corn, by countervailing bounties or in any other respect,’ he replied, with an odd gleam of foresight or of humour: ‘The ways and means for the year 1887-8 which the Government will propose to Parliament, will be communicated to the House on or about March 31 next by the person--whoever he may be--who at the time happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.’

The debate on the Address and its amendments was protracted. It had opened with much calmness; but as it progressed the smouldering fires of the great encounter began to sparkle. In this flicker the deep antagonisms which the election had made permanent between friends and parties, became visible. Lord Hartington’s speech on the third night was uncompromising. Standing in the midst of his old colleagues on the Front Opposition Bench, with much formal courtesy and weighty argument he made it plain that he would exert his whole strength to sustain the Ministry in power. He was heard by his party in moody silence, broken from time to time by Irish interruptions and Tory applause. Mr. Parnell, who moved next day an amendment of his own, took pains to cast back disdainfully, as trash unworthy of notice, the material aid to Irish resources which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had proffered. He spoke of the ‘dishonesty of bolstering up the system of landlord and tenant in Ireland by the expenditure of large sums of money the repayment of which is quite uncertain and highly problematic,’ and of the ‘folly of building harbours of refuge for fishing-boats that do not exist.’ He derided the proposal to spend three-quarters of a million on the arterial drainage of the Bann and the Shannon, where nothing less than ten millions would suffice. Fed by such fuel, an ugly glow grew gradually in the House.

The sixth day of the debate on the Address was stormy. It began with an unexpected motion for the adjournment of the House as a protest against the despatch of Sir Redvers Buller to Kerry. The member who moved it, Mr. Edward Russell, made an elaborate and indignant speech. He enlarged on the iniquity of employing a military officer accustomed to dealing with savage tribes to discharge duties which properly belonged to the civil magistrate. Lord Randolph dealt with this motion in a summary and even audacious manner. ‘In the opinion of the honourable gentleman,’ said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, ‘the appointment of Sir Redvers Buller is a startling innovation in our Constitution, a serious blow to civil and religious liberty, a wilful invasion of the immutable principles of justice, and other things of that serious kind. He holds strong opinions and he prophesies the most alarming results. He declares that all Kerry will immediately take an active part in the proceedings of the “Moonlighters” and that all Ireland will very shortly be involved in a general conflagration. Now, sir, I do not complain of the honourable member holding these opinions; they are opinions he is perfectly entitled to hold and to express. What I want the House to do is to compare the opinions he holds with the course he suggests. What is the course he proposes? He proposes that the House of Commons should immediately adjourn. What will be the effect of that course on Sir Redvers Buller or his appointment? Absolutely none. The House would adjourn, if they agreed with the honourable member, and, like the Emperor Titus, might exclaim that they had lost a day; but, before the House met again, Sir Redvers Buller would be well on his way to Kerry.

‘As to employing military officers in civil positions, had not Mr. Gladstone after the London riots appointed Sir Charles Warren, an officer on the active list, liable to be called away at any moment on military service, not to look after “Moonlighters,” but after the civilised inhabitants of London?’ He suggested that the motion had been brought forward to delay the speech which Mr. Chamberlain, who had obtained the adjournment on the previous night, was known to be about to deliver. No greater compliment could be paid to a member than that his opponents should show that they feared what he was going to say. ‘I have to announce,’ he concluded, ‘that Her Majesty’s Government entirely decline to take any part in the discussion.’

This was hard hitting, but it succeeded. ‘Lord Randolph Churchill,’ said the Times the next day, ‘pricked the bubble with a Disraelian dexterity of touch.’ Angry speeches in reply failed to sustain the debate. The fate of the motion was never for a moment doubtful, and on a division it was rejected by a majority of 241 against 146.

The motion for the adjournment being thus brushed aside, the consideration of Mr. Parnell’s amendment was resumed. The treatment accorded to Mr. Chamberlain’s speech afforded some foundation for Lord Randolph’s charge. He was repeatedly interrupted both from above and below the gangway. Mr. Speaker was invited to notice the smallest deviation from the strictest relevancy. Cries of fierce derision saluted him from the Irish benches. The men around him did not conceal their discontent. And in his turn he struck back with dexterous severity. Ceremonious language, much ‘right honourable be-friending,’ smoothly-turned sentences, soft, purring accents, ineradicable antagonism; such was his speech. It was the first of many similar episodes in this new Parliament. Yet some respect is due to the forbearance of the Liberal majority. For six weary years the Liberal-Unionist leaders sat on the Front Opposition Bench. Their followers held the balance of every division. Their authority sustained the Conservative Government. Their debating skill was always at hand when all else failed. They supported Coercion; they justified Mitchelstown; they even defended the Special Commission; and with decisive effect. Yet never once, not even at times of sharpest indignation, were they denied by those who surrounded them their freedom of debate.

The Government were naturally delighted at this decided support. ‘You made a splendid speech last night,’ wrote Lord Randolph to Mr. Chamberlain (August 27). ‘It is curious, but true, that you have more effect on the Tory party than either Salisbury or myself. Many of them had great doubts about our policy till you spoke.’

On September 1, Mr. Sexton brought forward an amendment drawing attention to the Belfast riots, and this, of course, served as a convenient peg on which to fasten an almost interminable series of attacks upon Lord Randolph Churchill. At least twenty-five persons had been actually killed in the streets and many hundreds injured or arrested. All was attributed to the epigram, ‘Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right.’ Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was able to make a good defence. In spite of a long and solemn denunciation from Sir William Harcourt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer remained silent; but the debate ran on, full of life and spite, until on September 3 Mr. Labouchere sought to provoke him by embodying a direct charge in a special amendment. ‘Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird,’ said Lord Randolph piously; ‘and of all the unskilful and clumsy Parliamentary fowlers of whose manœuvres it has been my lot to be a witness, I never met a sorrier practitioner than the honourable member. In the various snares and wits and wiles with which he distinguished himself in the last Parliament he only succeeded in this--that he made himself the laughing-stock of the Parliament and of the public; and he appears to be desirous to add to-night to his already great reputation.’ ‘There was not,’ the speaker declared, with some boldness, ‘a shred of a shadow of a shade, or a shade of a shadow of a shred’ of foundation for such charges. So the attacks were brushed contemptuously away, and the Government majority did not fail in the Lobby to endorse their Leader’s disdain.

On September 3 the Chancellor of the Exchequer moved a resolution securing precedence for the Committee of Ways and Means and of Supply. So far as form was concerned, he based himself upon the precedent of 1841. But he ventured further upon an earnest yet restrained appeal to the House. ‘We have pledged ourselves as a Government to produce at the meeting of Parliament next year such schemes of legislation as we may be able to decide upon and mature in the autumn and winter. If the proceedings of this session were to be greatly protracted and if the energies of members and Ministers were to be greatly exhausted by them, it would become very difficult for the Government to summon Parliament as early next year. I ask no consideration on behalf of the Government, but in the interests of Parliament and of the country. This motion is intended to wind up, with as much expedition as is reasonable and decent, the business of the session, and to allow members to separate in time for the annual recess. I would not for a moment wish the House to understand that I am advocating a rapid or slovenly discussion of the Estimates. I have always protested against that and always shall. I ask only that the House will concentrate its attention on the Estimates and proceed without unusual dilatoriness and loss of time. The difficulties which lie in the future before the Government, are very great indeed. No one can be more deeply impressed with their magnitude than my colleagues and myself; and certainly I see no possibility of arriving at anything like a solution of those difficulties unless the House is prepared to give a reasonable amount of time during which the Government may take thought for a future so anxious and grave.’

The effect of this appeal, conjoined as it was with a promise that Mr. Parnell should have an opportunity for bringing forward his Tenants’ Relief Bill, was to induce the House to consent without a division to endow the Government with full control over public time. Lord Randolph, however, thought it proper to write a special letter of explanation to Lord Hartington, fearing apparently lest the Whig leader should become suspicious of any compact with the Nationalist party:--

Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, S.W.: September 5, 1886.

Dear Lord Hartington,--You will have observed in the papers that the Government gave a promise to Parnell to afford him facilities (i.e. a night) for laying his land proposals in the form of a Bill before Parliament.

Whether this promise was a wise one or not, I will not say. There were no doubt grave objections to any concession to Parnell of any sort or kind, but I think if you had been in the House last week you might have been of opinion that the objections to a course of stolid resistance on the part of the Government were perhaps greater.

However this may be I own that I am extremely anxious that (if possible) when the Bill does come on, the Government may receive your support in opposing it. Of course the Bill will only be Parnell’s original amendment to the Address in another form, and the Government will not give way an inch to him under any consideration.

But Parnell has undoubtedly hopes, which if they are unsound cannot be too clearly and speedily demonstrated to be unsound, that he can make out a case so plausible for the tenants on the score of inability to pay that he may secure the support or at least the abstention of the Liberal Unionists; and of course if he were successful in this the moral strength of the Government would be seriously diminished, with corresponding disadvantage to other, greater and more common interests.

I therefore trouble you with these few lines now, though I do not suppose the discussion on the Bill can arise till next week at the earliest.

Believe me to be Very faithfully yours, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

A friendly message emboldened the Minister to write more freely of his difficulties:--

Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Hartington.

Private.

September 13, 1886.

The position of this Government must always be most precarious. It may have a long life; but it is a rickety infant, requiring the most careful handling. The condition of the House of Commons, the recklessness and utter lack of all sense of responsibility on the part of the Opposition, their guerilla character and the want of a leader who can control, is most alarming. There is no precedent that I know of in our history of such a combination of ominous circumstances. I hear you are going to India; and if this means your absence from the House till March or April, I think it right to tell you that without your support in Parliament this Government cannot last. The assaults of an Opposition unrestrained by your presence will be too desperate for me to sustain. A state of great confusion will arise; the Government will go, and you will have to try your hand. I feel awfully alone in the House of Commons, and am glad to grasp an opportunity of placing things before you as I look at them.

Lord Hartington to Lord Randolph Churchill.

Private.

Brantingham Thorpe, Brough, Yorkshire: September 14, 1886.

My dear Churchill,--I received your letter this morning before leaving London, and am glad to know so fully your opinions on the position in the House of Commons. It is quite true that I have some doubt, which I expressed to Sir M. Hicks-Beach, as to resisting the whole of Parnell’s Bill. I do not think that you can leave expediency out of the question in dealing with the rights of Irish landlords. They have very few friends; and if they are encouraged to strain their rights, and if disorder could justly be put down to their account, they would have still fewer.

It is quite clear that the intention is to fight the Nationalist battle on the question of the land during next winter, and it will be to Parnell’s advantage that there should be as many evictions as possible. Your best chance is that he will not succeed in inducing tenants who can pay to risk eviction. But if landlords evict wholesale tenants who cannot pay, he may succeed in getting up another very dangerous agitation. I thought, therefore, that this was to a great extent a question for the Irish Government, and if they considered a check on eviction necessary I should have been inclined to grant it. But, as I understand, they think that the Courts have already a considerable discretion which may be sufficient, and undoubtedly any concession to Parnell would do harm unless the evil of resistance is still greater.

I do not think that I misunderstood your action in giving Parnell a day for discussion of his Bill, though I do not know the exact reasons for the decision. But I certainly thought that, while you were quite right to keep your absolute freedom of action in regard to the Bill, you were not precluded from accepting any part of it which the Irish Government might on further consideration think necessary.

I shall always be very glad to communicate with you on Parliamentary matters when you think it desirable, and can very well understand the anxiety and responsibility of your position.

Yours very truly, HARTINGTON.

The Address was disposed of in the first week of September and the House plunged at once into Supply. Forthwith obstruction became patent and flagrant. A select, determined and well-organised band, among whom Mr. Labouchere was the best known, took charge of national interests. They did not disdain trifles, however small; nor grudge study, however laborious. It was the last chance of a minority under the unreformed procedure. No Supply Rule, automatically fixing limits, regulated the votes. No Closure aided the Minister. The Committee debated to their hearts’ content, and on after that till they were sick and weary. Business crawled forward on its belly in the small hours of the morning. Any attempt on the part of the Leader of the House to accelerate its passage was met by alternate motions to report progress and to adjourn. Lord Randolph was teased with mischievous satisfaction upon all the former manœuvres of the Fourth Party. It was a severe, if appropriate, expiation. Nothing but imperturbable temper and physical endurance availed. The Leader of the House was always in his place. He listened to all the discussions. He defended every detail of the Civil Service Estimates himself. On warlike stores, on public accounts, on salaries in the House of Lords, on secret service and town holdings and polluted rivers, on poor ratepayers and gold coinage, he was found suave, adroit, and well informed.

‘The Chancellor of the Exchequer,’ observed the Times, not always a friendly critic (September 17), ‘is making great progress in the art of so answering questions as to keep the House in a good temper. This he does sometimes by judicious concessions, sometimes by a sly turn of humour, sometimes by a touch of good-natured irony.’ Indeed, he used every Parliamentary art and all the resources of his many-sided character. Sometimes he coaxed and sometimes he complained. Sometimes he resisted with vehemence only to make surrender an hour or two later more valued. Once, as has been shown, he appealed earnestly and with success to the House. Once he rapped out that the tactics of the obstructionists were ‘not conceived in the public interest,’ and after an angry debate made a reconciliation with them and secured incidentally some progress. He knew the House in all its moods. He humoured it and offended it and soothed it again with practised deliberation. Yet he always appeared to be its servant. Ministers and Governments were but the respectful stewards of the public service. Parliament had rights and authority over them, to which, however capriciously asserted, they must bow: ‘My own opinion,’ he said when his attention was roughly drawn to a criticism of the Public Accounts Committee on some departmental practice, ‘is that the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee, acting together, ought to be a superior authority to the Treasury; and that, if they distinctly lay down a rule as to the expenditure of money, it is the business of the Treasury to acknowledge that authority as superior to their own.’ The member, Mr. Arthur O’Connor, who had complained, was so contented with this soft answer that, after congratulating the Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘upon the breadth of view with which he always looks at matters of this kind,’ he withdrew his motion for the reduction of the vote. Thus, inch by inch, Supply crept forward.

The Irish members watched Lord Randolph hourly. He and they had obstructed so often together that both sides knew enough of each other’s ways not to be deceived by blandishments or manœuvres which would captivate the innocent spectator. Soured and indignant as they were--not unnaturally--by the turn of events, in their hearts they nourished a certain secret sympathy for the conqueror. They enjoyed seeing the game played scientifically, and they realised how different their new antagonist was from the prosaic authoritarians who chafe the hearts of Celtic peoples. At last the Estimates were done. ‘It is due to the Chancellor of the Exchequer,’ said the Times (September 16), ‘to say that no Leader of the House of Commons in recent years has met obstruction, open and disguised, with more exemplary patience.’

The general satisfaction of the Conservative party at Lord Randolph’s management of the House of Commons found expression in much solicitude for his health. ‘Don’t worry yourself and get knocked up,’ wrote Mr. Chamberlain (September 1). ‘I do not believe that the Irish will keep you sweltering very much longer.’ ‘You really must take more care of yourself,’ Mr. Balfour insisted. ‘Now that the main business of the Address is got over, I cannot see why you should spend so much time in your place in the House.’ And Lord Salisbury on the 14th: ‘I am afraid your work is getting intolerably hard. Don’t sit up too much.’

‘I am particularly commanded,’ said Lord Iddesleigh, writing from Balmoral on the 16th, ‘by the Queen to say that Her Majesty was greatly amused by the contents of your box last night. I suppose you won’t understand this message without the gloss--there was a sprinkling of tobacco in it.

‘Her Majesty is very sympathetic over the sufferings of our friends in the House of Commons. You have indeed a very hard task and it is not very clear how it is to be lightened.’

Only Mr. Parnell’s Bill remained after the Estimates were passed. Two days (September 20 and 21) were occupied in its discussion. The Bill was badly drawn. Mr. Gladstone supported it in principle; but was forced to object to nearly every detail. Lord Hartington was severe in his condemnation. The Government declared they would have nothing whatever to do with it. Mr. Morley alone was fortunate in his advocacy. It was rejected by 297 to 202. Ministers were much advantaged by having persuaded their opponents to expose themselves to the perils of constructive policies.

Lord Randolph Churchill ended the session amid golden opinions. Congratulations and goodwill flowed in upon him from all sides. He himself was in high spirits. ‘You must find it very hard work,’ said an admirer, ‘leading the House and at the same time being at the Exchequer.’ ‘Not half such hard work as it was getting there,’ was the droll answer. The party newspapers were loud in their praises. All doubts about his tact and patience were dispersed, and Conservative members hurried off to the country feeling that a great man had arisen among them, and that ‘Elijah’s mantle’ had lighted upon no unworthy shoulders. The Sovereign wrote him an autograph letter of exceptional favour:--

Balmoral Castle: September 22, 1886.

