June 10, 1885.
My dear Lord Randolph,—Lord Salisbury has asked me to tell you that he would be very glad to talk to you on the general position, if you would call on him: and I very much hope that no such ideas as those which you seemed to entertain this afternoon will prevent you from doing so.
I feel convinced (though I am not authorised to give you more than my own belief) that he has asked no one to call on him, and that his reason for not doing so is that he thinks that to do so would be to usurp the position of leader, which no one has as yet conferred on him.
It would be simply ridiculous that this idea on his part, combined with your idea as to ‘place-hunting,’ should keep you two apart just now.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Hicks-Beach.
And the next day, on the eve of his departure to Balmoral, Lord Salisbury himself wrote:—
Confidential.
20 Arlington Street, S.W.: Thursday, June 11, 4.45.
My dear Churchill,—I have just received a communication which makes me anxious to see you. Could you call on me to-night after dinner, or to-morrow morning?
Yours very truly,
Salisbury.
Lord Randolph thought it better to defer his visit until after Lord Salisbury had seen the Queen. His opinion had already been given as to the conditions under which it would be desirable for the Conservatives to take office, and was involved in the decision to try to turn out the Liberal Government by means of the Irish vote on the Beach Amendment. He had nothing new to say about that. If Lord Salisbury should decide not to undertake the commission, there would be no necessity to raise the thorny and painful questions connected with Sir Stafford Northcote.
In ordinary circumstances Lord Salisbury’s course would have been simple. He would have advised a dissolution of Parliament. This solution was, however, impossible until November, owing to the Franchise and Seats Acts. Therefore his legal and constitutional right of recommending a dissolution was in abeyance; and, upon the other hand, the party of which he was the head would be compelled, if he took office, to carry the Budget, Supply, and other indispensable business of the year through a House of Commons in which they were in a minority of nearly 100. Lord Salisbury was so impressed by the difficulty of the situation that he went to Balmoral with the intention of declining to form a Government.
At Balmoral, however, the Queen persuaded him to make the attempt if Mr. Gladstone would not resume; and several attempts to induce Mr. Gladstone to resume having failed, Lord Salisbury accepted the duty and returned to London to discharge it. His first care was to seek from Mr. Gladstone an assurance of support in the measures absolutely necessary to bring the session to a close. The negotiations were protracted for many days; but eventually Mr. Gladstone agreed that facilities for expediting Supply might reasonably be provided, so long as the liberties of the House of Commons were not placed in abeyance; and he added the assurance that there was no idea on the part of the Opposition of withholding the Ways and Means required for the public service. During this discussion Lord Salisbury addressed himself to the formation of a Government. He forthwith invited Sir Stafford Northcote to become Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons; and Sir Stafford Northcote agreed. He asked Sir Michael Hicks-Beach to be Colonial Secretary; and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach agreed. Lord Salisbury then applied to Lord Randolph Churchill, whom he desired to take the India Office. But Lord Randolph refused to join the Government if Sir Stafford Northcote continued to lead in the House of Commons.
From this position nothing could move him. He remained silent and stubborn. While Lord Salisbury was still undecided whether to go on without him or not, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach intervened. He was, in his own words, ‘deeply impressed with the conviction that Lord Randolph Churchill’s active assistance as a member of the Government was vital to any hope of Conservative success at the General Election, for his popularity with the new electorate was greater than that of any other member of the party’;[29] and therefore, as soon as he learned that Lord Randolph had refused to join, he told Lord Salisbury—though without Lord Randolph’s knowledge, and entirely without pre-arrangement of any kind—that in the altered circumstances he could not join either. The dead-lock was again complete.
The narrative must here be somewhat interrupted, so far at least as chronology is concerned, to admit Lord Randolph Churchill’s own account of his action. He left behind him a considerable memorandum from which I quote all that is relevant to this situation.
‘In the events,’ he wrote (as I should judge, early in 1889, though the paper is undated), ‘which led to the formation of the Conservative Government in June 1885, I bore a part, and am induced to record my recollection of their nature; for one reason among others, that in my belief they were the main cause which led to the adoption by Mr. Gladstone of the policy of Repeal.
‘In the spring of 1885 it was a matter of notoriety among well-informed and studious politicians that the question as to the expediency of the renewal by the Government then in power of the Irish Crimes Act—which was to expire in September[30]—was one on which the Cabinet could come to no agreement. In the speeches which I made in the month of May at the St. Stephen’s Club and at Bow I endeavoured by diffuse examination of the question to do what I could to add to the difficulties which in connection with this subject embarrassed the Ministry.
‘My remarks at the former place were followed by a decisive intimation from Mr. J. Morley that he would oppose any measure for the renewal of any portion of the Crimes Act. This intimation practically terminated the duration of Mr. Gladstone’s Government. Agreement in the Cabinet on this question became impossible. The Ministers determined to court defeat in Parliament as a method of escape from the dilemma by resignation. A General Election was impending and the Opposition eagerly clutched at any opportunity of discrediting and defeating the Liberal party, and with this eagerness I was in thorough accord. Two attempts to place Ministers in a minority failed—one arising out of the events in the Soudan, the other out of a dispute concerning election expenses and local rates. A third attempt, against the Budget, met with unexpected success. The hostility of the licensed victuallers, who considered themselves aggrieved by Mr. Childers’s financial proposals, and the almost admitted connivance of Lord Richard Grosvenor, then the Head Whip of the Liberal party, secured the absence from the division of some sixty or more members of the Ministerial forces. The Government was placed in a minority and resigned.
‘The Opposition now found themselves in a position of immense difficulty, and though the difficulty had been foreseen by the leaders it was not on that account in any degree diminished.
‘The difficulty was twofold: personal and political.
‘1. For a long time there had been a division of opinion in the Conservative party on the question of the leadership—on the question as to whether Lord Salisbury or Sir Stafford Northcote ought to be the head of any Conservative Administration which events might bring into existence. While, on the one hand, there was a unanimous recognition by the party of the sterling worth and high character of the latter, there was, on the other, an equally unanimous but certainly not equally expressed opinion that he was indisposed by nature and training to place himself in entire harmony with the intense and acute party polemics of the moment; that he was, as he once admitted in a public speech, "deficient in go"; and that Lord Salisbury, though he was much less personally known to members of the House of Commons and much less popular than Sir Stafford, was more qualified for the conduct of a pitched battle such as we had to face.
