John Bright : a monograph

Front matter

A MONOGRAPH

R. BARRY O'BRIEN

CORNELL

Contents

CHAPTER PACE

Preface vii

I. Introductory i

Chapter I

Why should I write a monograph on John Bright ? What is there in common between the Enghsh Puritan statesman and an Irish Cathohc NationaHst ? Had a stranger entered my father's house in the West of Ireland forty years ago, the first object which would have met his eye was a bust of John Bright. Why was it there ? Because alone among leading English statesmen, at that time. Bright fearlessly identified himself with the Irish popular cause. His speeches were a revelation to me. They breathed, one might almost say, a spirit of revolt against English injustice in Ireland, and defiantly demanded that the wrongs of the people should be redressed. In 1866 he spoke at a banquet in Dublin given, in his honour, by the Irish popular party. His speech produced a great impression, and many passages in it have often been quoted since. Only twelve months had elapsed since the Fenian State trials had taken place; and the Habeas Corpus Act was still suspended. Bright dealt sympathetically, courageously, with the situation.

His remarks were not much relished in England, but they struck a responsive chord in the hearts of the Irish people. He said :

It is a country [Ireland] where there has been, for generations past, a general sense of wrong, out of which has grown a state of chronic insurrection ; and at this very moment when I speak, the general safeguard of constitutional Hberty is withdrawn, and we meet in this haU, and I speak here to-night, rather by the forbearance and permission of the Irish executive than under the protection of the common safeguards of the rights and liberties of the people of the United Kingdom.

I venture to say that this is a miserable and a humiliating picture to draw of this country. Bear in mind that I am not speaking of Poland suffering under the conquest of Russia. ... I am not speaking about Hungary, or of Venice as she was under the rule of Austria, or of the Greeks under the dominion of the Turk, but I am speaking of Ireland — part of the United Kingdom — part of that which boasts itself to be the most civilised and the most Christian nation in the world.

The following passage has never been forgotten :

You will recollect that when the ancient Hebrew prophet prayed in his captivity he prayed with his window opened towards Jerusalem. You know that the followers of Mahommed, when they pray, turn their faces towards Mecca. When the Irish peasant asks for food, and freedom, and blessing, his eye foUows the setting sun ; the aspirations of his heart reach beyond the wide Atlantic, and in spirit he grasps hands with the great Republic of the West.

In 1865 Mr. Gladstone had said that the Irish

Church Question was not within the range of practical pohtics. This is how Bright dealt with the subject in 1866:

But some others say that there is no ground of complaint, because the laws and institutions of Ireland are, in the main, the same as the laws and institutions of England and Scotland. They say, for example, that if there be an Established Church in Ireland, there is one in England and one in Scotland, and that Nonconformists are very numerous both in England and in Scotland ; but they seem to forget this fact, that the Church in England or the Church in Scotland is not in any sense a foreign Church — that it has not been imposed in past times, and is not maintained by force — that it is not in any degree the symbol of conquest, that it is not the Church of a small minority, absorbing the ecclesiastical revenues and endowments of a whole kingdom ; and they omit to remember or to acknowledge that if any Government attempted to plant by force the Episcopal Church in Scotland or the Catholic Church in England, the disorders and discontent which have prevailed in Ireland would be witnessed with tenfold intensity and violence in Great Britain.

On the Land Question, as on the Church Question, he went to the root of the matter. He said :

And these persons whom I am describing also say that the landlords in Ireland are the same as the landlords in England. It would be easy to show that the landlords in England are bad enough, and that but for the outlet of the population afforded by our extraordinary manufacturing industry, the condition of England would in all probability become quite as bad as the condition of Ireland has been ; but

B 2 if the countries differ with regard to land and the management of it in their customs, may it not be reasonable that they should also differ in their laws ?

In Ireland the landowner is the creature of conquest, —not of conquest of eight hundred years ago, but of conquest completed only two hundred years ago ; and it may be well for us to remember, and for all Englishmen to remember, that succeeding that transfer of the land to the new-comers from Great Britain, there followed a system of laws, known by the name of the Penal Code, of the most ingenious cruelty, and such as, I beUeve, has never in modern times been inflicted on any Christian people. Unhappily, on this account, the wound which was opened by the conquest has never been permitted to be closed, and thus we have had landowners in Ireland of a different race, of a different religion, and of different ideas from the great bulk of the people, and there has been a constant and bitter war between the owners and occupiers of the soil. . . .

But Ireland has been more than this; it has been a land of evictions — a word which, I suspect, is scarcely known in any other civilised country. It is a country from which thousands of famihes have been driven by the will of the landowners and the power of the law.