Now that the session is just over, the Queen wishes to write and thank Lord Randolph Churchill for his regular and full and interesting reports of the debates in the House of Commons, which must have been most trying.

Lord Randolph has shown much skill and judgment in his leadership during this exceptional session of Parliament.

Difficulties abroad were soon added to the difficulties at home. At the end of August foreign affairs in Eastern Europe were suddenly plunged into crisis through the kidnapping of Prince Alexander by Bulgarian officers under Russian influence, and his consequent abdication. The Chanceries of Europe throbbed with excitement and apprehension. To Lord Randolph Churchill the news was specially unwelcome. He did not concern himself too much about Constantinople, and cared nothing at all for Turkey. The sentiments which had in 1878 induced him to write to Sir Charles Dilke, offering, if the Liberals would support him, to move a vote of censure upon Lord Beaconsfield’s foreign policy, were unaltered. The freedom and independence of the Slav, Bulgarian and Hellenic peoples seemed to him still a wise and lofty object; but any sympathies which he had for stifled or struggling nationalities were strictly controlled. Great Britain should not shrink from her share in the responsibilities of Europe; but no duty of isolated intervention lay upon her. He had, moreover, been deeply impressed by the satisfactory manner in which the Afghan frontier dispute had been settled. He had become much more hopeful of a good understanding with Russia than when he had first gone to the India Office. Above all, he was resolved to offer no wanton provocation which might lead by Russian reprisals in Asia to the reopening of a question of such grave importance to the tranquillity of the Indian Empire.

The proceedings of the Foreign Office seriously disquieted him. As early as September 4 he wrote to Lord Salisbury: ‘I have just read Lord Iddesleigh’s telegram to Lascelles, telling him to prevent Alexander from abdicating and to cause him to appeal to the Great Powers. I think this is very unfair on Alexander. Iddesleigh knows perfectly well that the Great Powers won’t move a finger, and he knows we cannot act outside a most Platonic range. I am afraid of our incurring moral responsibilities towards the Prince and his people which may lead us on far without previous calculation.... I do most earnestly trust that we may not be drifting into strong and marked action in the East of Europe. It will place us in great peril in the House of Commons, politically and financially.’ And again on the 6th: ‘Iddesleigh’s last telegram to Lascelles is really un peu trop fort. I do think we ought to have an immediate Cabinet before such messages are sent. I look at the series together; the two first were startling, but recognised European concert, which the last altogether flings aside. W. H. Smith concurs strongly that the Cabinet ought to meet. Any moment it may leak out at Sofia that we are taking strong action.... Lord John Manners made a remark to me at 4.30 this afternoon symptomatic of surprise that there had been no Cabinet. As you know I loathe Cabinets, you will feel that this is disinterested; but I own to being frightened.’ The Prime Minister consented to summon his colleagues, adding merely that he and Lord Iddesleigh were agreed as to the policy, but that the Cabinet could overrule them if it thought fit. The Cabinet, however, cleared the air and led to better understandings.

Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury.

Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, S.W.: September 15, 1886.

Dear Lord Salisbury,--Another desperate night in the H. of C. You may imagine how bad was the Irish conduct when Beach’s last words to me were: ‘I am now all for a strong Clôture.’ ...

M. de Staal has just been to see me. He declaimed against White.... I said that in view of our occupation of Egypt it was necessary that we should have a representative at Constantinople of character and resolution. He said the Bulgarians had done something or other rude to the Emperor’s portrait at Sofia. He spoke of the great difficulty Russia had in coming to an understanding with Austria on account of the Hungarians, who thought of nothing but ‘49.’ He tried to ascertain my views as to our interests in the Balkan territories; my reply was (speaking only for myself) that our chief interests were Egypt and India, and that anything which affected our interests in those countries would necessitate very strong action on our part. Speaking generally, I said that with Ireland on our hands, our foreign policy, except under great pressure, would naturally be pacific. He asked about the position of the Government. I told him that Gladstone was hopelessly out of it, and was no longer young enough to get into it again; that his principal supporters were hopelessly discredited and divided; that Hartington possessed great balancing influence, but could not look to forming a Government himself; that whether this particular Government lasted or no, power was with the Conservative party, whose political organisation and strength were increasing and improving every day; that such a fact as London returning forty-three Conservatives against four Gladstonians ought to have great weight with him in appreciating the Conservative position.

Finally, I hinted at an understanding with Russia by which she should give us real support in Egypt, abandon her pressure upon Afghanistan, in which case she might settle the Balkan matters as she would--or, rather, as she could!

Yours most sincerely, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

A few days later Lord Salisbury was able to retire to his villa near Dieppe, although the situation still continued critical and obscure. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, delighted by Lord Salisbury’s proposal to change the British Agent at Sofia, seems to have made great efforts to bring his opinions nearer to those of his chief. On the 23rd he reports an interview with Count Hatzfeldt. ‘I told him that I had been thinking much over what had passed between us about the East of Europe, and that I had come to this conclusion as a member of the House of Commons and from a House of Commons point of view: Any anti-Russian policy which involved England taking the lead ostensibly on the side of Turkey, either about Bulgaria or even Constantinople, would probably place the Unionist party in great peril, might fail to receive the support of the constituencies, and would be savagely assaulted. An anti-Russian policy, however, in which Austria took the lead supported by Germany, we could, I thought, well fall in with, and hold our own easily in the House of Commons. He said: ‘That is all very well; but what will be wanting, will be Germany’s support of Austria. Our eyes are riveted on France.’ I said, if that was really so, of course we could not play; but that it occurred to me that it was not impossible that if Germany and Austria took the lead against Russian advance and in defence of Bulgarian independence, and we followed and joined loyally and thoroughly, I thought that would seem to entail logically action on our part, diplomatic or otherwise, against France if she tried to be nasty. He seemed much interested by this, and I impressed upon him at parting not to forget that it must be to Germany’s interest that the Unionist party and the Government should endure and remain strong; that foreign policy on our part which followed the lead of Germany and Austria would not try that strength too high, and might be carried far; but that foreign policy against Russia in the East of Europe which left the initiative to England would be a policy too dangerous, seeing the other great interests we had to defend, for us to contemplate. I told him these were mere House of Commons views, for his own private information for whatever they were worth, and that he was not to consider them in any other light.

‘I don’t know whether you will think this expression shows any change of views from what I have expressed to you recently. I do not think it does really....’

‘If Russia attacked Constantinople,’ wrote the Prime Minister in a letter approving generally of this discourse, ‘and all the other Powers refused to intervene, I am rather disposed to the idea that we should have to act in the Dardanelles; but I hope the contingency is too improbable to require us to trouble about it.’ The Chancellor of the Exchequer replied meekly that he would be quite agreeable to ‘a piratical seizure of Gallipoli.’ ‘There is,’ he adds, ‘a practical flavour about such a step which would commend it to the most Radical and peace-loving House of Commons.’ Lord Salisbury detected a flavour of levity in this answer.

‘You are naturally sarcastic,’ he wrote on the 28th, ‘on my Dardanelles, and I hope the matter will not come up in our time. But the possession by Russia of Constantinople will be an awkward piece of news for the Minister who receives it. The prestige effect on the Asiatic populations will be enormous, and I pity the English party that has this item on their record. They will share the fate of Lord North’s party.

‘At the same time I know the great military objections there are to the Dardanelles scheme.’

Further activity at the Foreign Office renewed the correspondence. On the 30th Lord Randolph wrote again urgently to the Prime Minister:--

I have read with the utmost dismay Iddesleigh’s telegram to Lascelles instructing him to inform the Bulgarian Government that our Government approve of the reply sent by them to the Russian Note.

What is the reason for this apparently isolated and certainly most risky action? I cannot make out that an opinion was ever asked for directly, which makes such instructions all the more strange. Have we any right to express approval in so pointed and uncalled for a manner, without at the same time letting those poor Bulgarians know that beyond the merest diplomatic action we cannot go? I thought, when you told me some days ago that Lascelles was to be changed that that meant a modification of policy. I see no use in changing the agent in this case, if the policy to which objection has been taken is to be even more accentuated.

Why cannot Iddesleigh consider the propriety of trying to act at Sofia in conjunction with the Austrian, German and Italian Governments, and, if joint action is for the moment impossible, abstaining from any action at all? We shall never get joint action while Iddesleigh keeps rushing in where Bismarck fears to tread. What I would like to see aimed at would be a Second Berlin Memorandum--this time addressed, not to Turkey, but to Russia, and England joining in. But all chance of such a document, which would imply irresistible forces, fades further and further into the distance.

Our action with Austria means war with Russia. Our action with Austria and Germany means peace. But I feel sure that our present niggling, meddling, intriguing, fussy policy is gaining for us the contempt and dislike of Bismarck every day. I do pray you to consider these matters. It was supposed that Lord Iddesleigh would act under your direction. I feel certain that much that he has done has been done on his own account. After all, it is very fine for him now; but the day of trial will come when all this has to be explained and defended in the House of Commons.

Now I have risked your wrath by inflicting this jeremiad upon you, but it is the last, for I go abroad Sunday and shall know no more till I return.

‘Like you,’ replied Lord Salisbury from Puys, on October 1, ‘I am not happy about foreign affairs, but not entirely for the same reason. I do not wholly take your view about our attitude towards Russia. I consider the loss of Constantinople would be the ruin of our party and a heavy blow to the country: and therefore I am anxious to delay by all means Russia’s advance to that goal. A pacific and economical policy is up to a certain point very wise: but it is evident that there is a point beyond which it is not wise either in a patriotic or party sense--and the question is where we shall draw the line. I draw it at Constantinople. My belief is that the main strength of the Tory party, both in the richer and poorer classes, lies in its association with the honour of the country. It is quite true that if, in order to save that honour, we have to run into expense, we shall suffer as a party--that is human nature. But what I contend is, that we shall suffer as a party more--much more--if the loss of Constantinople stands on our record.... I am therefore rather uneasy about foreign affairs--for I am afraid you are prepared to give up Constantinople: and foreign Powers will be quick enough to find that divergence out. On the other hand I sympathise with you in some uneasiness as to the course of the Foreign Office. Many things, I fear, are not done--and I am disquieted at the result ... when I get back to England I may be able to exert a stronger influence.’

Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Salisbury.

Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, S.W.: October 3, 1886.

Dear Lord Salisbury,--I was not able to write yesterday and thank you for your letter, as I had to go down to Dartford.

You must not think that I in any way disagree from what you urge about Constantinople. It is only that I have a great doubt whether the particular method and scheme of policy which was carried out at the time of the Crimean War, and again to a great extent in 1876-78, is the best. I doubt whether the people will support that method; and it seems to have this enormous disadvantage, that it enables Austria to lie back.

We can, I think, perfectly defend Constantinople by going in for the independence of Bulgaria; and we can best obtain that independence by persuading Austria to take the lead.

But no doubt the proceedings of Lascelles, and the probable proceedings at Constantinople of Sir W. White, are more in accordance with the old policy, which I fear is now impracticable, than with a modification of that policy.

Please do not suspect me of indifference to a matter on which you feel so strongly. My only business and object are to bring, in the best way I can, any policy which you wish carried out into favour with the House of Commons and the constituencies, so far as it may be possible for me to influence either. You must remember that you have not spoken on these matters either in the Lords or the country, and I am only anxious that you should find a terrain well prepared.

I am off to-morrow night and out of reach of everybody till 23rd.

Lord Randolph Churchill’s speech at Dartford (October 2) was probably the most important of his life. Upwards of twenty thousand Conservatives were gathered to receive him. Nearly a hundred addresses from all parts of the country were presented to him by deputations. The town was bright with flags by day and fireworks by night. Standing upon an improvised platform among the picturesque glades of Oakfield Park, and backed by the solid phalanx of Conservative members which Kent had returned to Parliament, the Chancellor of the Exchequer unfolded to an audience, variously computed at from twelve to fourteen thousand persons, the future legislative programme of the Government. He extolled the loyalty of the Unionist Liberals. He reiterated the declarations upon Ireland which he had made to the House of Commons. In order that the Unionist party might legislate, as he described it, upon ascertained facts and not, like Mr. Gladstone, by intuition, he recounted the appointment of the four Royal Commissions on Irish Land, on Irish Development, on Currency and on Departmental Expenditure. He urged a complete reform of House of Commons procedure, including the institution of the Closure by a simple majority. He announced that the Government would introduce a Bill which should provide facilities, through the operation of local authorities, for the acquisition by the agricultural labourer of freehold plots and allotments of land. And in this connection he spoke gratefully of the pioneer work which Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Jesse Collings had performed. He held out the promise of an alteration in the law of tithe, so that payment should, in the first instance, be demanded of the landlord; and a threat to remodel railway rates so that the home producer should not be undercut by the foreigner. He mentioned a Land Bill for making the transfer of land easy and cheap; a broad reorganisation of Local Government with a new assessment and application of local taxation; and finally he said: ‘I will not conceal from you that my own special object, to which I hope to devote whatever energy and strength or influence I may possess, is to endeavour to attain some genuine and considerable reduction of public expenditure and consequent reduction of taxation. I shall be bitterly disappointed if it is not in my power after one year, or at any rate after two years, to show to the public that a very honest and a very earnest effort has been made in that direction.’ Such was the Tory Democratic programme. Nor should it be supposed that these were the unauthorised views of a single Minister. All these legislative projects had received the consent of the Cabinet. Nearly all have since been passed by Conservative Administrations into law.

Then the speaker turned to foreign affairs, and here he contrived, without doing violence to his own convictions, to support faithfully and effectively in its general tenor Lord Salisbury’s policy: but he used very different arguments from those which Conservative audiences were accustomed to applaud.

‘We had every reason to hope,’ he said, ‘that the union of Eastern Roumelia with Bulgaria under the sovereignty of Prince Alexander would develop a prosperous and independent nation, in the growing strength of which might ultimately be found a peaceful and true solution of the Eastern Question. Those hopes have been for the moment to a great extent dashed. A brutal and cowardly conspiracy, consummated before the young community had had time to consolidate itself, was successful in this--that it paralysed the governing authority of the Prince and deprived Bulgaria of an honoured and trusted leader. The freedom and independence of Bulgaria, as well as of the kingdoms of Servia and Roumania, would appear to be seriously compromised. It has been said by some, and even by persons of authority and influence, that in the issues which are involved England has no material interest. Such an assertion would appear to me to be far too loose and general. The sympathy of England with liberty and with the freedom and independence of communities and nationalities, is of ancient origin, and has become the traditional direction of our foreign policy. The policy based on this strong sympathy is not so purely sentimental as a careless critic might suppose. It would be more correct, indeed, to describe such a policy as particular, and, in a sense, as selfish; for the precious liberties which we enjoy, and the freedom of Europe from tyranny and despotism, are in reality indissolubly connected. To England Europe owes much of her modern popular freedom. It was mainly English effort which rescued Germany and the Netherlands from the despotism of King Philip of Spain, and after him from that of Louis XIV. of France. It was English effort which preserved the liberties of Europe from the desolating tyranny of Napoleon. In our own times our nation has done much, either by direct intervention or by energetic moral support, to establish upon firm foundations the freedom of Italy and of Greece.... A generation ago Germany and Austria were not so sensitive as they are now to the value of political liberty. Nor did they appreciate to its full extent the great stability of institutions which political liberty engenders; and on England devolved the duty--the honourable but dangerous duty--of setting an example and of leading the way. Those were the days of Lord Palmerston; but times have changed, and the freedom and the independence of the Danubian Principalities and of the Balkan nationalities are a primary and vital object in the policy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Those things being so, it may well be that England can honourably and safely afford to view with satisfaction that Power whose interests are most directly and vitally concerned, assuming the foremost part in this great international work. We must, of course, take it for granted, as I am doing, that the liberty-giving policy of the Treaty of Berlin will be carefully and watchfully protected. Whatever modification this great fact may enable us to make in our foreign policy, whatever diminution of isolated risk or sole responsibility this may enable us to effect, you may be certain of one thing--that there will be no sudden or violent departure by Her Majesty’s present Government from those main principles of foreign policy which I have before alluded to, and which for nearly three centuries mark in strong, distinct and clear lines the course of the British Empire among the nations of the world.