‘I had identified myself with this latter opinion, and had expressed it publicly and privately in one way and another since the year 1883. In that year I had committed myself to such an extent that my action was much resented by the party in the House of Commons, who adopted and presented to Sir Stafford an address expressing their full confidence in and great admiration of him. My belief is that in this controversy, the existence of which was notorious, the principals had no share; that Sir Stafford and Lord Salisbury behaved with the utmost loyalty to each other, and remained throughout on the most intimate and friendly terms.
‘In June 1885, the crucial moment came. Mr. Gladstone resigned. "Whom would the Queen send for?" was a question in everyone’s mouth. Lord Salisbury was sent for. His intention was, if he formed a Government, that Sir Stafford should become Leader of the House of Commons. To this proposition, when proper opportunity offered, I declined to agree, adhering to my former opinions as to the indisposition of Sir Stafford for acute party warfare. Whether I was right or wrong I do not argue; public opinion in the party and outside was certainly not with me, and soon after, and since, I have been strongly drawn to the conclusion that I was in error. The fact remains for record: I declined to take office unless there was a change in the leadership of the party in the House of Commons.
‘My conviction is that Lord Salisbury was most reluctant to attempt to form a Government. It was most distasteful to him to be brought into any conflict with Sir Stafford, to be preferred above him—thus shattering what had been Sir Stafford’s great and honourable ambition. Finally, when it was demanded of him that he should put a slight upon Sir Stafford, and depose him from the leadership of the party in the House of Commons, Lord Salisbury almost determined to renounce the duty imposed upon him by the Sovereign. For days the matter was in suspense. Conversations, suggested arrangements, even intrigues were rife in the Carlton and in the Lobby. I have only a general and second-hand knowledge of what then went on. I kept entirely aloof, saw hardly anyone, and took no part in the controversy beyond what I had originally taken. Ultimately representations were made to Sir Stafford—how and by whom I do not know—which induced him to consent to accept the sinecure office of First Lord of the Treasury and a peerage with the title of Earl of Iddesleigh and Viscount St. Cyres. All I do know is that in these pourparlers Lord Ashbourne (then Mr. Gibson) was very busy and prominent and that he constantly and to many expressed his astonishment and displeasure that the susceptibilities or predilections attributed to Sir Stafford should form any obstacle to the formation of a Conservative Government. At that time Mr. Gibson exercised considerable influence with the Conservative party in the House of Commons.’
Lord Randolph seems to have overrated the importance of the part played in these negotiations by Mr. Gibson, though there is reason to believe that his influence was, so far as it was effective, exerted—and properly exerted—in the direction described. It is probable that Mr. Smith was the principal agent. Like other colleagues who sat beside him on the Bench, he knew, perhaps better than Sir Stafford Northcote’s family, how often the progress of heart disease incapacitated the Leader of the Opposition from Parliamentary work, and sometimes even reduced him to a lethargic condition. Mr. Smith had recently taken Sir Stafford for a long cruise in his yacht, the Pandora, and had the best reasons for judging his true condition, as well as the best right to make representations to him about it. But to return to Lord Randolph.
‘The second part of the difficulty,’ proceeds the memorandum, ‘which confronted Lord Salisbury was political and arose entirely out of the question whether it was or was not essential and necessary to seek from Parliament a renewal of the expiring Irish Crimes Act. This question had been more than once discussed in small conciliabules before the fall of Mr. Gladstone’s Government, and a sort of decision arrived at. I alluded publicly to the subject in a speech I made at Sheffield in the following September. But the former semi-decision did not help Lord Salisbury much when the actual crisis came. The whole question was again gone over with great care. Mr. Gibson in this difficulty was the real arbiter. He was the principal, and indeed the only, adviser to whom Lord Salisbury and his friends could have recourse for Irish information. In all the recurring debates on the state of Ireland and on the Irish land legislation which had marked the preceding sessions since 1880 he had been the real leader, and with him naturally it rested now to decide practically this grave and difficult question. I use the adjective "grave" because I believe that the decision not to attempt to renew the Crimes Act, more than any other event, finally determined Mr. Gladstone no longer to resist Repeal, and by some process or calculation not open to ordinary persons led Mr. Gladstone to the conclusion that there was a real working alliance arrived at between the Tories and the party of Mr. Parnell, the legitimate results of which would be proposals by the Tory Government in the nature of very large concessions to the Irish in the direction of Repeal.
‘My own part in the matter was to express no opinion beyond what was contained in the following formula, from which I never departed, and which was accepted by Lord Salisbury and his friends: If it is decided that the state of Ireland is such as to require the further continuance of the Crimes Act, then the Conservative party cannot accept office, as the period of the session and the Parliamentary weakness of the party preclude the possibility of their passing through the House of Commons the necessary measure. If a contrary decision is arrived at—viz. that the Act may be allowed to expire—then the Conservative party might succeed the Liberal Government with safety and advantage. It was well known that personally I would not have taken office had it been thought necessary by a Conservative Government to attempt to renew the Crimes Act.
‘Such was the nature of the difficulty which Lord Salisbury had to solve. I repeat my impression that he was most reluctant to form a Government. The personal difficulties alluded to above deterred him, and the recollections of Lord Derby’s Ministries of 1852, 1858, and 1866 were heavily against an attempt to carry on the business of the country without the support of a majority in the House of Commons. The pressure, however, from the local organisations in the country was strong to cause him to undertake the unattractive duty, and the prevalent feeling of the party in Parliament was in accord with this pressure.
‘For the decision he ultimately arrived at I can claim little responsibility and in it I had little or no share. I had no prepossession one way or the other, unless it was that the precedent set by Mr. Disraeli in 1873 under similar circumstances, and the apparent results of Mr. Disraeli’s action, were very vividly before my mind. I would have consented with equal cheerfulness to one decision or the other; nor do I believe that either decision would have affected numerically the results of the General Election which took place in November.
‘Looking back on those events after January 1886, and after the resolution arrived at by Mr. Gladstone to introduce a measure for the Repeal of the Union, I came to the conclusion that in June 1885, we had been most unfortunately inspired. I can trace a clear connection of cause and effect between Lord Salisbury’s accession to office in 1885 and Mr. Gladstone’s new departure in 1886.’
For five days uncertainty and rumour were supreme. Lord Randolph maintained an unbroken reserve. Good friends who had knowledge of what was going forward pressed him hard. Those who cared about his career thought he was ruining himself. Even Sir Henry James, a political opponent, but a personal friend, was provoked to address him.