In 1868 the first edition of Bright's Speeches, edited by Professor Thorold Rogers, was published. I read the book with avidity. In fact, it became my constant companion. I first came to London in 1869. The one English celebrity whom I felt most anxious to see was John Bright. At the time the name of Gladstone was in every man's mouth, especially in every Irishman's mouth, for he had come into office in 1868 pledged to disestablish the English Church in Ireland. But he held a secondary place in my thoughts. Bright held the first place, because, living in the midst of a hostile population, he had, for nearly a quarter of a century, fought the Irish cause almost single-handed. Gladstone had only just taken it up, and taken it up under the pressure of a great Irish revolutionary organisation — the Fenian Society. Bright had needed no such pressure to persuade him to demand justice for the Irish people.

On March 23, 1869 — the night of the division on the Church Bill — I paid my first visit to the House of Commons. I was taken into the lobby by Sir Coleman O'Loghlen, then member for the County Clare. We stood at the top of the passage leading to the cloak-room and saw the members as they came up to enter the House. Gladstone walked briskly by. * There is Gladstone,' said OToghlen; and the Prime Minister, hearing his name, turned quickly round, waved his hand to OXoghlen, and then passed into the House, his face beaming with the joyful anticipation of coming victory. I waited for some time longer at the top of the passage leading to the cloak-room in the hope of seeing Bright, but he did not come. I then wandered about the lobby for some hours. At length my chance came, and about 11 or 12 o'clock I got into what was then called the Speaker's Gallery. The House was packed (as the saying is) from floor to ceiling. The galleries were thronged. There seemed to be scarcely standing room. It was an animated and an exciting scene. In front of the despatch-box at the end of the table, on the Speaker's left, a member stood, delivering a rattling speech. Then there were cheers and counter-cheers. ' That 's Gathorne Hardy,' I was told. It did not take me long to discover that he was attacking the Bill. By his side sat one whose remarkable and curious face at once fixed my attention. Indeed, while I listened to Hardy I looked at him. His head rested against the top of the bench, his eyes were closed.

He seemed to be asleep. Something attracted his attention ; he woke up, fixed a large eyeglass in his right eye, holding it the while between the thumb and forefinger, looked steadfastly for a second in a particular direction, then removed the glass, leant back on the seat, and apparently fell asleep again. * That 's Disraeli,' some one said. Opposite to him sat Gladstone, whom of course I quickly recognised again. He seemed to me to be the most restless man I had ever seen. He did not sit still for a minute. At one moment he placed the right foot on the left knee, and then in an instant reversed the position, placing the left foot on the right knee. He put his head back on the seat, not, however, to fall asleep, like his great rival, but to lean forward immediately afterwards to take a note. He spoke to his companion on the right and to his companion on the left. He rested not for an instant, and I expected every moment that he would spring to his feet to interrupt Hardy. But he did not do that. Hardy rattled away, and Gladstone chafed under restraint until his time came. Immediately on the left of Gladstone, so far as I can now recall, was John Bright. His splendid leonine head was, I thought, the noblest object in the House of Commons that night. He was stately and dignified. He sat upright and looked straight in front of him. The lines of the mouth were drawn down, and the expression was earnest, defiant, severe, with a touch of contempt and scorn, when Tory cheers greeted the belligerent periods of the fiery Hardy.

During Hardy's speech Bright looked, in the main, unconcerned. Sometimes the arms were folded, sometimes the elbow of the right arm rested in the palm of the left hand and the uphfted fingers stroked the chin. Mr. Gladstone turned to him now and then, but without, so far as I could see, eliciting much response. His attitude was upon the whole decidedly impassive. He had spoken on March 20, and the speech has generally been accounted one of his finest efforts ; but I had not the good luck to hear it. I may, however, by way of compensation for this loss, consider myself fortunate in having heard Gladstone's reply to Hardy on this memorable night. When Hardy sat down, Gladstone sprang to his feet, and the cheers which greeted the rising of the Prime Minister mingled with those which applauded the termination of Hardy's oration. Gladstone clutched the sides of the despatch-box with both hands, and so stood, while cheers and counter-cheers rang through the House. Sometimes he stepped back from the despatch-box as if to begin his speech, but then the cheers grew louder than ever, and he resumed his former attitude. At length the cheers died gradually away, and Gladstone began in words, and with voice and gesture, which I shall never forget. Hardy had said hard things of Ireland, and I wished to see this Tory enemy annihilated, but I never dreamt that the work of destruction would be so rapid and complete. In six sentences. Hardy was laid low. So I thought ; and so, clearly, the Liberals thought, by the extraordinary burst of cheering which greeted the last of these sentences. The Tories were perturbed and cried—' Oh ! Oh ! ' Hardy looked angry and discomposed. Gladstone began in sonorous tones, accentuating the words ' remarkable and deplorable ' with wonderful effect, looking at his own followers below the gangway the while :

Mr. Speaker— I think. Sir, that both sides of the House must be agreed at least in this — that the right hon. gentleman who has just sat down has drawn a picture of the state of Ireland which is equally remarkable and deplorable.