‘There are Powers in Europe who earnestly and honestly desire to avoid war and to preserve peace, to content themselves with their possessions and their frontiers and to concentrate their energies on commercial progress and on domestic development. There are other Powers who do not appear to be so fortunately situated, and who, from one cause or another which it is not necessary to analyse or examine, betray from time to time a regrettable tendency towards contentious and even aggressive action. It is the duty of any British Government to exhaust itself in efforts to maintain the best and the most friendly relations with all foreign States and to lose no opportunity of offering friendly and conciliatory counsels for the purpose of mitigating national rivalries and of peacefully solving international disputes. But should circumstances arise which, from their grave and dangerous nature, should force the Government of the Queen to make a choice, it cannot be doubted that the sympathy--and, if necessary, even the support--of England will be given to those Powers who seek the peace of Europe and the liberty of peoples, and in whose favour our timely adhesion would probably, and without the use of force, decide the issue.’

It would be hard to say whether this speech made more stir at home or abroad. For more than a week the declarations upon British foreign policy were the chief theme of the Continental press. And in Berlin, Vienna and Rome they received a measure of welcome which grew as their phrasing was more carefully examined. Lord Randolph’s outspoken condemnation of the Bulgarian kidnapping conspiracy was declared to give a satisfaction to the moral feelings of Christendom which had been looked for in vain in the late utterances of European statesmen. The announcement that Great Britain would take her part in the work of preserving international peace, and that her influence would be exerted upon the side of the Central Powers--not for the sake of the old pro-Turkish policy, but in the name of the liberties of the Balkan peoples--was accepted with the utmost satisfaction in Berlin. The style of the declaration created an impression of calm authority; and ‘Palmerston Redivivus’ is an expression which repeatedly appears in the foreign despatches and articles of that time.

At home the Conservative party was too much astonished to give vent immediately to any effective opinion. The party newspapers generally applauded the proposals and tone of the speech as ‘temperate, reasonable, and practical.’ The Times observed that the programme in its scope and fulness ‘recalled the palmy days of Mr. Gladstone.’ The Opposition, with evident disgust, denounced the Chancellor of the Exchequer as ‘an unscrupulous opportunist’ who had stolen the policies of his Radical opponents and had calmly appropriated their famous motto of ‘Peace, Retrenchment and Reform.’ It was not until some days had passed that the perplexed anxiety in Tory circles found expression in grumblings that the Prime Minister was being effaced by his lieutenant. But even then no sign could be discerned in any quarter of a wish or intention to repudiate the policy declared.

From all this buzzing, friendly and unfriendly alike, Lord Randolph fled secretly and silently. For more than a week he was lost to the public eye. It was rumoured that he had passed through Paris and Berlin on October 7; but it was not until the 12th that ‘Mr. Spencer,’ an English tourist, who with his friend Mr. Trafford had been looking at picture galleries, museums and theatres at Dresden and Prague, was identified with the orator of Dartford.

Few things were more remarkable in Lord Randolph Churchill’s brief career than the quickness with which he acquired a European reputation. All over the Continent he was already regarded as the future master of English politics. The tension in the East was unrelieved and the diplomatic skies were grey and shifting. Here was the second personage in the British Cabinet, fresh from a most important public statement, travelling incognito through Germany and Austria. What had he done in his passage through Berlin? Had he a mission to Bismarck? Had he been to Varzin or not? From this moment his movements were watched with the most minute and provoking curiosity and the fullest details were telegraphed to every capital. The press revived memories of Gambetta’s journey to Frankfort, and perhaps beyond, two years before his death. We learn from the foreign intelligence of the Times of October 13 that ‘Mr. Spencer’ and Mr. Trafford, ‘the two travellers whose every step is watched by the European press,’ have been ‘residing at the Imperial Hotel [Vienna] since yesterday.’ They had been received by a crowd at the station, and several persons who had seen Lord Randolph Churchill in England had ‘maintained most positively’ that ‘Mr. Spencer’ was identical with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We are told that ‘Mr. Spencer’ looked somewhat fatigued, and retired to rest after telling the landlord ‘in emphatic terms’ that he had come to Vienna for nobody, and proposed without exception to receive no one; that he walked about the town both in the morning and afternoon, and visited among others the shop of Herr Weidmann ‘where the most exquisite Vienna leather goods are made’; that in the evening he had heard Millöcker’s operetta ‘The Vice-Admiral’ at the Theater an der Wien; and that he was everywhere dogged by journalists, who gave the public elaborate descriptions of his person, the shape of his hat and the colour of his coat.

‘I am hopelessly discovered,’ wrote Lord Randolph to his wife (October 12). ‘At the station yesterday I found a whole army of reporters, at whom I scowled in my most effective manner. Really it is almost intolerable that one cannot travel about without this publicity. How absurd the English papers are! Anything equal to the lies of the Daily News and Pall Mall I never read: that Pall Mall is most mischievous.... W. H. Smith is here, and we had a long talk last night. I have got him to go and see Paget--who wanted me to go and dine with him--and tell him that as I saw no one at Berlin I did not wish to see anyone here. The reporters have been besieging the hotel this morning, but I have sent them all away without a word. The weather is fine and bright, though there is an autumn chill in the air.... This pottering about Europe de ville en ville suits me down to the ground, if it were not for the beastly newspapers.’

His holiday was a short one. On his way back through Paris he had an interview which would certainly have interested those curious folk who had pried so zealously upon his unguarded leisure:--

Lord Randolph Churchill to Lord Iddesleigh.

Hôtel Bristol, Paris: October 19, 1886.

Dear Lord Iddesleigh,--This morning Count d’Aunay called upon me. I think, from what he said, that he had been sent by Freycinet, I used to know D’Aunay very well when he was in London. I left him to begin what he had to say, and kept talking about la pluie et le beau temps. At last he rapped it out. He said the Egyptian Question was going to be ‘re-awakened.’

I asked what question.

He said the reorganisation of the administration, the tribunals, the customs, the army.

I said I did not see that any of these pressed; that Wolff and Mukhtar had got to make their report, which would take some time to consider; that, in the meantime, everything was going on quietly; that the country was progressing; that the payment of the coupon in full would be resumed next year; and that I could not conceive what object there was in raising the Egyptian Question in a critical manner now.

He said that the French were most desirous to co-operate with England in the re-establishment of Egypt; that they wished to be perfect friends with us, but that M. de Freycinet felt that Egypt was a continual pierre d’achoppement, and that there would always be great difficulties until it was got out of the way; that public opinion in France was now much agitated on the question; that they suspected we meant to take Egypt altogether; and that they must know what we intended to do about retiring.

I replied that it was impossible to reconcile this great desire on M. de Freycinet’s part for friendship with the tone of the French Press on the proceedings of French agents at Constantinople; but that, in any case, of this he might be certain--that these things did not influence our policy in the least; that we did not intend to retire from Egypt until a stable Government had been constituted there, able to maintain itself and to pay its way; and that we should not ‘budge an inch’ from that resolution pour quoi que ce soit, ni pour qui que ce soit; that the work would take a long time, perhaps three years, perhaps five years, or perhaps ten years, or longer; but that till it was done our occupation of Egypt would continue.

He appeared much pained and upset by this, and argued for a long time that we could do nothing in Egypt on any question without French assistance.

I said we were most anxious for French assistance, although up to now we had managed to rub along without it; but that if there was to be any understanding for the solution of Egyptian questions between the two Governments, it must be upon the basis of our continued occupation of Egypt until certain definite and practical results were obtained which would be a reward to us for all the loss of money, men, time and trouble which our occupation had entailed on us.

He said we ought to fix a date for evacuation; that that would remove all suspicion of bad faith; that the French were obliged to press the point on account of their enormous interests and their numerous colony; that in the time of the ‘condominium’ they had occupied a perfectly satisfactory position, which they wished to regain.

I reminded him that they had deliberately abdicated that position when M. de Freycinet was Minister before; that they had left us all the trouble and all the danger, and that they must accept the logical results of that policy; that I saw no good in fixing a date for evacuation; that I did not think such a step would be honest, as we might not be able to abide by our pledge; that it was much better to define the work which had to be done, and to adjourn all questions of retirement until the completion of the work.

He went on pressing about the date in a curiously imploring manner. He said that it might be aussi éloigné que vous voulez, but that if we would only fix a date M. de Freycinet sera parfaitement satisfait, that he would work loyally with us, and that all would go differently.

I then said that this question of the date, to which he evidently attached so much importance, was a new one to me; that I could not tell what your opinions were, nor Lord Salisbury’s; that personally I saw immense and insuperable objections to such a course; that it would really introduce a new element of uncertainty, and probably lead to great trouble. In conclusion, I entreated him not to be under any illusion as to our determination to remain in Egypt and to pursue our work there steadily; that the present Government, unlike Mr. Gladstone’s, was very strong in Parliament, and would not yield to pressure; and that, till the French thoroughly grasped this fact, they would fail to understand the A B C of the Egyptian Question.

He said he should tell M. de Freycinet all I had said. He asked me if I wished to see M. de Freycinet, to which I replied in the negative.

I thought you would wish to know all this, and I hope you will approve of what I said. I return to town on Tuesday.

Yours very truly, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

‘You seem to have defended the pass well, and the position you hold is a sound one,’ replied Lord Iddesleigh in a letter which appears to be the last that passed between them.

Short as his absence from England had been, Lord Randolph found some difficulties aggravated on his return. The orthodox portions of the Conservative party had become articulate. Mr. Chaplin was denouncing the Closure by a simple majority as unconstitutional and improper. The Times had made up its mind against such a change, which it regarded as ‘irreconcilably at variance with the fundamental principle of freedom of debate.’ It expressed itself anxious to know what would have been the opinion of the former leader of the Fourth Party on the proposals of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. The ‘Dartford programme,’ as the principles and measures expounded in Kent had already come to be called, notwithstanding the full approval which it had previously received from the Cabinet, had been exposed to various attacks in quarters usually believed to derive their information from official sources. The Carlton Club was reported to be vexed and sulky. Everywhere the question was asked: What would the Chancellor of the Exchequer say to the conference of Conservative Associations at Bradford? Would he be discovered in retreat or standing to his guns? Would he enlarge upon the Dartford programme or would he explain it away?

The conference met at Bradford on October 26. Lord Randolph made three speeches during the day. At the evening meeting he said he was very sorry he had made the Dartford speech. ‘If I had not made it at Dartford three weeks ago, I might have made it here to-night.’ He stood to the policy then declared in every detail. He welcomed Mr. Jesse Collings as an ally in the Allotments Bill. He asserted that Closure by a simple majority was the ‘motor muscle’[56] of any reform in Parliamentary Procedure. He ridiculed the complaints of the Liberal party. ‘All they can do apparently is to exclaim with impotent rage, “How unfair! how shameful! how unprincipled! You have stolen our programme.” Why “their programme,” I should like to know? Since 1880 they have been in office, and they did not make an attempt to carry out a single item. They tell us that the programme I sketched at Dartford is a Radical programme; that the Tory party have turned their coats and abandoned their principles and adopted the principles of the Radical party; and quantities of sentences of that kind and of equal stupidity. All I know about the programme of policy, foreign and domestic, which I endeavoured to outline at Dartford three weeks ago is this--that it was a mere repetition of the programme of Lord Salisbury at Newport in 1885. All I know about my speech at Dartford which I can say in reply to what I am told as to its being a total adoption of Radical principles and measures is this--that it was a mere reiteration and elaboration of the Queen’s Speech of January last, when Lord Salisbury’s first Government was in office, and of the speeches of the Ministers who supported the policy which was contained in that speech.’

These statements were greeted by the loud and continuous acclamations of an audience of Conservative delegates representing, it was calculated, fully a million and a half electors.

This determined speech and its thunderous endorsement silenced for the moment all hostile criticism. Some of Lord Randolph’s colleagues expressed to him their disapproval of the attacks upon him from within the Conservative ranks. Others assured him of their agreement. Even the Lord Chancellor was satisfied. ‘I have just finished reading your speech at Bradford,’ he wrote (October 27). ‘There is not a word that is not sound, good Toryism--aye, and old Toryism, too. The truth is that the enemy have been so long dressing up a lay figure which they have invested with their notions of what a Tory ought to be, that they do not recognise the genuine article when they see it.’

It is a pity not to end the story here. Lord Randolph Churchill seems at this time to have been separated only by a single step from a career of dazzling prosperity and fame. With a swiftness which in modern Parliamentary history had been excelled only by the younger Pitt, he had risen by no man’s leave or monarch’s favour from the station of a private gentleman to almost the first position under the Crown. Upon the Continent he was already regarded as the future master of English politics. His popularity among the people was unsurpassed. He was steadily gaining the confidence of the Sovereign and the respect and admiration of the most serious and enlightened men of his day. His natural gifts were still ripening and his mind expanding. The House of Commons had responded instinctively to the leadership of ‘a great member of Parliament.’ Alike in the glare and clatter of the platform and in the silent diligence of a public department he was found equal to all the varied tasks which are laid upon an English Minister. If he were thus armed and equipped at thirty-seven, what would he be at fifty? Who could have guessed that ruin, utter and irretrievable, was marching swiftly upon this triumphant figure; that the great party who had followed his lead so blithely, would in a few brief months turn upon him in abiding displeasure; and that the Parliament which had assembled to find him so powerful and to accept his guidance, would watch him creep away in sadness and alone?

Still, for an interval the sun shone fair. The clouds were parted to the right and to the left, and there stepped into the centre of the world’s affairs--amid the acclamations of the multitude and in the hush of European attention--the Grand Young Man.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XV. THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

‘Those who live to the future most always appear selfish to those who live to the present.’--EMERSON.

At the Treasury the appointment of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer had been received with no little apprehension. Every great department has an atmosphere and identity of its own. No politician, however popular in the country or influential in Parliament, can afford to be indifferent to the opinion formed of him by the Civil Servants through whom and by whom he works. Concealed from the public eye among the deeper recesses of Whitehall, seeking no fame, clad with the special knowledge of life-long study, armed with the secrets of a dozen Cabinets, the slaves of the Lamp or of the Ring render faithful and obedient service to whomsoever holds the talisman. Whatever task be set, wise or foolish, virtuous or evil, as they are commanded, so they do. Yet their silent judgments of their masters and their projects do not pass unheeded. Although the spell still works, it loses half its potency if these spirits are offended or alarmed; and padded walls of innumerable objections, backed by the masonry of unanswerable argument, restrain the irreverent or unworthy from the fullest exercise of the powers they may have won by force or favour.

Over all public departments the department of finance is supreme. Erected upon the vital springs of national prosperity, wielding the mysterious power of the purse, the final arbiter in the disputes of every other office, a good fairy or a perverse devil, as ‘My Lords’ may choose, to every imaginative Secretary of State, the Treasury occupies in the polity of the United Kingdom a central and superior position. No school of thought is so strong or so enduring as that founded on the great traditions of Gladstonian and Peelite finance. Reckless Ministers are protected against themselves, violent Ministers are tamed, timid Ministers are supported and nursed. Few, if any, are insensible to the influences by which they are surrounded. Streams of detailed knowledge, logic and experience wash away fiscal and financial heresies; and a baptism of economic truth inspires the convert not merely with the principles of a saint but--too often--with the courage of a martyr.

To many who had spent their lives at the Treasury, Lord Randolph’s arrival was a shock. They regarded him, we are told, as ‘an impossible man,’ as ‘one whose breath was agitation, and whose life a storm upon which he rode.’[57] They had instinctively resented the assaults he had delivered against Mr. Gladstone, ‘the best friend the Civil Service ever had.’ They remembered that, not long before, Lord Randolph had made himself the mouthpiece of a harsh attack upon one of their number. He was known to have expressed privately a candid opinion that they were ‘a knot of damned Gladstonians.’ Lastly, they had read his Fair Trade speeches; and, notwithstanding the reputation he had made at the India Office as a departmental chief, he still appeared in the eyes of Treasury officials as a Minister who would ride roughshod over their habits and violate all their most cherished financial canons.

This mood was short-lived. The disquieted officials found a Minister assiduous and thorough in work and scrupulously patient and quiet in discussion. He possessed the very rare gift of keeping his mind exclusively devoted to the subject in hand, and impressed on all those with whom he worked the idea that the business on which they were employed was the only one of interest to him. No time spent with the Chancellor of the Exchequer was ever wasted. No interruption of any sort was suffered. No one ever left his room after an interview without having at any rate gained a clear knowledge of his views and intentions. Around all played an old-fashioned ceremony of manner, oddly mingled with a sparkle of pure fun, which charmed everybody. In a month the conquest was complete. Every official worked with enthusiasm in his service and all their mines of information were laid open to his hand. It has often been said that Lord Randolph won his popularity among permanent officials by his subservience to their views. This is by no means true. If he cast away altogether as vicious and unpractical the Fair Trade opinions which he had urged, and which commanded so much support among the Tory democracy, it will also be seen that he was able to enlist the interest and positive support of his subordinates in schemes far outside the orthodoxy of the official mind. His stay at the Treasury was short; but his memory was long respected. He left behind him golden opinions and dearly treasured reminiscences. He took away with him friendships which lasted him his life.