The letter is interesting for its frank recognition that ‘Tory Democracy’ was a faith of its own.
Sir Henry James to Lord Randolph Churchill.
Temple: Saturday Morning.
My dear Friend,—I am so afraid that you are about to make a grave mistake, most injurious to your interests, that I must intrude my thoughts upon your breakfast.
I assume Salisbury ‘accepts the commission’; of course he will offer you office. If there be any definite measure—say the Crimes Act—which he insists upon and you object to, you will be quite justified in refusing office. For you will have a justification which you can make public, and everyone will give you credit for having acted according to your principles and conscience. But if your reasons are indefinite—say, for instance, because you cannot obtain a declaration in favour of a Liberal Toryism—you will have no explanation to give which the public will ever be able to understand. Between this and November no policy can be carried into effect by legislation, and so it is scarcely possible that any difference existing between the Salisbury Tories and yourself could be brought to a practical issue. And so, if you now refuse office on theoretical grounds which you can never explain, you will obtain the credit amongst the whole Tory party of having plotted against Salisbury and of having prevented him and them from coming into office. It will be time enough for you to fight the battle of Tory Democracy when some action (by way of legislation or administration) is taken adverse to the principles you hold.
Surely you ought to be catholic now, and let all shades of Toryism enjoy a gleam of success. If you do not, you will much endanger the cause of ‘Tory Democracy’; for although you can at any time be the leader of a Democracy, your power with the Tory element will be sadly shaken.
Ever yours,
H. J.
Men who presume to deal with great affairs must cultivate an unyielding disposition. It is easy to withstand the reproaches or attacks of opponents; but the honest advice of a friend and well-wisher at once disinterested and experienced saps the foundations of judgment. There was one appeal which must have greatly disturbed Lord Randolph. Nothing in his private life was more striking and constant than his affection for his mother and his respect for her opinion. ‘I have been thinking,’ she wrote (June 14), ‘very quietly and calmly over your position, and I think you might go to see Lord Salisbury before his meeting, to show him your friendly feeling while you maintain your own position. You see, in the winter you felt acutely he did not consult or notice you. He may say on this critical occasion he came to you before anyone else and offered you one of the highest places in his Cabinet, and you refused your assistance. Yesterday he sends his secretary to bid you to go to his meeting. This, from reasons, you are obliged to decline. But do you not think you owe him some explanation?... He told you to consider his offer; so that, it seems to me, you are almost in duty bound to go to see him; and if you simply refrain from going, he will think you decidedly hostile. There is no doubt he is in a very difficult position, and may say you require not any policy or special measure, but simply that he should kill an old friend whom all respect.... I do hope you may be guided rightly.’
But Lord Randolph Churchill remained unresponsive. No communication of any kind passed between him and Lord Salisbury until the crisis was ended.
‘At this time,’ writes a Bencher of the Middle Temple, ‘an event occurred which strangely evidenced the strength of Lord Randolph’s popularity. But a description of the scene needs some explanation. Amongst the Inns of Court the Middle Temple is fortunate in the possession of a Hall grand in its construction and rich in evidence of associations extending over seven centuries. In this Hall, during Term time, the barristers and students dine. From amongst the barristers a governing body, called the Benchers, is selected. On the Grand Day of the summer Term the Benchers entertain distinguished guests at a sumptuous banquet held in the Hall. On these occasions Benchers and guests enter the Hall walking two and two, in procession, to the Daïs, upon which they dine. After the dinner is concluded, in like procession they leave the Hall, walking throughout its full length from the Bar to the door which leads to the Parliament Chamber.
‘A Grand Day of the Middle Temple occurred on June 10, 1885. Never before or since has so remarkable a company gathered within that Hall.
‘Nearly every Bencher was present, for fifty-five were there. Amongst them were the Prince of Wales and his eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, who on that day was called to the Bench. But many distinguished visitors were also present, for amongst the guests were the Archbishop of Canterbury, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, Lord Derby, Lord Cranbrook, Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. John Bright and other leading politicians; and yet it seemed as if there was only one of whom the gathering was thinking—and he was Randolph Churchill. The first sign of the great interest was shown when the loving-cup was being handed round; for when it was placed in Lord Randolph’s hands and he stood up to drink from it, the whole assemblage in the body of the Hall sprang to their feet and cheered him vociferously. No such demonstration had ever occurred in the Middle Temple Hall. And, again, when the dinner was concluded and the Benchers and their guests, walking two and two, proceeded to leave the Hall, a still more marked demonstration took place. The Royal Princes passed almost unheeded, whilst the Hall rang with shouts of "Randolph!" "Randolph!" "Churchill!" "Churchill!" No other name was uttered. It seemed as if all present wished to show that they regarded him—and him alone—as being the political victor of the hour.’
Yet, in contrast with these signs of triumph, what inward misgivings darkened Lord Randolph Churchill’s mind! In the presence of a trusted friend he dropped with relief his mask of unconcerned reserve and revealed himself plunged for a while in one of those fits of despondency which so often followed or preceded the crisis and action of his life. ‘I am very near the end of my tether,’ he said to this friend who met him at the Turf Club in these anxious days. ‘In the last five years I have lived twenty. I have fought Society. I have fought Mr. Gladstone at the head of a great majority. I have fought the Front Opposition Bench. Now I am fighting Lord Salisbury. I have said I will not join the Government unless Northcote leaves the House of Commons. Lord Salisbury will never give way. I’m done.’ To the remark that Lord Salisbury could not form a Ministry without him he answered drily, ‘He can form a Ministry if necessary with waiters from the Carlton Club.’ His companion on this proceeded amiably to suggest that if all was really over with the Conservative party, Liberalism offered a wide field for the activities of a Tory Democrat. ‘Ah, no!’ said Lord Randolph in utter pessimism, ‘Chamberlain and the Birmingham Caucus will swallow you all. It is they who will govern the people of England for the future.’ ‘The working classes must have leaders.’ ‘Yes, but they will not want aristocrats.’