He went on, assuming a narrative tone, and wheeUng sUghtly round so as to face the men on the back benches above the gangway:

The right hon. gentleman's picture consists of two parts. On the one side he looks at the system of law, government, and institutions in Ireland, and there all is weU. On the other hand he looks at the people of Ireland — at the religion of the people of Ireland, at the relations between the people of Ireland and the ministers of their religion— and there, unfortunately, all is ill.

Next with a rapid change of voice, and grave and solemn expression, he continued :

Mr. Burke said in one of his memorable compositions that he did not know how to bring an indictment against a nation.

Pausing for a moment he wheeled round again, faced the front Tory Bench, struck the despatch-box lightly with his hand, waved the hand towards Hardy, while, with concentrated energy, and in voice which rang through the chamber, he broke forth :

For bringing an indictment against a nation commend me to the right hon. gentleman.

The Liberals cheered again and again, and the applause lasted for several minutes. Gladstone tried impatiently to get on, but in vain. There he stood at the despatch-box, his face glowing with animation and triumph. The cold page of Hansard can give no idea of the effect of these six sentences delivered in Gladstone's superb style. Indeed, the delivery was half the battle — and the battle went ill for Hardy. At the conclusion of Gladstone's speech the House divided on the second reading, which was carried amid tumultuous applause by a majority of 368 against 250 votes.

After this night I did not see Bright again until about 1876, and I did not meet him to speak to until some years later. In 1880 I published a little pamphlet entitled ' The Irish Land Question and EngHsh Pubhc Opinion.' I sent him a copy. He wrote to me in ackowledgment :

One Ash, Rochdale : Jan. 9, 80.

[Private.]

Dear Sir, — I thank you for sending me your pamphlet. It is very good, and must be useful wheresoever it is circulated and read.

On this question of the I^and, the difficulty would not be great. All might be done which is not of a revolutionary character, and the present time seems favourable for such changes as are possible without violence and by consent of the Imperial Parliament,

I shall probably take some early opportunity of discussing the Irish Question, which is in reality the Irish Land Question.

I am, yours sincerely,

John Bright.

R. Barry O'Brien, Esq.,

Temple, London.

In 1880 I wrote a book entitled * The Parliamentary History of the Irish Land Question.' According to my wont I sent a copy to Bright, who replied :

Reform Club, Pall Mall, S.W. : Nov. 10, 80.

Dear Sir, — I thank you for the gift of your Uttle book. I have read it through carefully, and have found it very interesting. I wish all the members of Parliament could read it. I mean the members of both Houses.

I am, truly yours,

John Bright.

R. Barry O'Brien, Esq.,

The Temple.

On November 16, at a great meeting at Birming:ham, he said :

... I have been reading within the last week a very interesting little volume written by Mr. Barry O'Brien. I saw in the papers to-day or yesterday that there is a letter pubHshed from Mr. Gladstone in which he writes to Mr. O'Brien acknowledging the receipt of his Uttle volume. It is a volume that makes you absolutely miserable to read. Not that there is anything shocking in it — no catastrophe, no assassination, or conspiracies of bloodshed. That is not it. It details what has been done in both Houses of Parliament from the year 1829 to the year 1869, the year before the passing of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Land Act, and for those forty years he gives you an account of the efforts which were made

ONE ASH,

ROCHDALE

London : Pijblishbd by Smith, Eldeb, ds OOh 18 Waterloo Piacb.S W.

Ml ,

/I, /^MA^y C^^ncct^ ^

If Mc^ C^l*^^ ' Cii^ty J- jCfU.irtx by some honest men to convince the ParUament of England that some better and wiser legislation should be afforded to meet the intolerable and growing sufferings of Ireland, and he shows how all these appeals to Parliament were constantly rejected.

On the publication of ' Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland' in 1883, I received the following letter:

One Ash, Rochdale: Oct. 4, 83.

Dear Sir, — The handsome volume you have sent me reached me last evening. I occupied a portion of the evening in reading it. I am sure I shall find much valuable matter in its pages, and I wish it could be read extensively in England and in Ireland.