‘Our anxiety,’ wrote Lord Welby in 1896, ‘as to our new chief was soon dispelled. He met us from the outset with perfect frankness, which soon became cordiality; and I cannot recall a word or a line of his during his autumn office which I should have wished unspoken or unwritten. Not that he was an easy or an unexacting chief. He expected subjects to be laid before him fully, clearly and intelligently; and he was keen to mark default. He was, in short, a Minister of the type that Civil Servants appreciate. He ruled as well as reigned. He had a mind, and made it up; a policy, and enforced it. He was quick in acquiring information, quick in seizing the real point, quick in understanding what one wished to convey to him, impatient in small matters and details and contemptuous if one troubled him with them. Above all, he was accessible; ready and willing to hear what one had to say, whether it accorded with his own views or not. Doing business with him was most interesting. Not being a respecter of persons he criticised freely and pointedly men and matters.... In “chaff” he was unsurpassed. He was singularly free from affectation of knowledge he did not possess. Could one fail to take an interest in a chief “who always showed us sport”?’

Many tales of Lord Randolph in these days have been preserved. We have a glimpse of his first meeting with a rather dismayed subordinate in the historical Board Room at the Treasury--the stiff and formal cut of his frock-coat, the long amber cigarette-holder, so soon produced, the eternal cigarette, and ‘an old-world courtesy of manner’ which surprised and disarmed a preconceived dislike. We see him going down to the City with Sir Edward Hamilton to lunch formally with the Governor and Directors of the Bank of England and hovering for half an hour outside in a panic of nervousness which robbed him for the time of his self-confidence. We see him once, and once only, when the Court of Exchequer, presided over by its Chancellor, settles the list from which Sheriffs are selected, in his robes of office--those imposing and expensive robes which seem to assert the opulence which should result from thrift, rather than thrift itself. His cynicism was disarming. We are told how, when the dreadful subject of bimetallism cropped up, he turned to Sir Arthur Godley and said: ‘I forget. Was I a bimetallist when I was at the India Office?’ When he received an influential deputation of sugar-refiners and sugar-planters in protest against the foreign Sugar Bounties, he created general consternation by inquiring, with immense gravity, ‘Are the consumers represented upon this deputation?’ We are even told how he complained to a clerk who put some figures before him that they were not clear and he could not understand them. The clerk said that he had done his best, and, pointing them out, explained that he had reduced them to decimals. ‘Oh,’ said Lord Randolph, ‘I never could make out what those damned dots meant.’ But this was surely only to tease.

From the very commencement of his career at the Treasury Lord Randolph began the exertions for economy to which he felt himself bound by his electoral pledges. In his private affairs he was usually extravagant and often unbusiness-like; but public money seemed to him a sacred trust. The character and extent of Treasury control over expenditure is very often misunderstood. It is represented sometimes almost as a statutory or constitutional power over the other departments. Such an idea is a complete delusion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is able to exert his influence in two ways: first, over administration. In small matters not connected with policy, the Treasury acts upon a set of well-defined rules and principles, which the spending departments recognise and endeavour not to infringe and which are enforced more or less strictly, according to the relative authority of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the other Ministers concerned. Secondly, there is the wide domain of policy; and in all great matters the control of the Treasury is neither more nor less than the personal influence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon the Cabinet. Of Lord Randolph’s attempt to assert that influence the next chapter must give some account; but in the meanwhile he laboured with industrious severity to effect administrative economies. On September 14 a Treasury Minute announced the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the establishment and organisation of the great spending departments: ‘The Chancellor of the Exchequer states to the Board that Her Majesty’s advisers desire to satisfy themselves that the clerical establishments of the Civil Service, of the Naval and Military Departments and also of the Revenue Department, are organised generally upon a principle to secure efficiency without undue cost to the revenue.’ A variety of petty economies were effected by his personal authority. He discovered, among other things, that Government specie had to be conveyed in merchant ships, at much expense, because an old custom entitled naval officers to a high percentage. His indignation at hearing that Her Majesty’s gold could not be conveyed in Her Majesty’s ships because of claims by Her Majesty’s officers led to immediate action, and the practice was reformed forthwith.

A remark by the Comptroller and Auditor-General in one of his reports to Parliament drew his attention to another abuse. Of old times sums were issued out of the Civil List to the Secretary of the Treasury for secret service. No public account was rendered of the money thus expended. In 1783, many evils being alleged, Parliament, under the influence of Burke, was persuaded to limit this grant to 10,000_l._ a year; and that amount was yearly issued to the Secretary of the Treasury from 1783 to 1886. This branch of secret service was, of course, political and was quite distinct from that which is ordinarily known as foreign secret service. The money was used for the purposes of political organisation by the party which happened to be in power. Such a custom could not on any valid ground be defended. Yet for over a century the grant had never been seriously questioned. It might have been urged that the Liberals had always profited by this sum during their long period of power and that many famous men had assumed responsibility for it. Lord Randolph brushed such wire-puller’s arguments aside. Before he had been in office a month he introduced a Bill, which passed rapidly through Parliament, abolishing this payment altogether, and it has never since been renewed.

Until 1886 there had existed an octroi duty on coal coming into the Metropolis, the proceeds of which were divided between the City and the Metropolitan Board of Works. The principle of this duty was not unpleasing to the Conservative party. Its abolition was roundly denounced by the Standard and in high Tory circles. The Metropolitan authorities were glad to get money in an easy and painless manner. Powerful interests objected to a rise in the rates, while the abolition of a duty upon a necessary of life which affected the poor consumer, did not elicit much enthusiastic support. Lord Randolph took some time to make up his mind. He decided that an octroi duty was out of date, that it was a survival of a financial policy that had been emphatically condemned. He declined to countenance its renewal. His speech to the deputation may be read with profit by any who care to see the arguments against such an octroi put tersely, forcibly and without reserve. His impressions at the Treasury seem to have stimulated his mind to great activity and to have aroused in him a keen financial instinct. All sorts of plans were being moved forward by his agency towards and into the sphere of political action. He contemplated the purchase of Irish Railways by the State and their use as an instrument of economic development and of political and strategic control; and Lord Salisbury himself seems to have been persuaded by his arguments. He paid the closest attention to the coinage, and harboured a deadly design against the half-sovereign--‘that profligate little coin’--which he believed was an expensive and unnecessary feature of British currency. But there was one great scheme which overshadowed all the rest.

Parliament had no sooner risen than Lord Randolph turned to the preparation of his Budget. He knew that the duties of leadership in the next Session would demand his whole attention and physical strength; and, in spite of the labours of the memorable year, 1886, he succeeded, by what Sir Algernon West has described as ‘a performance never equalled,’ in getting ready and laying before the Cabinet his financial proposals for the year 1887-8. For nearly twenty years his projects have been veiled in mystery. The silence of the Treasury has remained unbroken. The few high officials who were admitted to his confidence and whose sympathy was enlisted in his plans, have kept their own counsel. Lord Randolph did not choose in any public speech to reveal what he had purposed. He is the only Chancellor of the Exchequer who never introduced a Budget; and in his lifetime rumour alone asserted that he had ever formed one. The time has now come when the abandoned Budget of 1887-8 may be fully unfolded in the form in which, during November, 1886, it received the provisional assent of Lord Salisbury’s Cabinet.

The reader who has accustomed himself to the giant Budgets of modern times must turn his mind and contract his fancy to the humbler figures of a vanished age. The cost of governing the United Kingdom and of providing for the defence of the Empire during the early ‘eighties fluctuated between eighty and ninety millions a year. This was in itself a distinct increase on the estimates of Lord Beaconsfield’s Administration; and Tory speakers were wont to dwell with genial malice upon the fact. The various wars which had disturbed Mr. Gladstone’s rule had left their marks upon the economy of the Army. The money raised by the Vote of Credit in 1885 had been scattered with a lavish hand, and prominent men in both parties were concerned to notice some apparent relaxation in the strictness of Treasury control. Few, indeed, thought so seriously of the future as Lord Randolph Churchill, and his prediction that a ‘Hundred-million Budget’ would be an event of the future was generally regarded as unduly pessimistic. But nevertheless the times were not unfavourable to retrenchment, and there was a healthy demand for departmental reform. With estimates standing at under ninety millions small economies were not disdained. The Ministers of those days had not learned to expand their view of the public resources. A saving of a hundred thousand pounds was regarded as a matter of legitimate congratulation. A reduction of a million was an achievement.

Yet at the same time the narrow scrutiny to which expenditure had been so long subjected and the habitual reluctance of statesmen to enlarge its bounds, left no very obvious opportunities to the new Chancellor. The field had, except for some small patches, been well and thriftily gleaned. Nor did it seem at first sight that the system of taxation which had for five years received Mr. Gladstone’s approval would readily lend itself to striking or sensational treatment.

On the other hand, however, more than one great tendency to change was apparent. The whole question of the Sinking Fund was ripe for reconsideration. The remodelling of the death duties thrust itself before every Chancellor each succeeding year. Above all, the inevitable and swiftly approaching departure in Local Government, involving as it did a complete readjustment of national and local finance and the transference of large responsibilities and resource from Whitehall to the County and Borough Councils, required a strong and daring mind at the Treasury.

Certainly Lord Randolph Churchill’s plan did not err on the side of timidity. He contemplated nothing less than a complete reconstruction of the revenue. The general rate of expenditure and the whole condition of the National Debt were examined anew by a searching and audacious eye. Hardly a single tax was left untouched. The death duties, the house duties, the stamp duties, the wine duties, were all the subject of reform. Immense reductions were proposed in existing taxes. Numerous new taxes were devised. All these changes were not a mere meddlesome and vexatious shifting of burdens from one shoulder to the other. They were each and all essential parts in a vast financial revolution.

The first object of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to effect a large and substantial reduction in taxation. He desired especially to diminish those taxes which fell upon the lower middle class. He laboured to transfer the burdens, so far as possible, from comforts to luxuries and from necessaries to pleasures. He applied much more closely than his predecessors that fundamental principle of democratic finance--the adjusting of taxation to the citizen’s ability to pay. His second object was to provide a much larger sum of money for the needs of local bodies, so that the impending measure of Local Government might be wide and real in its character. His third object was to effect a certain definite economy in the annual expenditure.

The estimates with which he was confronted amounted to 90,400,000_l._ The income which the existing taxes were expected to yield was 90,000,000_l._ The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to augment his income by extra taxation aggregating 4,500,000_l._--namely, by an increase in the death duties of 1,400,000_l._, and in the house duties of 1,500,000_l._; by extra stamps to yield 284,000_l._; and by a wider application of corporation duty, worth 315,000_l._; by the revival of a tax on horses to produce 500,000_l._; by an increased tax on wine to produce 250,000_l._; and by certain minor taxes, to be considered later, which were estimated to produce 300,000_l._ He proposed to diminish his expenditure by withholding the 2,600,000_l._ local grants-in-aid, for which a new provision was to be made; by a reduction in the charge for the debt of 4,500,000_l._; and by a direct economy of 1,300,000_l._ He had, therefore, raised his income to 94,500,000_l._, and reduced his expenses to 82,000,000_l._, thus becoming possessed of a surplus income over expenditure of 12,500,000_l._ This surplus he intended to distribute variously. 5,000,000_l._ were to be available for the purposes of Local Government, in lieu of the old grants-in-aid of 2,600,000_l._ The indirect taxpayer was to be relieved by a reduction of the tea duties from 6_d._ to 4_d._, costing the revenue 1,400,000_l._; and by a reduction of 4_d._ in the tobacco tax, costing 500,000_l._ The income-tax payer received the greatest advantage, for by a remission, costing no less than 4,870,000_l._, the rate of the income-tax was to be lowered from 8_d._ in the pound, at which it stood in 1886, to 5_d._ in 1887. These outgoings together aggregated 11,770,000_l._, and the Treasury was left with a final surplus of 730,000_l._

These proposals require to be more closely examined. The principal feature of the new taxation was the re-grading and increase of the death and house duties. The death duties in force in 1886-7 were four in number--namely: (1) Probate duty upon the personal property passing on the death of any person, irrespective of destination; (2) the account duty, imposed since 1881 chiefly as a preventive to evasion of probate duty, and chargeable in respect of personalty included in voluntary settlements--death-bed gifts, &c.; (3) the legacy duty, upon benefit derived by the successor to personal property of the deceased at rates according to consanguinity; and (4) the succession duty, upon benefit derived by the successor to settled personalty and to the real property of the deceased, also at rates depending on consanguinity, chargeable, however, on the life interest and not on the capital value. Lord Randolph Churchill approached this complicated system of taxation with the double object of obtaining a larger revenue by a simpler method. He wanted more money and less machinery, fewer taxes and an increased return. His early inquiries at Somerset House and the discussion of the first suggestions which, coming fresh to the subject, he put forward, served to convince him that a higher symmetry and co-ordination were required. He saw that any scheme which involved four or five different duties, and which attempted to deal with personal estate by means of a graduated ad valorem tax on the estate as a whole, and later with real estate by means of consanguinity on individual benefits, would not bear controversial examination. The death duties had grown up in a series of successive expedients. They were an admitted patchwork, but a patchwork to which the House of Commons had become accustomed. So long as they were left untouched, their anomalies and entanglements would be tolerated, or even admired; but if they were to be remodelled, re-graded and, above all, increased, they would have to stand fire, their whole structure would be criticised, and a new plan would be damned because it resembled an old plan long respected. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, therefore, began next to inquire as to the ‘possible effect of a graduated ad valorem tax on real estate corresponding to the graduated tax on personal estate,’ and his mind was soon determined in favour of such an assimilation of the death duties on the two classes of property. The method by which to achieve this object involved, of course, the whole question of graduation. Should graduation be regulated by the total mass of property passing by any one death, whether composed of realty or personalty; or partly of one and partly of the other; or should it be governed by the total benefit received by an individual on succession, whether out of realty or personalty, or both combined? Should the rate of duty depend upon the total wealth of the testator or upon the respective windfalls of the heirs? These questions have been long and fiercely debated. The Childers Budget of the year before had aimed at an equalisation of the death duties on real and personal property by means of an extension of the account duty, but it contained no element of graduation. The rate of duty was to be the same for large properties as for small (except very small) estates, and was to apply equally to realty as to personalty. Lord Randolph did not adopt this idea. His scheme was to graduate the duty according to the value of the individual succession. What the living man got, not what the dead man left, was to be the unit of graduation.

If, for example, by the death of A., X. took 2,000_l._ personalty and 3,000_l._ realty, Lord Randolph would have combined the two, and have applied the rate (say, 3 per cent.) levied on a succession of 5,000_l._ If by the same death Y. took 20,000_l._ personalty and 30,000_l._ realty, Lord Randolph would have applied the rate (say, 6 per cent.) for a succession of 50,000_l._; and so on, always graduating the rate according to any one person’s succession; so that the successor to a small benefit would pay a low rate of duty, and the successor to a large benefit a high rate of duty. In short, Lord Randolph was for a graduated succession duty instead of a graduated estate duty. The Finance Act of 1894 has asserted and established the opposite principle. Sir William Harcourt looked simply at what a dead man left or liberated, and on the aggregate of that amount the graduation now in force depends. Thus it may very well happen, and often does happen, that a successor to a small benefit--perhaps a succession worth no more than 500_l._--pays the highest rate (8 per cent.) of estate duty; because his succession is part of an aggregate estate worth one million. The principle which governs the Finance Act of 1894 was laid very plainly before Lord Randolph in 1886. But he rejected it in favour of the graduation on the individual succession, saying, after one long discussion at Somerset House, ‘My instinct tells me that it is wrong.’ It is curious that his instinct, whether right or wrong on the technical question, anticipated the principal objections which Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain urged against Sir William Harcourt’s Bill, and indicated the line of principle to which the whole Conservative party was subsequently committed.

This choice being made, the Chancellor of the Exchequer turned his attention to the principle of consanguinity. Why should graduation be regulated by kinship? Does not kinship find its adequate expression in the dispositions made by the testator? Does not the testator naturally select his wife and children as the objects of his bounty in preference to relations of remoter degree? Why should the State complicate its affairs by recognising the principle of consanguinity in a taxing statute? Lord Randolph Churchill therefore proposed to discard the principle of consanguinity altogether. All existing duties on properties of whatever kind, passing by death after a given date, and in dispositions taking effect after that date, were to be swept away. Real property was to be placed on the same footing as personalty, and chargeable no longer on life interest, but on capital value. The one graduated succession duty, graduated on amount of benefit received and not depending at all upon consanguinity, was to replace them all. The old probate, account, legacy, inventory (Scotland) and succession duties were to be left to work themselves out by lapse of time, that process being accelerated by a liberal system of discounts.