The whole country was agog about the political interregnum and busy in the fascinating employment of Cabinet-making. Two main opinions were focussed by the newspapers—one was for a Cabinet of ‘old and tried public servants,’ to maintain an orderly and decorous Government during the few months that must elapse before the election; the other for a ‘Cabinet of Compromise,’ which should include the Tory Democrats and secure their powerful aid in the coming fight. But meanwhile the business of the House of Commons was not wholly interrupted and a curious Parliamentary incident occurred. On the evening of the 15th Mr. Gladstone proposed to consider, before adjourning, the Lords’ amendments to the Seats Bill. He moved accordingly; but on the question being put Sir Henry Wolff at once moved the adjournment of the debate. He pointed out that the Lords’ amendments were matters of substance and importance—as, indeed, they were—and ought not to have been inserted by them into the Redistribution Bill. He declared that such matters could not be decided upon in the absence of a responsible Government or a responsible Opposition. Sir Charles Dilke replied on behalf of the Government that the insertion of these amendments in the Redistribution Bill had the approval of Lord Salisbury himself, and was, in fact, adopted to avoid inconvenient delay. Sir Stafford Northcote thought it right to confirm the statement that it had been agreed that the matter should be dealt with in the Redistribution Bill instead of by a separate Bill. But the Fourth Party were not inclined to change their minds on that account. Mr. Gorst argued against haste without good reason for haste. Lord Randolph also spoke sharply in favour of the adjournment. What were the leaders of the so-called constitutional party about that they should tolerate the transaction of important business connected with reform under prevailing conditions? He also accused the Government bluntly of having produced the difficulty by procuring defeat.
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach then got up from the Front Opposition Bench and, to the astonishment of his colleagues on the Treasury Bench, spoke in favour of the adjournment and against his leader. In the division the Conservative party split into puzzled fragments, and persons who thought they might be Under-Secretaries—and in such circumstances they are a respectable body—suffered acutely. Thirty-five members voted with Sir Michael and Lord Randolph for the adjournment. Sir Henry Wolff and Mr. Gorst were their tellers. The rest, with Sir Stafford Northcote at their head, went into the Government lobby to support Mr. Gladstone. Sir Henry Wolff’s colleague in the representation of Portsmouth was a venerable member of the orthodox Conservative party. As he passed the Front Opposition Bench on his way to vote with Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Stafford Northcote said reproachfully: ‘These are the times when one can tell one’s friends.’ ‘At such a crisis,’ replied the old gentleman ruefully, ‘and with such an election before us, the representation of Portsmouth must be undivided.’
This was the end. Two days later it was formally announced that Sir Stafford Northcote would retire to the House of Lords and that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach would lead the House of Commons. It has been asserted that this division settled the struggle and that Lord Salisbury, confronted with this plain proof that Sir Stafford Northcote’s leadership would not be accepted by a powerful and active section of his party, capitulated to Lord Randolph Churchill. This is not quite true. No doubt the division clinched the issues; but the personal negotiations which resulted in Sir Stafford’s elevation were already far advanced; and he himself notes in his diary of June 15: ‘This has apparently been my last night in the House of Commons.’ Indeed, there seems to have been less design in the affair than is commonly supposed. Few people—even among the most intelligent and informed—will believe how much in modern English politics is settled by the accident or caprice of the hour. Lord Randolph Churchill had often voted and spoken against the leader of the Opposition before. He thought the acquiescence in Mr. Gladstone’s wishes on this occasion stupid, and he said so. He thought the House should adjourn without transacting business and he voted in that sense. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was party to no plot. He did not enter the House until late and had not heard Sir Stafford’s speech. He gathered from the debate that the Fourth Party and the ‘Janissaries’ were attacking the Government and he supported them on general principles. Not until he sat down did he learn what he had done. Moreover, before the division had taken place Lord Salisbury’s hopes of a settlement were already so good that he had sent the following letter to Lord Randolph Churchill:—
Private.
20 Arlington Street, S.W.: June 15, 1885.
My dear Churchill,—I was very sorry you were not able to come to our meeting this morning. The general sense of those present, with one or two exceptions, was that we could not well refuse to take office, after all that has happened this year, if the Government have finally determined not to resume it. Still I think everyone present recognised that in a party sense this obligation was a misfortune.
Though I fear I must draw an unfavourable inference from your absence, I still venture to express a hope that you will allow me to put down your name for the Indian Secretaryship on the list which I must submit to the Queen on Wednesday.
I should be very glad to talk these matters over if you like to come and see me. I shall be in all the morning.
Yours very truly,
Salisbury.
Lord Randolph replied as if nothing had happened:—
2 Connaught Place: June 16, 1885.
Dear Lord Salisbury,—I am deeply sensible of the extreme kindness towards myself which you show me by your letter received this morning, and if not inconvenient to you I will do myself the honour of waiting upon you about eleven o’clock to-day.
Believe me to be
Yours most sincerely,
Randolph S. Churchill.
That the interview was friendly and in the main satisfactory may be inferred from the following letter written later in the day, which shows, among other things, that in the hour of victory Lord Randolph Churchill was not inclined to desert those who had worked with him:—
2 Connaught Place: June 16, 1885.
Dear Lord Salisbury,—I do hope you will not be annoyed if I add to your many difficulties by these few lines. Of course, since I saw you this morning I have thought about little else than all that you were kind enough to say to me on many subjects. I do feel very uneasy indeed about Wolff and Gorst, and I cannot think that I have submitted to you their position as regards myself with the urgency which they are entitled to expect from me. If it were possible for you to consider whether it might not be in your power to recommend Wolff for the high dignity of a Privy Councillor I should be easy in my mind about him, and I venture to press this desire of mine upon you.
Gorst ... knows his powers, his position in the House, his hitherto barely recognised claims, and it makes me perfectly wretched to feel that it must occur to his mind that his failure to obtain that for which so many persons of knowledge consider he is fitted in every way is due to lukewarmness on my part. If I did not know what the general feeling of the House of Commons will be as regards myself on this point, I would have hesitated to trouble you; but I am certain that if with respect to these two cases things remain in the position you gave me to understand this morning they would be, I shall be considered to have failed my friends, and my powers, whatever they may be, of being useful to your Government will be impaired.
Yours most sincerely,
Randolph S. Churchill.
Lord Salisbury, thus appealed to, consented to submit Mr. Gorst’s name to the Queen for the office of Solicitor-General and Sir Henry Wolff’s for a Privy Councillorship. When the lavish hand with which high appointments were distributed among persons who had borne no share in the battle is remembered, it cannot be said that these rewards were disproportioned to services or talent.
The difficulties within the Conservative party were now settled; but the delays in the formation of the Government and consequent uncertainty were prolonged in order to extract from Mr. Gladstone further assurances in regard to the passage of necessary public business while the Government were in a minority in the House of Commons; and meanwhile Lord Salisbury retreated to Hatfield. Of the interviews and negotiations incidental upon this, a complete account was afterwards given to Parliament; and on June 23 the acceptance of office by Lord Salisbury and the composition of the Ministry, the main features of which had become generally known, were formally announced, and the constitutional and party crisis came to an end.