Ireland needs to be informed as well and as much as England, but whilst England is willing to learn and is now well disposed, a large portion of Ireland is not willing to learn, and has put itself into the hands of men whose purpose is that it shall only learn what is hostile to England and as I think most injurious to itself.

As to the future, I do not take so gloomy a view as many speakers and writers do. I believe in just measures and in their effect, and in time and patience, and I am ready to hope and even to believe that within a reasonable period we shall see a change for the better in Irish afiairs.

If men will read your history of the fifty years, they will know more of Ireland, and may make more allowance for the present unhappy state of the relations between her and the more powerful Island.

I thank you for your kindness in sending me your Book. I hope it may be extensively read, and extensively useful.

I am, very truly yours,

John Bright.

R. Barry O'Brien, Esq.,

4 New Court, Carey Street, London.

II

It was in 1884 that I first met Bright. I wanted to examine some papers at the Record Office, and thought that I would seek his help to obtain the necessary permission from the Secretary of State. I wrote, asking for an appointment. He replied in the affirmative, and one day in March I called on him at his well-known lodgings, 132 Piccadilly. I found him sitting in his dressing-gown at a table in a large room facing the Green Park. There was a book before him — Plowden's 'History of Ireland.' As I entered he rose. I advanced ; he touched my hand coldly, and said, ' Sit down.' I drew a chair to the table, and sat beside him and explained my business. He said, ' I do not see why you should not be allowed to see these papers. I think that they should be thrown open to everyone. The people ought to know what is going on.' He added, ' I shall speak to the Home Secretary about you ' — a pause — ' if I think of it.' I thought this proviso, ' if I think of it,' characteristic. I had always been told that Quakers were very precise in their statements, lest they should say what was not accurate, and very particular in their promises, lest the promises might not be kept. Bright then, placing his hand on the book, said :

They say I have lost aU interest in Ireland since I voted for coercion, as they call it ; stiU, I have been reading this book all the morning. The history of Ireland has always interested me.

During our conversation Bright showed no bitterness in talking about Irish affairs. On the contrary, he seemed to regret the fact that he was no longer, as in former days, in touch with the Irish popular representatives. He dwelt on the ' violence ' of the

* Land League/ I said, ' Nothing has been done for Ireland without violence/ He said, ' Yes ; do not suppose that I object to violence. I do not, if it rests on a moral basis.' I said, ' The claims of the Irish tenants rest on a moral basis.' He replied,

* Certainly, but the acts of the League are not moral. If they were, I should subscribe to its funds myself.'

He spoke of the Irish World, and said suddenly,

* Why, that feUow Ford sends me his paper every week. Would you like to see a copy of it ? '

I said, ' Yes.' He rose, went to a drawer, took out a copy of the Irish World, and spread it out over Plowden's 'History of Ireland.'

' There it is,' he said with a smile, ' and I read it regularly.'

I reminded him that he had entered Parliament in 1843, that in that very year the Devon Commission was appointed, that it reported in 1845, that he had read the report and evidence of the Commission, and that he had constantly advocated the cause of land reform in Ireland, but that nothing had been done by Parliament, and that he had spoken to his fellow-countrymen on the Irish Land Question in vain. It was only, I said, under the pressure of the Fenian movement that the Land Act of 1870 was passed, and the State Church disestablished. ' Ah ! ' he said, suddenly turning to the Church Question with a vehemence which astonished me, as the question had long been a dead issue, ' the Irish State Church was a great scandal. It was the most unjust and scandalous institution ever established in any country/ Then he made a Uttle speech of eight or ten minutes, summing up the case against the Church with as much earnestness and eloquence as if the subject was still under public consideration. ' Well/ he said after some further talk, ' I should like to visit Ireland again ; I should like to make a speech to the Irish people again/ I said, ' Why don't you ? ' He repHed, ' They would not Usten to me/ I said, ' I think that you are mistaken, they would listen to you. They are a very fair-minded people, and would listen gladly to you. Remember Mr. Forster's speech at TuUamore. They listened to him with great patience, yet he had given them cause not to listen to him.' ' That is quite true,' said Bright ; ' they did give Forster a fair hearing. But I am too old to make speeches now.' Then, apropos of nothing, he said, * I am dining with Mrs. Drummond to-night — the widow of Thomas Drummond, about whom you speak so well in your book.' This was an agreeable surprise to me, for I had no idea that any members of Drummond's family were alive, and said so. Bright said, ' Yes, his widow and two daughters are living.'

I had heard that Bright was an unapproachable man ; that he was intolerant of differences of opinion, impatient of contradiction and argument ; and that he generally called the people who did not agree with him ' fools.' I must say that my recollection of this my first interview with him is in every way pleasant. He was agreeable and homely, listened to aU I had to say and showed a disposition to meet every point fully and fairly. The three most remarkable politicians whom I have met were Parnell, Gladstone, and Bright. If I may, I should describe the conversational characteristics of each thus : Parnell listened and seldom talked, Gladstone talked and seldom listened, Bright talked and listened.