It is, perhaps, of some interest to contrast this scheme with that which now holds the field. We now enjoy a duty called ‘estate duty’; an extra duty, levied in certain circumstances on settled property, called ‘settlement estate duty’; and, finally, the legacy and succession duties, depending on the consanguinity existing between the donor and the donee. We now assert the vicious principle of taxing property instead of persons. We try to tax the dead instead of the living. The State refuses to consider for purposes of graduation anything so personal as the sacrifice of the heirs, and bases itself on the mass of the inheritance. Conjoined with this in utter contradiction we have a cumbrous and elaborate recognition of such a purely personal and private principle as consanguinity.

Lord Randolph would have replaced these four or five duties of great complexity by one intelligible tax. He would have substituted one Act of Parliament for thirty or forty. He would have secured a far greater flexibility in case further increases of direct taxation were necessary. A vast simplification of the accounts required would have notably diminished the expenses of lawyers, valuers, accountants and actuaries, now attendant on the payment of death duties. The just complaint of the small inheritor from a great estate would have been prevented; and for various illogical or contradictory methods the one simple principle would have been erected, that taxation should be proportioned to ability to pay and to benefit received. The increase which Lord Randolph contemplated in the death duties would have been unpopular with the Conservative party. He was informed that the estate of nearly every member of the House of Lords would have been prejudicially affected thereby. But, in view of what befell in 1894, it is clear that wealthy people would not have been in the long run the losers by an early settlement.

The tax upon inhabited houses was respectably ancient in its origin. It had been first imposed in 1696, and had continued at various rates till 1834. Repealed in 1834, it was reimposed in 1851 by Sir Charles Wood on the abandonment of the duty on windows, and at the rate of 6_d._ for shops, beer-houses and farmhouses, and 9_d._ for dwelling-houses (those under 20_l._ annual value being exempt), it yielded in the financial year 1885-6 1,867,377_l._ to the revenue. Lord Randolph proposed to repeal the existing Act, thus cutting away the many important exemptions it contained, and by a new Act to restore the house duty to what it formerly was--namely, a tax on all houses inhabited either by day or night. He intended to revert to the old principle of graduation, to the old definition of an inhabited house and to the old lowest limit of taxable value. The new Act would further have repealed the provision in the law under which only one acre was to be included with the house for purposes of valuation--excepting the case of agricultural lands attached to farmhouses. Mills and warehouses used for storing goods were to be exempt; but it was provided that any person on the register of voters in respect of the occupation of a tenement should be liable to assessment for that tenement or part of a building; including even all who were entitled to vote under the service franchise as occupiers of apartments in Militia or other barracks. The scale of duty was lower for shops than for private houses, and progressed rapidly as the value increased. Value under 20_l._: shops, 3_d._; cottages, 4_d._ Value over 20_l._ and under 50_l._: shops, 6_d._; private houses, 9_d._ Value over 50_l._ and under 150_l._: shops, 1_s._; private houses, 1_s._ 6_d._ Value over 150_l._ and under 300_l._: shops, 2_s._; private houses, 3_s._ Value 300_l._ and upwards: shops, 2_s._ 6_d._; private houses, 3_s._ 6_d._ This new tax was estimated to produce, on existing valuations, an additional revenue in the first year of 1,500,000_l._, and, what was of even more importance (having regard to future Budgets), was estimated to rise to 2,380,000_l._ in the second and subsequent years.

Under the heading of ‘extra stamps’ the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed: (1) An alteration in the scale of duty upon patent medicines. The scale then in force under an Act of George III., and continued to this day, presses rather heavily on the 1_d._ and 2_d._ boxes, &c., of medicines sold in poor neighbourhoods. Lord Randolph’s new scale would have afforded relief to these small parcels, and have more than recouped itself on the larger and more costly.[58]

The yield of the old duty had been steadily increasing in later years. In 1869-70 it had produced 72,000_l._; in 1879-80, 135,000_l._; in 1885-6, 178,000_l._ It was estimated that Lord Randolph’s duty would produce an increase of between 50,000_l._ and 70,000_l._ in the first year (not, of course, complete) and of 100,000_l._ in the second year. But the yield of the future would have been much richer. The old scale of duty still in force produced in 1904-5 not less than 331,000_l._ Had Lord Randolph’s scale been in force the extra revenue would probably by now have exceeded 250,000_l._ a year.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer also proposed: (2) A 2_s._ per cent. stamp duty on the share capital of joint-stock companies. He estimated this to produce 100,000_l._ yearly, and 58,000_l._ in the year 1887-8. This plan was adopted by Mr. Goschen in 1888. The results exceeded expectation, and the tax yielded in the first year 158,000_l._ In 1899 the duty was increased to 5_s._ on share capital, and extended at half-scale to loan capital. The yield for 1904-5 was 388,000_l._ from share capital and 73,000_l._ from loan capital.

(3) A group of proposals comprising an extension of receipt duty to sums between 10_s._ and 2_l._; the repeal of certain exemptions, such as a receipt written upon a bill of exchange, or upon a duly stamped instrument, acknowledging receipt of consideration money therein expressed; a duty on tickets of admission to places of amusement (French plan) and upon certain documents in the nature of vouchers, e.g. those given to persons making purchases at stores and other large trading establishments; a duty on certificates of proprietorship of shares, and upon letters of application for stock; and an assimilation of the duty on transfers of debenture and ordinary stock. This last has been since effected. The others, with all that may be urged in their behalf, must stand upon their mere recital. This group of revised duties was estimated to produce an additional 150,000_l._ a year, and the whole of the alterations in the stamp duties would have yielded 284,000_l._ in the first year and above 400,000_l._ in the next.

A yearly tax of 5 per cent. was imposed in 1885-6 on the income of corporations as an equivalent for the death duties, which they escape. The yield in the first year was 34,000_l._ Municipal corporations were, however, exempted, although they paid income-tax on their realised property. By repealing this exemption Lord Randolph Churchill would have considerably increased the yield of the duty. Taking the accounts of ten municipal corporations of mixed sizes and importance, it was found that the average income derived from rentals, waterworks, gasworks, tolls, &c., exclusive of interest on investments, was 38,000_l._ Assuming there were 275 corporations--an assumption which left an ample margin--the gross income assessable would have been 10,450,000_l._, yielding a revenue of 522,000_l._ From this, however, a large deduction had to be made for interest paid on loans raised on the security of the property apart from the rates, leaving as the result of the tax a net addition to the revenue of 315,000_l._

The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed also to revive the tax upon horses and the special tax on racehorses which had been abandoned by Sir Stafford Northcote in 1874, from which a sum of 500,000_l._ would accrue to the State. In 1888, when Mr. Goschen endeavoured to re-introduce this duty, no serious objection was raised by the House of Commons. Strong opposition was, however, excited by the wheel and van tax which he suggested at the same time. In the hope of carrying the unpopular tax by linking it with one more favoured, Mr. Goschen declared that the two taxes must stand or fall together.

But the House was not to be cajoled. Both projects were withdrawn, and the transfer which has since taken place of all analogous duties to local authorities, seems permanently to have interfered with any attempt to secure this convenient source of revenue for Imperial purposes.

Two other classes of proposed extra taxation remain to be considered. If every one of the 70,000,000 cartridges which were used each season had a 1_d._ revenue stamp pasted over the shot end, the national resources would be enriched by 280,000_l._[59] in a complete year. The sportsman whose unerring aim never required a second barrel, except for another bird, would in poetic justice enjoy a comparative immunity. But while his unskilful companion blazed away he might remember that at each discharge the stamp blown to pieces by the explosion would carry its tribute to the public treasury. Besides this, mainly with a view to putting a stop to their reckless use by boys and others, pistols were to be taxed 1_l._ a year and pistol-dealers 20_l._ a year; and brokers, whose responsible functions seemed to deserve some recognition from the State, were to be duly licensed at 5_l._ a year. By these sundries 300,000_l._ would be secured immediately, and about 400,000_l._ in a complete year. The augmentation of the wine duties by various devices, falling chiefly upon the higher quality wines, so as to yield an additional quarter of a million, raised the total of the new taxation to 4,500,000_l._ in the first year, with a considerable natural growth in prospect.

Of the steps by which Lord Randolph designed to diminish his expenditure only one need be considered here; for the transference of the 2,600,000_l._ grants-in-aid to another and larger fund is a matter chiefly of book-keeping, and the definite economy of 1,300,000_l._ which he regarded as so important belongs to another part of the story. But the proposal to reduce the Sinking Fund by no less than 4,500,000_l._ is startling enough to compel attention.

The condition of the National Debt was in 1886 peculiar. When Sir Stafford Northcote, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1875 reorganised the service of the debt, he had, in order to make ‘steady and continuous efforts for its reduction,’ assigned a fixed annual sum of 28,000,000_l._, covering both interest and Sinking Fund, and payable, unless Parliament should in the meantime otherwise determine, as long as any debt remained outstanding. On March 31, 1875, the National Debt amounted to 769,000,000_l._; and if Sir Stafford Northcote’s scheme as it stood on the statute book had remained unaltered, if no war or other disturbing element had intervened, this debt, without any addition to the yearly charge of 28,000,000_l._, would have been entirely paid off about the year 1930. This was the arrangement which Lord Randolph now proposed to revise, and it therefore requires closer examination. The full charge of 28,000,000_l._ came into operation in 1877-8. It was divided between interest and Sinking Fund. At the outset the proportion assignable to interest and management was between 23,000,000_l._ and 24,000,000_l._, and the proportion assignable to Sinking Fund between 4,000,000_l._ and 5,000,000_l._; but this proportion steadily changed by the automatic working of the scheme. Year by year as the debt capital was reduced by the amount of successive Sinking Funds, that part of the 28,000,000_l._ required for interest diminished, and that part available for Sinking Fund proportionately increased. According to the moderate computations of Sir Stafford Northcote when presenting his scheme to the House, 230,000,000_l._ of the debt would have been paid off by the present year--1904-5. In that case the capital of the debt would now stand at about 540,000,000_l._, the interest proportion of the 28,000,000_l._ would amount to sixteen and a half millions, and the Sinking Fund proportion to about eleven and a half millions. Thus the scheme, which in the beginning imposed a charge on the taxpayer equivalent to 2½_d._ in the 1_l._ for the purposes of a Sinking Fund, automatically progressed until that burden would have become equivalent to 5_d._ in the 1_l._ at the present time, and rising further to 1_s._ or more in the 1_l._ before it reached its consummation. While already himself attaining a high degree of financial virtue, Sir Stafford Northcote indicated to his successors a standard three and four and five times as exalted.

Each generation, almost each decade, claims its right to revise its standards; and as the rate of human improvement was less rapid than the growth of Sir Stafford Northcote’s Sinking Fund, it had in 1886 become clear that the public would not acquiesce in the logical result of the 1875 scheme, or regard as a sacred obligation the exact fulfilment of a plan which, snowball fashion, rolled on with ever-accumulating weight and ended by requiring the exaction from the taxpayer during a small number of years of an amount in repayment of debt which sound reasoning could not justify. Already the scheme itself had yielded to the pressure of a passing emergency. Mr. Childers had suspended the Sinking Fund in great part during the Egyptian War and the Russian panic of 1885-6; Sir William Harcourt had permitted a smaller suspension in 1886-7. Indeed, Sir Stafford Northcote seems to have felt that his scheme could not be maintained in its fulness to the end, and that when the Sinking Fund had risen to a certain figure, the taxpayer of the day would claim to share with it the benefit resulting from the progressive diminution in the interest of the debt. If, then, it were conceded that the Northcote Sinking Fund could not be maintained in its entirety till 1930, the revision of the scheme became simply a question of the manner, the measure and the tune.

These considerations were strengthened by another set of arguments. In 1887 the funded debt amounted to 637,000,000_l._ A large part of this debt--probably 150,000,000_l._--was held by public departments; another large part was held by banks, insurance companies and by trustees. It was computed later by skilled authorities that the holdings on this account were not less than 200,000,000_l._ As these holdings were practically not offered on the market for sale, the field for purchases of stock was comparatively narrow. If a large amount of Sinking Fund were applied to purchases of stock in this narrow field, the prices of Consols would be quickly and unnaturally inflated. This condition was actually reached in later years, when the public credit was so esteemed that the State enjoyed the privilege of paying 113_l._ to redeem 100_l._ of its own debt.

Lord Randolph decided that the time had come for a revision of the Northcote scheme. He found himself possessed of a lever capable of exerting on one occasion--and on one occasion only--a giant’s power. He was anxious that it should be made the instrument of great and substantial reform, and not wasted gradually for the sake of convenience or popularity. For the purposes, therefore, of effecting a reduction and a general readjustment of taxation and as an integral part of his Budget scheme, Lord Randolph proposed to reduce the total immediate charge of the debt from 28,878,000_l._ to 24,417,000_l._, thus effecting a saving of 4,461,000_l._, or, roughly, four and a half millions. The Northcote Sinking Fund would thus have been reduced by two-thirds to 2,160,000_l._ The reduction of such a great weapon of financial reserve as the Sinking Fund has proved in tunes of warlike emergency was practically replaced by the gain in expansive power supplied by an income-tax as low as 5_d._ The positive economy on naval and military estimates clears the Chancellor of the Exchequer from any charge of laxity or indulgence. His judgment on the main question of revision was ratified within two years by the high and severe financial authority of Lord Goschen, and was further confirmed eleven years later by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. The former reduced the fixed charge from 28,000,000_l._ to 25,000,000_l._; the latter reduced it again from 25,000,000_l._ to 23,000,000_l._, at which figure it stood when the South African War broke out. But these reductions, aggregating 5,000,000_l._ a year, were enforced, the one for the purpose merely of affording a petty relief to the taxpayer of the year, and the other to find ways and means for the growing expenditure of a Government, and not, as Lord Randolph had designed, for the sake of a large and harmonious reform.

By these methods, however they may be regarded, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have become possessed of a surplus of noble proportions. And the distribution of the 12,500,000_l._ which he had secured is the coping-stone of the whole financial scheme. Tea and tobacco are familiar friends to the students of Budgets. Year after year their fortunes fluctuate in sympathy with those of the nation. In the year 1886-7 tea was taxed 6_d._ in the pound and yielded 4,514,874_l._ A reduction of 2_d._ upon tea is a generous boon to every poor household. The tiny packet is a farthing cheaper. The careful spoonfuls may be more freely bestowed; and the relief is gratefully acknowledged by an immediate increase in consumption. Lord Randolph had estimated that his reduction would cost the revenue 1,400,000_l._; but this seems to have been an over-estimate, for when Mr. Goschen four years later was able to make this desirable change the loss to the revenue was only 1,100,000_l._, owing to the greater indulgence of the people.

Who is there, of those who pay it, that will not look back with envy from these days of 1_s._ income tax, almost as a permanent charge in times of peace, to times when a tax of 8_d._ was regarded as abnormally high; when one Chancellor of the Exchequer was resolved to reduce it to 5_d._, and when his successor (Mr. Goschen) declared that, except for purposes of war, 6_d._ was a proper limit? Of all Lord Randolph’s proposals none, it may be safely said, would have been greeted with more general approval than his intended reduction of the income-tax from 8_d._ to 5_d._ At that time incomes below 150_l._ a year were exempt, but incomes of 150_l_. and less than 400_l._ were allowed an abatement of 120_l._ Incomes of and above 400_l._ a year had to pay on the full amount. Official statistics have always been silent as to the total number of income tax payers, it being apparently impossible to frame a trustworthy estimate. It is nevertheless probable that the bulk of persons who are called upon to pay this impost are included in the 150_l._-400_l._ class. It was to this considerable class, composed mainly of persons emerging into an independence they have earned for themselves, and rising by their own industry from the level of exemption to that of income-tax-paying means, that Lord Randolph’s sympathies were directed. The small householder, pinched by having to pay in the early days of January the landlord’s tax under Schedule A, which he cannot recover till he pays his rent at the end of March; the petty tradesman or struggling professional man who defends a precarious respectability by a systematic thrift too often unknown to the burly wage-earner; these are the special beneficiaries from such a reduction, and they share in a peculiar degree in the general expansion of comfort and energy which must follow when five millions of money are surrendered by the State and left to fructify in the pockets of the people.