‘What a triumph!’ wrote Mr. Chamberlain on June 18, when the issue became apparent. ‘You have won all along the line. Moriturus te saluto.’ And with this an important chapter in Lord Randolph Churchill’s life may be conveniently closed.
‘This is no man of system, then; he is only a man of instincts and insights. A man, nevertheless, who will glare fiercely on any object; and see through it, and conquer it; for he has intellect, he has will, force beyond other men. A man not with logic-spectacles; but with an eye!’—Carlyle on Mirabeau, French Revolution, bk. iv. ch. iv.
THE first trials of a Prime Minister are often the most severe. The most formidable obstacles lie at the beginning. Once these have been surmounted, the path is comparatively smooth. Nearly all the rest of Lord Salisbury’s life was spent at the head of the Government. In a period of seventeen years he filled for more than twelve the greatest office in the State. Four separate Administrations were formed under his hand. Responsibilities not less grave than those of 1885, far more important legislation, wide acquisitions of territory, vast decisions of peace and war attended their course. But, as with Mr. Pitt, the first two years of his service perhaps exceeded in personal stress all the years that were to follow. And it is probable that no part of those two years was more clouded with anxious perplexity than the autumn of 1885. His own position was not assured. Public confidence in his character and judgment had yet to be won; his authority within his party had yet to be consolidated. That party itself had struggled back to power, weak in numbers, nervously excited by its efforts, upon curious and compromising terms. It was torn by the very inspiration that revived its strength. It awaited in acute apprehension an imminent and momentous election, the result of which no man could foretell. Very different were those after-years, when the old statesman, towering above his colleagues in the Cabinet and commanding the implicit obedience of his followers, had gathered patiently together round the standards of Conservatism almost all the strongest forces in the country.
Yet while resources were still slender the difficulties and dangers of the situation were tremendous. The dispute with Russia about the Afghan boundary was in its most critical stage. For at least two months the Cabinet faced the chance of war with a formidable military Empire. The triumphant Mahdi was ravaging the Soudan, and Egypt, withdrawn behind her narrowest frontiers, was threatened without and utterly disorganised within. The British finances were oppressed by a deficit. Ireland smouldered. All the elements of Irish national life were banded together under the supreme authority of Parnell and that efficient Protestant rebel was methodically preparing his campaign for an Irish Parliament. In the English provinces Mr. Chamberlain, released from such partial restraint as official obligations had hitherto imposed, unfolded the ‘Unauthorised Programme’ to an exulting Radical democracy. And behind all ‘two million intelligent citizens,’ newly enfranchised, impatiently awaited the opportunity of casting their votes. Such were the perils and embarrassments amid which the ‘Ministry of Caretakers’ came into being. Nor was it strange that eminent politicians were willing to prophesy that after a brief and inglorious career they would be ‘swept off the face of the earth.’ But Lord Salisbury, reminding the House of Lords that several of the longest Administrations in English history had come into being under precarious conditions, and fortifying himself by the examples and experiences of Mr. Pitt in 1784, of Lord Liverpool in 1812, and of Lord Palmerston in 1855, addressed himself to his heavy task with serene determination.
The Fourth Party was translated bodily to a higher sphere. Lord Randolph Churchill became Secretary of State for India—at that time, with the exception of the Foreign Office, the most anxious and important of all Ministerial posts. Mr. Balfour, though not admitted to the Cabinet, was appointed President of the Local Government Board. Sir Henry Wolff was despatched on a special mission to Turkey and Egypt with wide and peculiar authority over the whole field of Egyptian affairs. Mr. Gorst accepted the position of Solicitor-General. Three out of the four friends who had worked together more or less harmoniously in Opposition were sworn Privy Councillors upon the same cushion; and it was also noticed that an unusual proportion of the thirty-five members who had voted with the Fourth Party in the division upon Sir Henry Wolff’s motion during the interregnum were included in the Government.
Lord Randolph’s popularity was enhanced by his promotion. Those commanding qualities which the House of Commons had so frankly accepted, and Tory Democracy so loudly proclaimed, were now recognised by persons and by classes who had hitherto schooled themselves to regard him merely as an unedifying example of irresponsible audacity. The vigorous assertions of youth were stamped with the seal of official authority and over all hung the glitter of success. His friends, old and new, hastened to offer their congratulations. One of his acknowledgments may be recorded:—
June 25, 1885.
Dear Mr. Tabor,—I was so pleased to receive this morning your kind letter and I trust that your congratulations may be to some extent justified by results. As it is the fact that whatever of success I may have attained is mainly owing to the six years which I passed at Cheam, may I ask as a favour for a holiday for all those young gentlemen who are now deriving from you similar advantages to those which befell me? It would be a pleasure to me to know that I have not asked anything which was not in your power to grant.
Yours most sincerely,
Randolph S. Churchill.
Now that Lord Randolph had accepted ‘an office of profit under the Crown’ his seat at Woodstock was vacated and he had to submit himself to re-election. The leaders of the Liberal party did not encourage opposition to Ministers in such circumstances at this juncture. When they had themselves forced upon the Conservative party the task of Administration, it seemed factious to impede the return of individuals necessary for that purpose. Moreover, they were sensible of the advantage which almost always accrues to anyone who is singled out for attack by the opposite side. But the personality of the candidate gave promise of distinction to his opponent, the nice balance of parties in the old Borough held out a hope of success, and Mr. Corrie Grant hurried down from London to voice the hot and not unreasonable resentment of the Radical rank and file. This gentleman appealed to the electors upon a single issue. It was not, he declared, a fight of politics against politics, or of principle against principle—it was a fight against a man. The statements and expressions which Lord Randolph had employed against the Liberal party, its leaders, and in particular Mr. Gladstone, made it necessary at all costs to challenge his return.
Because of the immense pressure of work at the India Office and also no doubt not to treat his opponent too seriously, Lord Randolph declared himself unable to take part in the contest personally and left his election entirely to his constituents and friends. He contented himself with a short address. Having never held office before, it was necessary for him to give double the time of more fortunate persons to acquiring knowledge of his duties. ‘Under these circumstances it is impossible for me to leave London and to go among you as has been on former occasions my practice and my pleasure. But I console myself with the recollection that I am no stranger to any of you, that for nearly twelve years my public life has been before you, and that on no occasion had I any reason to imagine that I had forfeited your confidence or gone against your general political sentiments.’ ‘Whatever may be, in your opinion, the position I now occupy, that position you have made; it is mainly your work. And that position I am perfectly certain no stranger or carpet-bagger or any hirelings from the Birmingham Caucus will persuade you to damage or destroy.’