A few days after our interview I received the following letter from him :

132 Piccadilly: March 14, 1884.

Dear Sir, — I was dining on Wednesday with Mrs. Drummond, the widow of Mr. Drummond the Secretary in Dublin of whom you have spoken highly in your book.

If you can call upon Mrs. Drummond, she will be glad to see you. I think a little conversation with you would please her. She is a lady of much intelligence and right principles, and has much sympathy with your country. I spoke to her of your book, and of your desire to be of service to her country and to your own.

Her address is i8 Hyde Park Gardens.

Yours very sincerely,

John Bright.

R. Barry O'Brien, Esq.,

4 New Court, Carey Street.

From this time until his death the relations were pleasant between myself and the great English Tribune.

When he feU seriously ill in 1888, I wrote to him expressing my solicitude for his recovery. I received a cordial reply from a member of his family, for he was himself then too ill to write. A few days afterwards he passed away. In the House of Commons, on March 29; 1889, it fell to the lot of Mr. Justin

McCarthy to speak for Ireland in memory of one who, for the best part of his life, had courageously advocated the cause of justice to the Irish people. Mr. McCarthy said:

Any words of mine must come like an anti-climax after the noble eloquence of the right hon. gentleman the member for Mid-Lothian. But my colleagues and I feel that if on this occasion no voice were to be raised from the benches on which we sit, our sUence might possibly be misconstrued, or at least be misunderstood. It is at least possible that if we remained silent it might be thought that because of late years we had not Mr. Bright's sympathy and support for our national cause, we were unwiUing to associate ourselves in the tribute all other parties are pa5dng to his career and to his memory. Mr. Speaker, the Irish Party is not so wanting in generosity, and the memory of the Irish people is not so short. We regret — we deeply regret — that we had not of late years the unspeakable advantage of Mr. Bright's sympathy and support, but we are not thinking much of that just now — we are not desirous of thinking of it. In our ordinary experience of life we often find that impressions made long ago remain abiding and imperishable, while the events which occurred the day before yesterday are already forgotten. So we feel, so we wish to feel, for the great public and private career of Mr. Bright. Our memory goes back to the time when he championed our Irish cause with an eloquence and a sincerity never surpassed in the struggle for any great purpose whatever. We cannot but remember that he was our champion and our advocate at a time when we had nothing like the amount of sympathy and support, in this House and out of it, which, thanks aUke to friends and enemies, we possess to-day. We remember, too — ^we must remember — that

i6 some of the most superb, the most magnificent, illustrations of his immortal eloquence were given to champion the cause of the suffering Irish peasant, and to awaken in this country a sympathy with the Irish cause. Bearing in mind all these things, and others I will not go through, we feel we cannot remain silent on an occasion like the present. Remembering, then, what he did for Ireland in days gone by, and with the full conviction, alluded to by the First Lord of the Treasury, that every one of Mr. Bright's views was conscientious and sincere, we desire to associate ourselves with the tribute paid in this House to his memory, and we claim the right of Ireland to lay her immortelle, her mourning wreath, on this great Englishman's grave.

Chapter II Early Days ; Member For Durham

Readers of biography are, as a rule, impatient of family history. They Uke the biographer to come at once to the point. Well, in the case of John Bright they shall be gratified.

The Brights were of Quaker stock. The story is told how, on one occasion, Sydney Smith, while looking critically at the unfinished portrait of a celebrated Nonconformist divine, said to the artist, 'Do you not think that you could throw into the face a stronger expression of hostility to the Established Church ? '

The Brights disliked Established Churches everywhere. An ancestor of Bright, John Gratton, left the EstabUshed Church of England and became a Friend, violated the Conventicle Act in the reign of Charles II, and was imprisoned for over five years in Derby gaol. He was released by James II, and lived imtil 1711. John Bright was very proud of John Gratton, because John Gratton had suffered for the faith that was in him.^

^ * I was/ says John Gratton, ' a prisoner for the Gospel's sake, about five years and a half before I was set at liberty by King James II.

EARLY DAYS

The Bright family seem to have come originally from Wiltshire.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Abraham Bright married Martha Jacobs, and migrated to Coventry, in Warwickshire. Their great-grandson, Jacob Bright, was born at Coventry in 1775. He became the apprentice of a small cotton manufacturer, named William Holmes (whose daughter he ultimately married), at New Mills, Derbyshire.