The largest claim upon the surplus was in respect of Local Government. Lord Randolph proposed to assign the revenue received from a large number of Excise licence duties to the various local authorities about to be established. As it was undesirable to saddle the new-born authorities with the difficulty and expense of collecting many duties for which they possessed no adequate machinery, he arranged that a large number were still to be collected by the State, and the proceeds, less the cost of collection, were to be afterwards transferred. Dogs, guns, game, carriages, servants, armorial bearings, auctioneers, hawkers, patent medicine vendors, plate dealers, refreshment houses, pawnbrokers, tobacco and sweets dealers, beer, wine and spirit dealers, and the new tax on horses, aggregating in all 2,700,000_l._, were to be thus for the time being reserved. But all licences which the local bodies could collect without any additional cost or trouble were to be handed over at once. 1,544,000_l._ worth of liquor licences fell into this latter class. They were to be granted, as heretofore, only on the production of a magisterial consent, and nothing was simpler than to make the paying of the duty and the obtaining of the consent simultaneous. Lord Randolph’s schemes on this point travelled beyond both the Budget and the Local Government Bill, and embraced local option in the drink traffic. He believed that the liquor laws ought to be intimately connected with Local Government. He wished to entrust local authorities with very large powers to regulate the sale of liquor in their districts; and he thought that if the revenue which arose from liquor licences was made an important source of revenue for the local authority, a salutary check would be provided against hasty or fanatical action, leading perhaps upon a popular impulse to total prohibition, and upon the rebound to an unrestricted sale. ‘When you are legislating,’ he said a year later at Sunderland (October 27, 1887), ‘about subjects which interest human beings, it is just as well not to leave altogether out of account human nature.’ The transfer by different methods of these sources of revenue, together with the contribution of 800,000_l._ in aid of the indoor poor, provided the round sum of 5,000,000_l._ as the foundation upon which Local Government was to be erected.

The preparation of such a Budget required an extraordinary exertion. Scheme after scheme was formulated, only to break down in discussion and to be dismissed. Many days--wrested by an effort from other pressing occupations--were consumed in study and reflection. But at length all was in order and the plan was in detail settled and complete. In every respect--in the definite economy, in the reduction in the expenditure on armaments, in the increase in the proportion of direct taxation, in the immense diminution of public burdens, in the enormous simplification of the death duties and the introduction of a logical system of graduation, in the ample provision for the needs of Local Government--it was a democratic Budget. Yet it was cunningly contrived. The importance and cohesion of the scheme would have secured it a momentum of its own. Objections upon detail could at every point have been answered by general principles. The low income-tax balanced the diminished Sinking Fund. The economies in public charges justified the remissions of taxation. The tremendous appeal to the middle classes of a 5_d._ income-tax would have provided the driving power needed from within the Conservative party. Nevertheless, it was in a grave and nervous mood that the young Chancellor introduced it to the Cabinet in the early days of December. He spoke long and earnestly. He exerted all his power of luminous and attractive exposition. The whole proposal was unfolded. His colleagues seemed for the moment fascinated. Objections and doubts were silenced together. No one cared to assail in detail a scheme all parts of which hung so closely together and which, in the mass, displayed such novel and spacious outlines. Even Lord Iddesleigh, the creator of the threatened Sinking Fund, consented to its dissolution for the sake of the integrity of the scheme. Lord Randolph had come prepared for an uncertain and protracted battle. He seemed to have won the victory at a single charge.

His friends at the Treasury waited anxiously for his return. Startled as they had been by some of his views, foreign to their traditions as was his treatment of the debt, they had been drawn into the momentum of what was, after all, a great design. They were prompt to offer their congratulations upon the Cabinet acquiescence. But Lord Randolph was far from confident. The silence of his colleagues oppressed him. ‘They said nothing,’ he told Lord Welby, ‘nothing at all; but you should have seen their faces!’ He proceeded to give instructions for checking every figure and recasting every calculation from the beginning, as if he apprehended some tardy attack, against which preparations should be made. This arranged, as was his habit he pushed the whole matter from his mind. ‘There,’ he said grandly to Sir Algernon West later in the day, ‘are the materials of our Budget. They are unpolished gems; put the facets on them as well as you can; but do not speak to me on the subject again until the end of the financial year.’

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XVI. RESIGNATION

Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call to-day his own-- He who, secure within, can say: ‘To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day. Come fair or foul, or rain, or shine, The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not Heaven itself over the past hath power; But what has been has been, and I have had my hour.’ _Lines from Dryden copied out by Lord Randolph Churchill about 1891._

On the morning of December 23 all who took an interest in politics--and in those days these were a very great number--were startled to read in the Times newspaper that Lord Randolph Churchill had resigned the offices of Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons and had retired altogether from the Government. As the news was telegraphed abroad, it became everywhere the chief subject of rumour and discussion, and Cabinet Ministers--dispersed on their holidays--hurried back to London to find out the truth of the matter and to prepare for the changes that must follow. To the political world the event came as a complete surprise. No important issue had arisen in foreign or domestic affairs; no great question likely to lead to such a breach was before the country; there had been hardly a whisper of Cabinet dissension. But if the reader has followed this account with any considerable measure of agreement or sympathy, he will see in this resignation no inexplicable mystery, no deep-laid intrigue, no explosion of temper; but the logical and inevitable consequence of all that had gone before.

Everything may go well with a liberal-minded man who belongs to the Tory party while his party is in Opposition. The natural disagreements which arise upon so many questions between the Government of the day and their political opponents make a broad platform on which the Democratic Tory and the old-fashioned Conservative can fight side by side in combination. When to those disagreements were added the danger of an Imperial disaster, acutely realised, and the antagonism which Mr. Gladstone inspired in all who did not worship him, the combination ripened into comradeship; and out of comradeship was born a sense of agreement which, after all, was pure illusion. It is not until men who really differ, try to work together at the business of government that their worst troubles begin. Even in the short Administration of 1885 the divergence between Lord Salisbury and Lord Randolph Churchill had been plain. But the ‘Ministry of Caretakers’ was in a minority. It was in a sense an Opposition rather than a Government. It had never exercised power. The disruption of the Liberal party and the decision of the electors had vitally altered the political situation. The Conservative party, with their Unionist allies, were now supreme. They had achieved great power. What would they do with it?

Many of the letters which passed between Lord Randolph and the Prime Minister during their varied and eventful association have been printed here. A change, distinct and palpable, is to be noticed in the tone of their communications after the election of 1886. It is still friendly and open; Lord Randolph’s letters still preserve their unvarying air of respect towards a higher officer of State and of deference to an older and far more experienced man. Yet it is less the correspondence of a lieutenant with his chief and more like that between separate authorities. The two men were, in fact, sustained by two different, and to some extent conflicting, sets of forces, and they stood for different ideas. Nor were those forces on which Lord Randolph Churchill counted so inconsiderable as the event might seem to prove. Tory Democracy had gained repeated victories in the past three years over the more Conservative element in the party. Lord Salisbury himself, under pressure, personal and of circumstances, had advanced vastly from his political position in the early ‘eighties. He had gone as far as Newport. He had gone as far as Dartford. It did not seem improbable that, if pressed, he would go still further and that without any serious damage to party unity the liberalizing process which had already effected so much in the composition, character and prospects of the Tory party might continue. The ‘old gang’ was now widely scattered. Some had retired; some were in the Lords. Others had not been included in the Government. The Cabinet had been largely formed of men whose speeches and general views were democratic. The younger and more active elements in the party were adventurous and progressive. Many of the members returned by the constituencies, and especially by the boroughs, had given pledges to the electors at which ‘high and dry’ Tories stood aghast.

A careful examination of the Conservative majority in the House of Commons justified the belief that it was neither unfitted nor unwilling to be the instrument of large constructive reforms. It seemed, moreover, that the alliance with the Unionist Liberals and Radicals, on which the existence of the Government depended, would strengthen powerfully the more Liberal elements in the Conservative ranks and would even require an increasing measure of Liberal legislation as a condition of support. Mr. Chamberlain and his immediate followers were also a very important factor; and Lord Randolph, as the principal link which united them to Lord Salisbury’s Government, had every reason as well as every inclination to study their wishes. Looking broadly at the situation during the autumn of 1886, it was not unreasonable to hope that an era of domestic reform might be safely and prosperously inaugurated. But, in any case, Lord Randolph’s own position was perfectly well understood. His declarations had been clear and full. He had made no secret of his opinions; and upon finance, upon Local Government, upon Ireland, upon land and liquor, upon questions connected with property and labour, they were unmistakably declared. Yet with the full knowledge of his opinions and every indication which the past could supply that he would fight sternly for them, the Prime Minister had invited him to undertake the second post in his Government, and Lord Randolph’s acceptance had been, with unimportant exceptions, endorsed and even acclaimed by the whole party. Why should it ever have been supposed that he would have abandoned forthwith all his liberal views, would have repudiated or ignored all his pledges of economy and would have settled down to the adroit manipulation of a Parliamentary majority for strictly Conservative ends and the elaboration of ingenious excuses for departmental and administrative scandals. The Prime Minister and the party must have known--and they did know when Lord Randolph Churchill was called to lead them in the House of Commons--that he could only lead them in one direction, and that direction, so far as domestic affairs were concerned, a Liberal direction.

It is no doubt true that he rated his own power and consequent responsibility too high. Like many a successful man before him--and some since--he thought the forces he had directed in the past were resident in himself, whereas they were to some extent outside himself and independent. But this error was shared by his colleagues and by the Prime Minister. They had no idea what he could do, or how hard he could hit if he were assailed. They remembered his previous withdrawals and how he had always come back stronger than ever. They saw how often in the last few years his judgment had proved right and how he had always won in the end, no matter how slender were his own resources and how strong the confederacy by which he was opposed. They feared him greatly. But they were Tory Ministers; and they did not intend, whatever happened, to be dragged out of their own proper sphere and committed to large reforms and democratic Budgets. Better far Lord Hartington and the Whigs! Better even the Grand Old Man!

In all that concerned the management of individuals, Lord Salisbury excelled. No one was more ready to sacrifice his opinion to get his way. No one was more skilful in convincing others that they agreed with him, or more powerful to persuade them to actual agreement. His experience, his patience, his fame, his subtle and illuminating mind, secured for him an ascendency in his Cabinet apart altogether from the paramount authority of First Minister. The Leader of the House of Commons, triumphant in Parliament, almost supreme in the country, found himself often almost alone in the Cabinet. The disproportion perplexed and offended him. He believed that he had got the majority together. He wanted to see it used well and boldly in correcting abuses, in carrying great reforms, and moving always onwards. He believed that unless the Conservative party gave proof of their zeal for popular causes the constituencies, so painfully won over, would revert to Radicalism, that the Unionist alliance would collapse and that Mr. Gladstone would return to power. And he would be held responsible for the disaster!

From the very outset the new Administration was uneasy. Discord stirred restlessly behind the curtains of Cabinet secrecy. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach had his own views about Ireland and Irish landlords, and they differed from those of the Prime Minister. He was, so Lord Randolph described him to Lord Salisbury in a letter on August 22, ‘afraid of being forced to administer Ireland too much on a landlord’s rights basis.’ He had been upset by the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s statement that any revision of rents by State interposition was altogether excluded from Conservative policy. He would not agree to the principle that any permanent guarantee of the judicial rent was conveyed to the landlord in 1886. Lord Randolph, however, persuaded him that these questions did not arise seriously for immediate decision.

The autumn Councils were not harmonious, whether upon foreign or domestic affairs. The proposed changes in Parliamentary procedure, and especially the question of the Closure, provoked awkward differences, nearly every prominent member of the House of Commons holding strong personal opinions based on long personal experience. One Minister felt unable to be responsible for proposing Closure by a simple majority, and recommended that the Government should leave the matter as an open question to the House. Others disputed on the relative merits of a two-thirds or three-fifths majority. The tangled controversies connected with the details of English and Irish Local Government proved even more troublesome. To lighten the ship it was decided to confine the Bill to county government alone. For a long time it seemed impossible to reconcile the divergent views of the Prime Minister and the Irish Secretary, and, as it was intended that Sir Michael should himself take charge of the Bill, the difficulty was grave. ‘I wish there was no such thing as Local Government,’ wrote Lord Salisbury pathetically to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after an elaborate ‘eirenicon’ which he had proposed had been abruptly rejected by his colleagues.

Besides these internal differences, the alliance with the Liberal-Unionist leaders, upon whose goodwill the existence of the Government depended, required careful and unremitting attention. In November Lord Hartington, who felt the need of meeting Mr. Gladstone’s demand for a constructive Irish policy with positive proposals, if the Liberal and Radical Unionists were to be kept solid against the Home Rulers, pressed that a Local Government Bill for Ireland should be promised in the Queen’s Speech. He suggested that this should provide for the establishment of Irish County and District Councils, with liberty to two or more to act together for certain specified purposes affecting their several jurisdictions; but no further. He pointed out that, as Irish Local Government would necessarily proceed on more ‘Conservative’ lines than English Local Government, the Irish settlement, if first effected, would afford a safer model for the English measure. This argument much impressed the Prime Minister; but Lord Randolph Churchill, who also appreciated its force, objected for that very reason to giving Irish Local Government precedence over the English Bill, and he succeeded, by the influence of a friend, in persuading Lord Hartington to abate his Irish claims. Mr. Chamberlain also intimated, through Lord Randolph, that while prepared to give the Government policy a generous consideration, whether on foreign affairs or on the necessity for Coercion, he could not support anything that he considered reactionary in Local Government. The principal members of the Cabinet, including the Prime Minister, Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr. Smith, then agreed upon an extensive proposal for England, with the understanding that an Irish Local Government Bill should be promised in the Queen’s Speech, but introduced after England and Scotland had been dealt with.

One difficulty was thus removed; but, as the month drew on, continual divergences arose on questions of domestic policy. The Dartford programme was indeed, like the Budget--in principle, at least--accepted formally by Ministers. But their reluctance to embark on such policies betrayed itself in all sorts of small objections. The survivors of the ‘old gang’ were not inclined to forget the treatment they had received. The ‘Plan of Campaign’ against the payment of rent, which had been started in Ireland as the Nationalist reply to the refusal of Home Rule, was spreading; and the difficulties of the Irish Government, divested of the exceptional coercive powers of former years, were such that Beach, on whom Lord Randolph counted greatly, was often obliged by his Irish duties to be absent from meetings of the Cabinet. The Chancellor of the Exchequer felt sorely the want of a friend. His delight when, at his continued request, Lord Salisbury brought Mr. Balfour into the Cabinet led him (November 17) to send the news to the Times before the Queen’s consent had been obtained, and a breach of etiquette was narrowly averted.

Many of the lesser members of the Government were Tory Democrats; and much of the draft legislation that came before the Cabinet was Liberal in its character. Lord Randolph, however, had to fight single-handed for every point. A Minister who was called to one of the Cabinets on the Local Government Bill described to me the pleadings and arguments by which the Chancellor of the Exchequer strove tirelessly to extend its scope to the widest limits. ‘We must not overweight the Bill,’ said the Prime Minister at length. ‘It is a heavy Bill already.’ ‘A heavy Bill!’ repeated Lord Randolph, balancing the draft upon his fingers and letting it flutter to the ground, while everyone else sat silent. ‘A heavy Bill!’ He was, in fact, always the devil’s advocate. ‘I am appalled,’ he wrote to the Prime Minister (December 2), ‘at the strength of your disapproval of poor Long and Onslow’s Allotments Bill. We shall have to cut it down like anything.’ The concessions which were made to his insistence, disturbed his colleagues without satisfying him. The deference which he often showed to high Tory views, was forgotten amid disagreements so many and grave. When the last word had been said, no matter what compromise had been reached, this fundamental difference remained--that he regarded Liberal measures as things good and desirable in themselves; while many of his colleagues, and certainly his chief, looked upon them as so many unholy surrenders to the powers of evil.

‘Alas!’ wrote Lord Randolph sadly to the Prime Minister on November 6, ‘I see the Dartford programme crumbling into pieces every day. The Land Bill is rotten. I am afraid it is an idle schoolboy’s dream to suppose that Tories can legislate--as I did, stupidly. They can govern and make war and increase taxation and expenditure à merveille, but legislation is not their province in a democratic constitution.... I certainly have not the courage and energy to go on struggling against cliques, as poor Dizzy did all his life....’

Lord Salisbury replied with great care and kindness; but he had little consolation to afford, and this letter seems to have been his last attempt:--

November 7, 1886.