The campaign was opened immediately and with determination on both sides. Sir Henry Wolff, Lord Curzon, Sir Frederick Milner, Mr. St. John Brodrick,[31] a nephew of the former Liberal candidate, arrived in Woodstock to support Lord Randolph; and the Opposition was aided by a zealous contingent from Birmingham to such an extent that at the opening meeting Sir Henry Wolff described Mr. Corrie Grant as ‘the delegate of Mr. Schnadhorst and Mr. Chamberlain.’ This statement caused Mr. Chamberlain annoyance and he wrote at once to Lord Randolph disclaiming all responsibility for the contest and any desire to cause him trouble. Lord Randolph replied as follows:—
To Mr. Chamberlain.
July 1, 1885.
I think the mention of your name in Wolff’s speech was either wrongly reported or else not in the least meant ill-naturedly.... In any case, no mischief is to be made by anyone between you and me as far as I am concerned. I was quite sure that you had nothing to do with the Woodstock contest, but even if you had, I never should have thought it anything else but perfectly fair and legitimate. In the meantime many thanks for your kind letter, which I much value. Don’t be angry with Wolff.
There were, notwithstanding, several reasons for uneasiness as to the result. The absence of the candidate was an undoubted drawback. The propaganda of Mr. Joseph Arch had produced a considerable impression upon a section of the labourers. A more formidable consideration was the attitude of the Duke of Marlborough. Lord Randolph’s father had wielded immense personal influence in the borough and had neglected nothing that might constitutionally be done to secure the return of his nominee. Two years before, the new Duke would no doubt have exerted himself to the utmost to help his brother; but the sale of the Blenheim pictures had produced a serious quarrel in the family. Lord Randolph had vehemently protested against the dispersal of so many of the treasures for which Blenheim had been famous and a complete estrangement had ensued. The Duke, moreover, after the opposition which had been threatened to his candidature for the Carlton, had relapsed into political independence. He now declared himself so strictly neutral during the contest that Lady Randolph and the friends who came down to fight the election for her husband, were fain for the first night of their arrival to shelter at the Bear Hotel. Sir Henry Wolff’s diplomacy soon proved equal to those difficulties. Friendly relations were restored; Blenheim opened its gates to the Conservatives; and the Duke, stung by a statement in the press that he had himself been a party to Mr. Corrie Grant’s candidature, finished by lending his carriages to convey Lord Randolph’s supporters to the poll. The election was nevertheless fought under some disadvantage as compared with former occasions.
But the Secretary for India found in Lady Randolph and in his sister, Lady Curzon, a mainstay of support and enthusiasm. ‘I should be very glad,’ he wrote to his wife on June 29, ‘if you could arrange to stay in Woodstock till Friday. If I win, you will have all the glory.’ Driving about the widely extended constituency in a smart tandem profusely decorated with pink ribbons, well known to most and with a smile for all, these ladies canvassed indefatigably from morn till night. Their Primrose badges—still an object of amusement in high Tory circles—were the first to be worn in actual political warfare; and their influence, supplying as it did that personal element without which enthusiasm is scarcely ever excited, became a factor in the fight, against which the eloquence of two Liberal ladies from Girton—specially imported to meet the emergency—was utterly unable to prevail.
The result of the election was announced on the evening of July 3:—
Lord Randolph Churchill 532
Mr. Corrie Grant 405
The majority for Lord Randolph Churchill was 127, or more than double that by which he had been returned in 1880. Needless to relate, the declaration of the poll was received with the utmost satisfaction by the crowd in front of the Bear Hotel, to whom Lady Randolph, Lord Curzon, Sir Henry Wolff, and later on Mr. Corrie Grant made brief but appropriate speeches; and the fact that over six hundred ‘result messages’ were despatched from the local post-office that evening showed the interest taken by the world at large in this the last of the Woodstock elections.
Even before Lord Randolph was re-elected for Woodstock, he was required in the House of Commons. Portentous extracts were read from his speeches as a private member, and his secretary in the House was cross-questioned about them. Did he still adhere to his charges against the Khedive? Were his views on Ireland what he had declared them to be at Edinburgh? To all such inquiries Lord Randolph sent a simple answer, which may be recommended to others similarly circumstanced: ‘I neither withdraw nor apologise for anything that I have said at any time, believing as I do that anything which I may have said at any time was perfectly justified by the special circumstances of that time, and by the amount of information I may have had in my possession.’
The new Ministers met Parliament with general statements of their views and intentions on July 6. In both Houses they made a good appearance. They achieved at once the requisite pomposity of public utterance, and handled power as to the manner born. To the Peers Lord Salisbury declared that the pledges of any British Government were sacred, and that all existing obligations would be faithfully observed in the further conduct of the negotiations with the Court of Russia. In answer to the taunt, made out-of-doors, that the Conservatives would postpone the date of the election for the purpose of prolonging their enjoyment ‘of what some persons are pleased to call the sweets of office,’ he invited Lord Granville to admit that the new Government had endeavoured to amend the Redistribution Bill so as even to accelerate the dissolution. Lord Carnarvon justified the attempt to govern Ireland under the ordinary law by statistics which showed the diminution of agrarian crime. He spoke of former statesmen who had failed in Ireland—‘so many that the wrecks of them lie strewn about’—and he seemed to wrestle modestly, but hopefully, against the conviction that he himself would be added to the number. In the Commons Mr. Bradlaugh again presented himself and was received by the new Leader of the House with the usual resolutions of prohibition and exclusion, affirmed by the usual majorities. The next day Sir Michael Hicks-Beach explained the few uncontentious legislative projects which the Government would try to carry through and asked for the time of the House to enable them to wind up the business of the Session. Mr. Gladstone declared that the request was not unreasonable and that he would himself endeavour to help the Ministry by his vote and by the example of his silence. Lord Randolph, in what is called ‘a statesmanlike tone,’ described the late Prime Minister’s conduct as magnanimous and considerate; and a Radical motion of want of confidence in the new Administration finding only two supporters, the prevailing harmony remained unbroken.
The position of the Government, faced by a large majority in nominal opposition, dependent upon Nationalist favour for the avoidance of defeat at any moment and on any question, mistrusted by many of their own friends, bitterly hated by Whigs and Radicals, and unable to escape from constant humiliation by resignation or dissolution, was one of extreme discomfort. But there seemed to be a kind of truce at Westminster, in vivid contrast to the rising strife elsewhere. Under such happy conditions, and with the cessation of Irish obstruction, the end of the Session proved curiously fruitful. The Budget was uncontroversial. The Government helped Lord Rosebery to carry his Secretary for Scotland Bill through both Houses. Lord Salisbury passed a measure dealing with the housing of the working classes, in spite of some murmurings among the Peers at its socialistic flavour. Mr. Balfour took charge of a Medical Relief Bill which ultimately became law, although the Liberal majority ‘improved’ it to such an extent that the Government disclaimed responsibility for it. Mutual concessions and genuine co-operation placed both a Land Bill and a Labourers Bill for Ireland upon the statute book. The Land Bill, or the ‘Ashbourne Act,’ as it was called, took extensive effect, and was the foundation and the precursor of all subsequent Land Purchase Acts, culminating in the Land Act of 1903. Sir William Harcourt and the new Home Secretary aided each other to effect most important amendments in the criminal law; and, finally, the Colonial Secretary, firmly refusing to allow the objections of New South Wales to defeat the wishes of the other Australian Colonies, succeeded in passing a Federation Bill which opened the door to a Commonwealth of Australia. Indeed, a Parliamentary Paradise, albeit enduring only upon sufferance, seemed to have sprung into being in the midst of a Political Inferno. The good sense and tolerance of the nation were gathered within the sheltering walls of Parliament, while discord, faction, and electioneering clamour reigned supreme outside.
One curious legislative feat must be recorded. An Irish Educational Endowments Bill had been brought down from the Lords and read a first time in the Commons early in the session (May 12) as one of Mr. Gladstone’s Government Bills. It had been practically abandoned before the change of Ministry. Not one of the members of the new Government had read a line of it; but Lord Randolph—interested as ever in Irish education—was persuaded by FitzGibbon, in the early days of August, that the Bill might be so altered as to make a useful measure and he exerted himself to salve the derelict. The difficulties seemed insuperable. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir William Hart-Dyke, indignant at a proposal to introduce important legislation in the last week of the last session of an expiring Parliament, refused to have anything to do with it. The Leader of the House only consented to allow the attempt upon the condition that the session should not be prolonged by a single day. The Bill had to be redrafted from beginning to end. It could not be advanced a stage without the concurrence of the Nationalist party. Three or four perfectly distinct and usually antagonistic sections of Irish opinion had to be conciliated and the negotiations between Lord Randolph and FitzGibbon on the one hand, and Mr. Sexton and Mr. Healy on the other, afforded some beautiful specimens of Hibernian diplomacy. All obstacles were surmounted. The Irish Attorney-General, Mr. Holmes—with whom Lord Randolph had made friends—undertook the conduct of the redrafted Bill. It was read a second time on August 11. The amendments, covering whole pages of the order paper, entirely altering the Bill from its original shape, unintelligible to everyone except the Minister who moved them and the two or three Irish members who discussed them, were considered on the 12th. On the 13th the Bill was recommitted, to introduce the necessary money clauses, read a third time and sent to the House of Lords: and the next day, on which the session closed, it passed and received the Royal Assent. None of its thirty-eight sections have given rise to any difficulty and during the nine years which followed its passing it was constantly renewed until the endowments and management of upwards of 1,350 Primary Schools and more than 100 Intermediate and Collegiate Institutions had been reorganised under its operation.
Mr. Holmes, the Attorney-General, like many others who worked under Lord Randolph Churchill, became warmly attached to him. Their joint labours on this Bill impressed him with the extraordinary power of conciliating persons and overcoming difficulties possessed by a man so often associated only with violence. Above all he admired his courage. ‘I feel,’ he wrote two years afterwards, when the leader of Tory Democracy was leader no more, ‘like one of Rupert’s soldiers serving under a Dutch Burgomaster.’
One harsh note jarred upon the ears of these Elysian legislators. The new Ministers had scarcely taken office before the shadowy relations which existed between the Conservative Government and the Irish party issued in a substantial form. Nationalist opinion in Ireland had long been excited over one of those dark and curious police cases the savagely disputed details of which are thrust from time to time before the House of Commons, to the bewilderment of British members. In August of 1882 a whole family of the name of Joyce had, with the exception of one young boy, been murdered under circumstances of peculiar atrocity at Maamtrasna. Ten men were arrested upon the evidence of three witnesses who professed to have seen them enter the house in which the crime was committed. This evidence was confirmed by two of the prisoners who turned approvers. After three successive trials three men were condemned to death and executed, and the remaining five, having pleaded guilty, received death sentences, afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life. So far the story was grimly simple. But it was now alleged that two of the murderers hanged had, in their dying depositions, declared the innocence of the third, Myles Joyce; while this man himself had protested always and to the last that he was not guilty. One of the informers next came forward and swore that he had been told by an official that his evidence would not be accepted by the Crown unless it applied to all the prisoners, that he was given twenty minutes to decide, and that then from ‘terror of death’ he had been induced to swear away the life of Myles Joyce. An appeal from the Archbishop of Tuam to the Lord-Lieutenant had led to an inquiry by Lord Spencer and this inquiry resulted in the conclusion that the verdict and sentence were right and just.
Hatred of a Coercion Viceroy and the profound distrust which divided all who administered the law in Ireland from the mass of the people, magnified this squalid tragedy into a political issue of importance. It was asserted that as a result of Coercionist procedure and the overweening desire of the Government to secure convictions, not only had an innocent man been done to death, but that some of those still in prison had been wrongfully convicted. When the case was raised in Parliament during the Autumn Session of 1884, the Government, representing the vote as one of confidence or want of confidence in Lord Spencer, refused all further inquiry. In this they were generally supported by both great parties and the Irish motion was rejected by 219 to 48. But Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Wolff, and Mr. Gorst had voted in the minority with the Nationalists and Lord Randolph had spoken strongly in their favour.