My dear Randolph,--I did not get your note of yesterday till I got to town in the afternoon--and then it was too late to catch you. I saw Beach, however, and ... led him to tell me what had passed with Ritchie. It appears that the latter has abandoned the ground plan which he told me in September he was fully resolved on--namely, that if owners are to have half the taxation they should have half the representation too. This, as you remember, was a principle for which Beach contended vigorously last winter--and which was generally accepted by the then Cabinet. Beach thinks the abandonment of it would have specially injurious influences in Ireland.

For the rest, I fully see all the difficulties of our position. The Tory party is composed of very varying elements, and there is merely trouble and vexation of spirit in trying to make them work together. I think the ‘classes and the dependents of class’ are the strongest ingredients in our composition, but we have so to conduct our legislation that we shall give some satisfaction to both classes and masses. This is specially difficult with the classes--because all legislation is rather unwelcome to them, as tending to disturb a state of things with which they are satisfied. It is evident, therefore, that we must work at less speed and at a lower temperature than our opponents. Our Bills must be tentative and cautious, not sweeping and dramatic. But I believe that with patience, feeling our way as we go, we may get the one element to concede and the other to forbear. The opposite course is to produce drastic, symmetrical measures, hitting the ‘classes’ hard, and consequently dispensing with their support, but trusting to public meetings and the democratic forces generally to carry you through. I think such a policy will fail. I do not mean that the ‘classes’ will join issue with you on one of the measures which hits them hard, and beat you on that. That is not the way they fight. They will select some other matter on which they can appeal to prejudice, and on which they think the masses will be indifferent; and on that they will upset you. My counsel therefore is strongly against this alternative; and it would be the same if I had no interest in the matter, and was merely an observer outside the Ministry advising you. Your rôle should be rather that of a diplomatist trying to bring the opposed sections of the party together, and not that of a whip trying to keep the slugs up to the collar....

Yours very truly, SALISBURY.

Yet the first session of a Parliament and the first year of an Administration are the most critical. Men are not really bound together in a Government until they have made mistakes in common and defended each other’s failures; and it is possible that, unless definite and urgent disagreements had arisen, the evil hour might have been long averted. But Lord Randolph Churchill was not only responsible for the House of Commons; he was responsible for national finance. And from the Treasury a second set of questions necessarily involving sharp differences with his colleagues now began to arrive.

The reader will not fail to recognise how vital a definite economy was to the character and success of Lord Randolph Churchill’s Budget. The reduction of the Sinking Fund and of taxation generally could only be defended in association with a lower expenditure. Circumstances now within our knowledge seem to show that the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s margin was larger than he had dared to expect. But so many novel sources of revenue, tapped for the first time, introduced uncertain factors into his calculations. His public declarations before the general election had been unmistakable. He was pledged to the hilt in the cause of economy, and the actual conditions fortified his sentiments. Even before the Bradford meeting, the tension was apparent.

Mr. Smith to Lord Randolph Churchill.

Confidential.

Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames: October 24.

My dear R. C.,--I shall probably see you in Arlington Street to-morrow, but I may not have an opportunity of begging you not to indicate too precisely at Bradford the results you may anticipate from economies in army administration. I shall do everything I can in that direction, but I am anxious, as you must be, as to the aspect of affairs, and I think the policy you are anxious to carry out is best supported by the organisation of the strength we possess than by allowing the present unready condition to continue.

As to this I must have a serious talk with you when you come back from Bradford. I contemplate method, management, arrangement--rather than large present expenditure; but, unless you see your way through the difficulties in Turkey and as to Egypt easily and peaceably, it would be unwise, I think, to announce reductions in military Budgets which would be interpreted, as the Paris Temps suggests, as presaging a withdrawal of England from the positions she has taken up. It may be necessary to take such a course, but it can only be done after the most grave deliberation: it almost involves a recognition of the fact that we are no longer one of the Great Powers.

I prefer to say these things to you alone than to talk of them before Salisbury. Our diplomacy is no doubt very weak, but this does not entirely explain our powerlessness in Europe....

Yours very sincerely, W. H. SMITH.

All through the month of November the annual conflict between the Treasury and the spending departments was maintained with unusual vigour and with varying fortune. On the 3rd a Treasury Minute accelerated the preparation of the estimates:--

Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, S.W.: November 3, 1886.

In view of the probability of the meeting of Parliament being fixed for the middle of January, the First Lord of the Treasury and I are of opinion that the Army and Navy Estimates should be considered by the Cabinet before Christmas. Will you therefore kindly direct that the estimates decided upon by the War Office should be ready by the first days of December? We shall then be well ahead of our work.

‘Do you observe,’ wrote Smith on the 7th, ‘that under pressure our people in Egypt see their way now to a great reduction of military expenditure? Only a fortnight ago they were the other way minded.’ And again on the 20th, when some Treasury probing had touched a tender spot:--

‘This departmental extravagance is not mine, but my predecessor’s, and full private notice has been given repeatedly since August. I hope I may yet save something, but the cake was eaten before I got here. We will talk about it when we next meet.’

Other departments had to face a not less searching examination, and the Navy and Colonial Office estimates were the subject of prolonged and animated correspondence. There was, of course, nothing unhealthy, or even unusual, in all this. It is the business of the Treasury to canvass all proposals which involve expenditure and to compel those who bring them forward to show, not merely that they are necessary and desirable, but that they are more necessary and more desirable than other necessary and desirable projects. Without such severe controversial examination of estimates, the finances of the wealthiest country would soon be in disorder and the money of the taxpayer squandered irretrievably. But it may well be believed that, with all the good-will in the world, the month of November is a stormy period for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and brings him daily into acute antagonism with his colleagues. In such circumstances only the closest sympathy and support from the Prime Minister can sustain him. He is one against many, and must otherwise submit or resign. But on this occasion, when there should have been the most intimate alliance, there opened vast and comprehensive differences; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer became continually more isolated and from that very cause more combative. The money clauses of the Local Government Bill--affecting as they did so many settled interests, interwoven as they were with the whole finance of the year--led to vexatious and protracted discussions. Behind all loomed the vague yet formidable shadow of the Budget itself. By the end of the month it was evident that a crisis was approaching.

‘Salisbury,’ wrote Lord George Hamilton on the 25th, ‘is getting to the position where he will be pressed no more. If a rupture takes place, it will damage us almost irretrievably; for he would carry with him a large portion of the party, and your position would be very much, as you yourself said, like to that of Sir Robert Peel, who, though he carried Free Trade, was without a party afterwards. Gladstone cannot live for long and if we only hold together we shall utterly foil him.

‘I write feelingly, for if we break up, my vocation of peacemaker between the different sections of the party is gone and I should take up some other line of work than politics. Things are, I fear, worse than we thought two days back; however, you will see for yourself and act accordingly.’

The definite collision took place just before the estimates of the Navy and Army were finally presented. Lord Randolph Churchill insisted upon some reduction and made no secret that he would set his official existence on the issue. Hamilton replied that 50,000_l._ was the utmost further variation that could be expected at the Admiralty. Smith wrote as follows:--

Private.

December 14, 1886.

My dear R. C.,--I am very sorry to say that the first review of my figures affords no hope whatever of any reductions in W. O. estimates as compared with 1886-7.

We lose 100,000_l._ of Indian money, and have to meet extra charges for leap year--Volunteers, Reserve, and other automatic increases--which are enough to drive one wild, without entering upon the questions of giving small-arm ammunition and defence.

I shall be able to give you a rough idea of the probable gross estimate on Thursday or Friday, but it will not be a pleasant one.

Yours very sincerely, W. H. SMITH.

And again on the 16th, in a remarkable letter showing that he, too, was prepared to go to extremes:--

Private.

December 16, 1886.

My dear R. C.,--I have been thinking a good deal over your letter of yesterday.

I am as much committed to economy as you are, but I cannot be the head of a great department in times like these and ask for less than the absolute minimum required for the safety of the country.

I will go into figures with you if you like--but it is out of the question for you to talk of retiring. If one of us goes, I shall claim the privilege; and you may rest assured that if a man can be found to take my place, I shall be delighted to give all the help in my power to a successor brave enough to assume responsibility which I am not prepared to bear.

I will speak to you after the Cabinet to-morrow.

Yours very sincerely, W. H. SMITH.

Bear in mind that in the House--if I am there--I do not ask you to defend my estimates or to excuse them.

‘You will shortly have to decide,’ wrote Lord Randolph in a good-humoured letter to the Prime Minister, December 15, ‘whose services you will retain--those of your War Minister or those of your Chancellor of Exchequer.

‘Smith informs me of his inability to make reductions in the Army Estimates; I have informed him of my absolute and unalterable inability to consent to any Army Estimates which do not show a marked and considerable reduction.

‘George Hamilton has made me a reduction in the Navy Estimates of over 700,000_l._ If these things can be done at the Admiralty, the attitude of the War Office becomes intolerable. Generally speaking, however, I am anxious to submit to you to-morrow the draft of a Treasury minute to the public departments calling their serious attention to their increasing expenditure and requiring marked and immediate economies.’

Lord Salisbury’s reply indicated clearly the side to which his sympathies inclined:--

Hatfield: December 15, 1886.

My dear Randolph,--I will be in Downing Street at half-past three. I have got to go to Windsor at a quarter to five. There was nothing for it but to consent to the Egyptian expenditure, though it is very lamentable--all Gladstone’s fault. The Cabinet, happily, not I, will have to decide the controversy between you and Smith. But it will be a serious responsibility to refuse the demands of a War Minister so little imaginative as Smith, especially at such a time. It is curious that two days ago I was listening here to the most indignant denunciations of Smith for his economy--from Wolseley. I am rather surprised at George Hamilton being able to reduce so much. I hope it is all right.

Ever yours very truly, SALISBURY.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, showed no signs of yielding and his colleagues, feeling that the crash was coming, evidently took counsel with one another and broadened the ground upon which they stood and might have to fight. The Budget had meanwhile been passed through the Cabinet. But now doubt and hesitation seemed to have overtaken those Ministers who were concerned in the Estimates dispute. On the 18th Lord George Hamilton wrote that he thought the Budget ‘exceedingly well balanced and comprehensive,’ but on that very account the more likely to be attacked by the various interests concerned, and he asked for certain returns as to the incidence of taxation. It is significant that Mr. Smith wrote a similar letter on the same day, and Lord Salisbury on the day following:--

Mr. Smith to Lord Randolph Churchill.

War Office: December 18, 1886.

My dear R. C.,--I think you should send us a printed memorandum of your Budget proposals, in order that they may be considered carefully during our short holiday.

They are too large and important to be determined upon after a conversation across the table. It would not be fair to you nor to your colleagues, some of whom may not have fully realised all your proposals.

Yours very sincerely, W. H. SMITH.

Lord Salisbury to Lord Randolph Churchill.

Hatfield House, Hatfield, Herts: December 19, 1886.

My dear Randolph,--In the course of discussions on the Local Government Bill you have two or three times expressed the belief that the country gentlemen would be consoled for all they might lose under that Bill by the financial arrangements which were to be proposed; or, as you expressed it, that ‘the pill would be gilded.’ I think you have overlooked the fact that your local taxation proposals will relieve the towns more than the rural districts. At least, I have looked up the figures for Hertfordshire, Suffolk, and Devonshire, and enclose a statement of them. The result is (if I rightly understood your proposals) that the ordinary country gentleman will have an extra burden of ninepence in the pound--which is gilding of a negative kind.

Ever yours truly, SALISBURY.

The situation was fast becoming acute. At a dinner on the 18th, when the Prime Minister was Lord Randolph’s guest, shrewd observers had noticed, underneath much personal courtesy, an air of harsh political antagonism. The effect of these letters was decisive. Lord Randolph forwarded the figures which Lord Salisbury had enclosed to the Treasury and called for a memorandum in reply. His pencilled comment on the paper is, ‘Lord Salisbury’s figures are incomprehensible.’ The Treasury answer required a little time to prepare; but the next day Lord Randolph wrote back:--

Treasury Chambers, Whitehall, S.W.: December 20, 1886.

Dear Lord Salisbury,--I know the country gentlemen, like the farmers, always think they are being plundered and ruined. The facts are, however, that whereas the ratepayers used to receive in gross three millions from the taxes, they would in future under my scheme receive over five millions. Of course the towns will get the bulk of the indoor pauper contribution.

Real estate pays succession duty on an average about once in thirty years. We do not estimate that the change in the succession duty will add more than a million a year to the present yield of 800,000_l._, and it will take at least twelve years to work up to this amount. When the succession duties were first voted by Parliament, they were estimated to produce 2,000,000_l._ I believe the produce has never exceeded 900,000_l._ The assimilation of the incidence of death duties on real estate to that which falls upon personal estate has not of late years been resisted in principle even by the strictest sect of the Tories.

I enclose you the G.O.M.’s reply to my communication. I hear rumours that he is contemplating the policy of throwing over the Home Rulers.

Yours most sincerely, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

That same afternoon the Chancellor of the Exchequer was summoned to Windsor. Travelling thither, he met by chance in the same railway carriage Lord George Hamilton. Lord Randolph, who was in excellent spirits, said briskly that he intended to resign that day. Hamilton was much shocked, and urged patience, delay and so forth. Lord Randolph remained inscrutably gay. That night the Queen showed him most gracious favour, and kept him long in conversation. He spoke of many matters of policy--of the new Procedure rules, of Ireland, even of the prospects of the coming session--but of his determination not one word escaped him. It was late when he retired, yet he proceeded forthwith to write his letter of resignation to Lord Salisbury. Hamilton, who came to press him once again, was treated with extreme good-humour, and had it all read out to him before it was despatched:--

Windsor Castle: December 20, 1886.

Dear Lord Salisbury,--The approximate Estimates for the Army and Navy for next year have been to-day communicated to me by George Hamilton and Smith. They amount to 31 millions--12½ millions for the Navy, 18½ millions for the Army. The Navy votes show a decrease of nearly 500,000_l._, but this is to a great extent illusory, as there is a large increase in the demand made by the Admiralty upon the War Office for guns and ammunition. The Army Estimates thus swollen show an increase of about 300,000_l._ The total 31 millions for the two Services, which will in all probability be exceeded, is very greatly in excess of what I can consent to. I know that on this subject I cannot look for any sympathy or effective support from you and I am certain that I shall find no supporters in the Cabinet. I do not want to be wrangling and quarreling in the Cabinet, and therefore must request to be allowed to give up my office and retire from the Government.

I am pledged up to the eyes to large reductions of expenditure, and I cannot change my mind on this matter. If the foreign policy of this country is conducted with skill and judgment, our present huge and increasing armaments are quite unnecessary, and the taxation which they involve perfectly unjustifiable. The War estimates might be very considerably reduced if the policy of expenditure on the fortifications and guns and garrisons of military posts, mercantile ports and coaling stations was abandoned or modified. But of this I see no chance, and under the circumstances I cannot continue to be responsible for the finances.

I am sure you will agree that I am right in being perfectly frank and straightforward on this question, to which I attach the very utmost importance: and, after all, what I have written is only a repetition of what I endeavoured to convey to you in conversation the other day.

Believe me to be

Yours most sincerely, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

Early the next morning both Ministers left Windsor and returned to London. Lord Randolph bought, as was his custom, a number of newspapers, but found that neither he nor Hamilton had any change. The train was about to start, and the bookstall keeper, who knew both his customers by sight, cried: ‘Never mind, my lord--when you come back next time will do.’ Lord Randolph looked sideways at his companion and said, with a quaint smile, ‘He little knows I shall never come back.’

It happened that at this time Sir Henry Wolff was at home from his Egyptian mission, and he and Lord Randolph consorted together daily. Both went down to the City on Wednesday, the 22nd; for the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to pay an official visit to the Master of the Mint. Lord Randolph proposed returning by the Underground Railway, and it was while they were pacing the platform, waiting for a train, that Wolff asked some chance question about the Treasury intentions. ‘Upon my word,’ said Lord Randolph abruptly, ‘I don’t know now whether I am Chancellor of the Exchequer or not.’ But otherwise he never told a soul--not Beach, his trusted friend; not Chamberlain, his ally; not his mother; not even his wife. Lord Salisbury’s answer did not come till eight o’clock on Wednesday. He had delayed in order to write to his principal colleagues, sending copies of Lord Randolph’s letter, made laboriously with his own hand, and perhaps just in order to delay. It is certain that he did not regard the matter as settled. He wrote to Beach on the 21st that he was not sure whether Lord Randolph would persist. He sent no word to the Queen. Yet his answer, when it came, seemed conclusive. It proposed no compromise; it did not even suggest an interview; and the expression of regret with which it closed might apply either to the actual resignation or to the expressed intention to resign:--

Hatfield House, Hatfield, Herts: December 22, 1886.