Almost as soon as the formation of the new Cabinet was complete Mr. Parnell moved (July 17) a resolution reflecting on Lord Spencer and demanding a fresh inquiry. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach opposed this resolution in the name of the Government; but at the same time he said that it was the right of every prisoner at any time to appeal to the Lord-Lieutenant for the reconsideration of his sentence. ‘The present Lord-Lieutenant [Lord Carnarvon] has authorised me to state that, if memorials should be presented on behalf of those persons referred to in this motion, they will be considered by him with the same personal attention which he would feel bound to give to all cases, whether great or small, ordinary or exceptional, coming before him.’ That was all; and it may not seem a very large concession to Irish national feeling, but it was enough to draw upon the head of the Minister a storm of reproach. Sir William Harcourt, undisturbed by the significant absence of Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilke, rose to express the indignation of the Liberal party that law and order should be subverted to political expediency and the decision of a Viceroy impugned. These sentiments were received with undisguised approval on the Conservative benches. Lord Randolph Churchill replied. So far as he was personally concerned his task would have been easy. He, at least, had consistently supported the Irish demand for an inquiry. He was to defend in office a smaller concession than he had urged in Opposition. But what with Ulster growlings, sympathetically echoed by the Tory party on the one hand, and on the other the plain need of Nationalist good-will, if peace and order were to be maintained in Ireland under the ordinary law, the path was not easy to find and perilously narrow to tread. His speech, in fact, resolved itself into a series of depreciatory comments upon Lord Spencer’s administration. Sir William Harcourt had spoken of it with pride. ‘We were proud of the administration of Lord Spencer.’ Who did ‘we’ include? It was the prerogative of royalty to speak in the plural number. Sir William Harcourt had once before electrified the country by claiming royal descent. Was it in that exalted character that he used the ‘we,’ or did he mean that the late Cabinet were united in their admiration of Lord Spencer’s Viceroyalty? The division list would show. For himself he had had no confidence in the administration of Lord Spencer. For that reason he had a year before voted in favour of an inquiry into this particular case. The new Government ought not unnecessarily to go out of their way to assume responsibility for the acts of the late Administration. They would now pronounce no opinion upon the merits of the case. The new Lord-Lieutenant would inquire carefully and impartially into it; and pending that inquiry, having full confidence in Lord Carnarvon, Ministers would vote against the motion of Mr. Parnell which seemed to prejudge the issue. On this Mr. Parnell rose at once and said that he was content to await Lord Carnarvon’s decision. He therefore asked leave to withdraw his motion. But the discussion did not terminate. The Ulster members and their friends—always so powerful in the Conservative party—were offended by the concession, small though it was, which had been made to their hereditary foes. The friendly tone of the Irish leader, and the Nationalist cheers with which Lord Randolph’s strictures upon Lord Spencer had been received, excited Orange wrath and Tory disapproval. Liberals who had smarted under the taunt ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ were not slow to retort ‘Maamtrasna Alliance.’ Mr. Brodrick, a young Conservative who had not been included in the new Government as his talents deserved, and who believed, perhaps with reason, that his exclusion was due to the fact that he had voted with Sir Stafford Northcote and against Lord Randolph Churchill in the interregnum division, expressed with much force the Conservative discontent. He was supported by the vehement outcry of an Ulster member. Mr. Gorst, who now for the first time defended the Government as Solicitor-General, unwittingly fanned the flames by allowing himself to use the candid but unfortunate expression ‘reactionary Ulster members.’ The stern reproaches with which Lord Hartington closed the debate, were endorsed by many Conservatives in the House and by an influential section of the party press.
The Maamtrasna incident was a factor in great events. It profoundly disturbed the Conservative party. It thrust the Whigs for a space back upon Mr. Gladstone. It prepared Mr. Gladstone’s mind for the reception of other impressions which were to reach him later. Upon Lord Spencer its influence was perhaps decisive; and the Viceroy who for three years had ruled Ireland with dignity and courage, yet with despotic power, whose name had become a synonym for the maintenance of law and order by drastic measures, finding the standard of Coercion abandoned even by Tory Ministers, came by one wide yet not irrational sweep to the conclusion that Home Rule in some form or other was not to be prevented. There can be no doubt that he was deeply wounded by Lord Randolph Churchill’s speech. Connected though they were by many ties of kinship, their friendly relations were not for several years repaired and were never perfectly restored.
Heavy censures have been laid upon Lord Randolph Churchill for his share in this affair. The Maamtrasna inquiry has often been described as part of the purchase price paid by the Conservative party to Irish Nationalism for power. On this a word may be said. Although no bargain of any kind existed, it is obvious that Lord Salisbury’s Government—which had come into office upon Nationalist votes, which was forced to govern Ireland by the ordinary law, and which possessed no majority in the House of Commons—was dependent largely upon Nationalist good-will. To preserve that good-will was vital to their power to bring the necessary work of the expiring Parliament to a creditable conclusion and to the success of their struggle with Mr. Gladstone. Many other issues of domestic and Imperial politics, far greater in their importance than Irish affairs, were at stake in the approaching election. The times were tempestuous; the need was great; the concession pitifully small. In the event, Lord Carnarvon received, considered, and in due course rejected the memorials which were sent him. No decision was reversed; no prisoners were released; but the Irish people, satisfied that the inquiry had been fair, accepted its conclusions. It would not be difficult, from another point of view, to justify on its merits an examination into the administration of justice in an island which for five years had lain in the grip of what was almost martial law, where the most elementary civil rights had been in abeyance and where nearly every safeguard of British judicial procedure had been destroyed—more especially when that examination was demanded by recognised representatives from a Government of which they were in a sense constituents. This is, however, to raise questions beyond the scope of these pages. The merits of the Maamtrasna inquiry will be variously appraised. Lord Salisbury’s first Administration must collectively share the responsibility, as they shared the advantage. But, whether right or wrong, Lord Randolph Churchill’s personal sincerity cannot be doubted by anyone who reads his consistent declarations upon this and kindred Irish subjects or who studies his life and opinions as a whole.
The feeling excited among the Ulster members and so largely shared by orthodox unbending Conservatives was not concealed. The Standard abused the Tory leaders in the Commons as vigorously as any Liberal newspaper. Lord Randolph Churchill had promised to attend a great meeting at Liverpool at which Conservative working men from all parts of Lancashire were to present him with a great number of addresses. July 29 was fixed for the ceremony. On the afternoon of the 28th he learned that Lord Claud Hamilton, one of his old opponents in the National Union fight, and another local member declined to attend. Regarding this as a deliberate insult to the Government and to himself, he telegraphed at once to the Chairman of the meeting:—
Telegram from Lord Randolph Churchill to A. B. Forwood, Esq.