My dear Randolph,--I have your letter of the 20th from Windsor. You tell me, as you told me orally on Thursday, that 31 millions for the two Services is very greatly in excess of what you can consent to; that you are pledged up to the eyes to large reductions of expenditure, and cannot change your mind in the matter; and that, as you feel certain of receiving no support from me or from the Cabinet in this view, you must resign your office and withdraw from the Government. On the other hand, I have a letter from Smith telling me that he feels bound to adhere to the Estimates which he showed you on Monday, and that he declines to postpone, as you had wished him to do, the expenditure which he thinks necessary for the fortification of coaling stations, military posts and mercantile ports.

In this unfortunate state of things I have no choice but to express my full concurrence with the view of Hamilton and Smith, and my dissent from yours--though I say it, both on personal and public grounds, with very deep regret. The outlook on the Continent is very black. It is not too much to say that the chances are in favour of war at an early date; and when war has once broken out, we cannot be secure from the danger of being involved in it. The undefended state of many of our ports and coaling stations is notorious, and the necessity of protecting them has been urged by a strong Commission, and has been admitted on both sides in debate. To refuse to take measures for their protection would be to incur the gravest possible responsibility. Speaking more generally, I should hesitate to refuse at this time any supplies which men so moderate in their demands as Smith and Hamilton declared to be necessary for the safety of the country.

The issue is so serious that it thrusts aside all personal and party considerations. But I regret more than I can say the view you take of it, for no one knows better than you how injurious to the public interests at this juncture your withdrawal from the Government may be.

In presence of your very strong and decisive language I can only again express my very profound regret.

Believe me

Yours very sincerely, SALISBURY.

Lord Randolph Churchill never doubted the meaning of the answer he had received, and treated it as a formal acceptance of his resignation. He concluded, as will appear, that the delay had been due to communications with the Queen, and that the whole matter was now ended. He sat down at once and wrote to Lord Salisbury a letter of farewell:--

Carlton Club: December 22, 1886.

Dear Lord Salisbury,--I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of to-day’s date accepting my resignation of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer.

I feel sure you will believe me when I express my deep and abiding appreciation of the unvarying kindness which you have shown me, and of the patience and indulgence with which you have always listened to the views on various public matters which I have from time to time submitted to you.

The great question of public expenditure is not so technical or departmental as might be supposed by a superficial critic. Foreign policy and free expenditure upon armaments act and react upon one another. I believe myself to be well informed on the present state of Europe, nor am I aware that I am blind or careless to the probabilities of a great conflict between European Powers in the coming year. A wise foreign policy will extricate England from Continental struggles and keep her outside of German, Russian, French or Austrian disputes. I have for some time observed a tendency in the Government attitude to pursue a different line of action which I have not been able to modify or check.

This tendency is certain to be accentuated if large estimates are presented to and voted by Parliament. The possession of a very sharp sword offers a temptation, which becomes irresistible, to demonstrate the efficiency of the weapon in a practical manner. I remember the vulnerable and scattered character of the Empire, the universality of our commerce, the peaceful tendencies of our democratic electorate, the hard times, the pressure of competition and the high taxation now imposed; and with these factors vividly before me I decline to be a party to encouraging the military and militant circle of the War Office and Admiralty to join in the high and desperate stakes which other nations seem to be forced to risk.

Believe me, I pray you, that it is not niggardly cheese-paring or Treasury crabbedness, but only considerations of high state policy which compel me to sever ties in many ways most binding and pleasant.

A careful and continuous examination and study of national finance, of the startling growth of expenditure, of national taxation resources and endurance, has brought me to the conclusion from which nothing can turn me, that it is only the sacrifice of a Chancellor of the Exchequer upon the altar of thrift and economy which can rouse the people to take stock of their leaders, their position and their future.

The character of the domestic legislation which the Government contemplate in my opinion falls sadly short of what the Parliament and the country expect and require. The foreign policy which is being adopted appears to me at once dangerous and methodless; but I take my stand on expenditure and finance, which involve and determine all other matters. And reviewing my former public declarations on this question and having no reason to doubt their soundness, I take leave of your Government, and especially of yourself, with profound regret, but without doubt or hesitation.

Yours most sincerely, RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.

After writing this letter he went down to the Times office, imparted his priceless information to Mr. Buckle, authorised him to make it public, and so to bed. Lord Salisbury received this second letter at half-past one in the morning of the 23rd, and realised that the breach was definite. He posted the news at once to the Queen; but he was already too late. With the first light of the morning the announcement appeared in the Times.

This action of Lord Randolph Churchill in resigning the office he held in such a manner and on such an occasion has two aspects--a smaller and a larger. Both are partly true: neither by itself is comprehensive. The smaller aspect is that of a proud, sincere, overstrained man conceiving himself bound to fight certain issues, at whatever cost to himself--believing at each movement that victory would be won, and drawn by every movement further into a position from which he could not or would not retreat. The larger aspect deserves somewhat longer consideration. The differences between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his colleagues were matters of detail and might easily have been compacted. The difference between the Leader of the House of Commons and the Prime Minister was fundamental. It must be plain to the reader who has persevered so far. It glows through the correspondence included in this chapter. It was a difference of belief, of character, of aspiration--and by nothing could it ever have been adjusted. There were many considerations and influences which worked powerfully for their agreement. In the Union they found a common cause; in Mr. Gladstone they faced a common antagonist. Lord Randolph’s fiercest invective did not jar upon the ‘master of flouts and jeers.’ Neither could be insensible to the personal fascination of the other. Both rejoiced in a wide and illuminating survey of public affairs; both dwelt much upon the future; both preserved a cynical disdain of small men seeking paltry ends. But the gulf which separated the fiery leader of Tory Democracy--with his bold plans of reform and dreams of change, with his record of storm and triumph and slender expectations of a long life--from the old-fashioned Conservative statesman, the head of a High Church and High Tory family, versed in diplomacy, representative of authority, wary, austere, content to govern--was a gulf no mutual needs, no common interests, no personal likings could permanently bridge. They represented conflicting schools of political philosophy. They stood for ideas mutually incompatible. Sooner or later the breach must have come; and no doubt the strong realisation of this underlay the action of the one and the acquiescence of the other.

I have tried to show that this profound difference found expression on many specific points. The Cabinet of 1886 had sat together only five months, yet here already were five important matters of disagreement:--The policy to be pursued in the East of Europe; the complexion of the Local Government Bill; the attitude towards the Whigs; the character of the Budget; and lastly, the direct cause of rupture, the expenditure upon armaments. Longer association threatened merely a multiplication and aggravation of divergences. But though patience could not have ended in agreement, it might have brought disagreement to another end. And it is from this point of view that Lord Randolph Churchill’s action requires most careful examination.

The differences upon specific points, regarded singly, were serious; and together they became vital. But they were differences less of principle than of degree. No clear and abrupt dividing-line was presented; and the questions were always of ‘more or less,’ not of ‘yes or no.’ Why should Lord Randolph Churchill not, then, have kept his offices? Would he not, by so doing, have had a much better chance of imparting to Conservative policy the complexion he desired? Much was to be gained by waiting. Every day his position was becoming more assured. At every stage and turn of Cabinet discussion he could have laboured to deflect the course of legislation; and the House of Commons might be guided more easily than his colleagues. In a hundred small ways he could, without any breach of confidence, have served the ends he had in view. But his gorge rose at it. It was almost impossible to him to defend courses of which he disapproved: and in the position he held every act of the Government must be constantly and whole-heartedly defended by him. Imagination might foresee this new Administration, which he more than any man had called into being, drifting irresistibly towards military ambitions and European entanglements, ending perhaps at last in war: and in all this he must be the principal agent--the man who had to make the House of Commons consent. No--at the very outset a decision must be taken and a pacific and progressive domestic policy established. Without that assurance the honours and amenities of power--and no one enjoyed them more--seemed valueless; and the money--a matter, as we have seen, in itself from other points of view of much consequence--a thing not to be considered for a moment.

Of course, he hoped the others would give way--would, at any rate, make some considerable concession, which would leave him proportionately strengthened. ‘With respect to Local Government,’ he wrote to Mr. Chamberlain on the 19th, ‘I pressed Lord Salisbury and Mr. Goschen very hard to give up the idea of ex officio representation, and’ (a significant sentence) ‘possibly my arguments may not be altogether without effect.’ How could they do without him? Who was there to fill the Treasury? Could Smith make head against Gladstone in Parliament? Was Lord Salisbury the man to maintain the alliance with the Chamberlain of 1886? Would Stanhope vindicate the Government in the constituencies? Balfour was unknown: Beach was ailing: Goschen was ‘very hard to please’: and the Whigs doubtful and contrary. Beyond all question he was the most powerful and efficient instrument at the disposal of the Prime Minister--probably, as it seemed, the only instrument which would be effective. And since so powerful and necessary, and moreover being possessed of a complete scheme and temper of political thought largely accepted among the people, he was bound to put it to the proof whether he should not exert an influence upon policy compatible with his public pledges and proportioned to his usefulness to the Government. But still a more patient man would have waited.

Undoubtedly he expected to prevail. What he asked was in itself a small thing: ‘Cannot this vote for coaling stations, for instance, stand over till next year?’--some petty economy; but still an economy, and an economy in armaments. He knew that if they had wished to meet him, they could easily have compounded. Reductions greater than would have kept him, were made after he was gone. And since it was thus revealed that his colleagues did not wish to act with him, what a prospect of vexation and disappointment and special pleadings the future unveiled!--unless the matter could be settled at the very beginning and a peaceful and progressive policy assured.

It seems, however, very surprising that Lord Randolph Churchill should at this period have overlooked the anger and jealousy that his sudden rise to power had excited. In little more than a year two Administrations had been formed from the Conservative party. In the making of both of these his influence had been almost supreme; and it had been an influence which, from the point of view of ordinary Parliamentary promotion, had been disturbing and even revolutionary. Men who in quieter tunes would have received office had been disappointed. Others who had enjoyed what they considered almost prescriptive right, had been forced out. The former leader of the Conservative party had been driven from the House of Commons. Mr. Matthews had been raised from private life to one of the highest posts in the Cabinet. This one, hitherto unknown, had been jumped up: that one, so long respected, had been thrust down. Malice proved a stronger motive power than gratitude; and, although unquestioned success had crowned the struggle, bitterness and resentment gathered behind the conqueror.

Nor, indeed, do we think he should have counted much upon the good-will of the plain member. He was often--and seemed to be, more often still--in things political a hard man, reaping where he had not sown, severe to exact service and obedience, hasty in judgment, fierce in combat; and many a black look or impatient word had been remembered against him by those of whose existence he was perhaps scarcely conscious. Friends he had in plenty--some of them true ones; but, for all the personal charm he could exert at will, his manner had added to his enemies. Venerable Ministers saw a formidable intruder who had entered the Cabinet by adventurous and unusual paths. Austere Conservatives shrank from this alarming representative of the New Democracy. Worthy men thoughtlessly slighted, tiresome people ruthlessly snubbed, office-seekers whose pretensions had been ignored, Parliamentary martinets concerned for party discipline, all were held in check only so long as he was powerful. His position had been won by the sword, and he must be armed to keep it.

Yet at this moment, when he proposed to try conclusions with all the strongest forces in the Conservative party, he seems to have taken no single precaution to safeguard himself. He gave the Cabinet long and ample notice of his intention. He reiterated his determination at intervals through the autumn. He knew that Smith and Hamilton took counsel together: he knew that they had prevailed upon Lord Salisbury; and that if in the end they should resist stubbornly, their resistance would not be ill-considered or unprepared. Upon the other hand, he made no effort to rally his own friends. A third at least of the Government were men of his own choice. Beach would have made great exertions on his behalf. But no one was consulted. He was in constant and intimate intercourse with Chamberlain. Their views at this tune were almost identical; their relations most cordial. Yet he gave him no knowledge of the situation, nor dreamed of inviting his support: so strictly--quixotically even--did he interpret the idea of Cabinet loyalty.

Few men then alive were more skilled in political tactics, or knew better how to deal with a crisis. If he had made up his mind to break with the Government, there were many ways in which the severance might have been made effective. First, as to time. I have said a more patient man would have waited; a more unscrupulous man would most certainly have waited. The power of a Leader of the House of Commons whose chief is in the House of Lords, always immense, is far greater when Parliament is sitting. He is the general in the field at the head of the army. The other waits at home, trying to make what he can of the despatches. Moreover, the House of Commons, for all its staid and sober qualities, is sometimes, and was particularly in times like these, an organism of impulse. A sudden announcement; a brilliant and persuasive speech; powerful support coming from an unexpected quarter; panic, emotion, or excitement, and fine majorities may crumble into dust.

He could with perfect ease and candour have postponed the issue; and had he done so the danger to the Government must have been enormously increased. He resigned, however, at Christmas-time, when politicians were scattered far and wide on their holidays, when the temperature was low, and when three clear weeks intervened before the reconstructed Government would have to meet Parliament, and before he would have an opportunity of explanation. It was scarcely possible to have chosen a season better suited to the interests of his colleagues or more unpromising to his own.

Then as to the ground of battle. I have tried to show that this insignificant reduction of a military vote, on which he insisted, was the peg upon which the tremendous issues of a peaceful domestic administration as against an ambitious foreign policy supported by growing armaments depended. But what a bad peg to have chosen! Granted a divergence not to be compacted between Lord Randolph and the Cabinet, how many more promising issues presented themselves! Questions of Local Government, questions of Coercion, questions of taxation, rose thorny and menacing on every side. Indeed, it is clearly evident that Lord Randolph neither formed a deliberate plan nor expected to supplant Lord Salisbury or overthrow the Government; but that, on the contrary, in so far as he was careful at all, he was more careful of their interest than of his own.

There is scarcely any more abundant source of error in history than the natural desire of writers--regardless of the overlapping and inter-play of memories, principles, prejudices and hopes, and the reaction of physical conditions--to discover or provide simple explanations for the actions of their characters. It would be a barren task to set forth the motives of this affair in a schedule. Yet the main causes emerge--shadowy perhaps, but unmistakable. Lord Randolph Churchill did not think of himself as a man, but rather as the responsible trustee and agent of the Tory Democracy; and this temper, overpowering even the most attractive personal associations, impelled him by deliberate steps--yet not without deep despondency--towards a fateful issue: and all the while a feeling, partly of sombre pride, partly of loyalty, forbade him to take the necessary and obvious steps to protect himself. Ambushes, intrigues, cabals, might suit the free-lance of Fourth Party days; but an official leader of a great party could only state the terms on which his assistance could be obtained, and, if it were not worth while to grant them, could only go.

It may no doubt be observed that this was the highest imprudence; that it agreed very little with much that he had done before, and not at all with the impression formed in the public mind. If he had put away for a season his pledges and his pride, both might have been recovered with interest later on. As it was, he delivered himself, unarmed, unattended, fettered even, to his enemies; and therefrom ensued not only his own political ruin, but grave injury to the causes he sustained. Yet it is noteworthy that he never repented of the course he had taken. Bitterly as he regretted the consequences, and felt the abuse and misrepresentation of which he was the object, and the exclusion from the fascinating and exciting life into which he had been drawn, he was not wont by word or letter to admit that he was wrong to resign, or assert that, having again the opportunity, he would do otherwise. He looked upon the action as the most exalted in his life, and as an event of which, whatever the results to himself, he might be justly proud. ‘I had to do it--I could be no longer useful to them.’

It should, indeed, not escape notice that there was among the principal characters in English politics during this momentous time a high and disinterested air, very refreshing in contrast with the humiliating antics of the place-hunters and trinket-seekers who surrounded them, and more admirable than the selfish ambitions of the statesmen of a sterner age. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach refuses the Leadership of the House of Commons, and insists upon serving under a younger man who in his opinion can better fill the place. Sir Stafford Northcote in the interests of party union voluntarily effaces himself in a peerage. Lord Salisbury twice offers to be a member of a Hartington Administration, and Lord Hartington twice refuses to be the First Minister of the Crown. Sir Henry James on a matter of principle severs himself from Mr. Gladstone and refuses the Woolsack. Lastly, Mr. Chamberlain leaves the party of which he must one day have been the leader, relinquishes the great office and power he had already obtained, and, confronted at every step by distrust and pursued at every step by obloquy, sets forth upon his long, eventful pilgrimage. Among all these indications of the healthy and generous conditions of English public life, so full of honour for our race and of vindication for its institutions, the resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill need not suffer by any impartial comparison.

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