Sir Charles Russell. He came to your house?
Mr. Labouchere. He did.
Sir Charles Russell. Did you expect him?
Mr. Labouchere. No.
Sir Charles Russell. Had he given you any warning he was coming?
Mr. Labouchere. No.
Sir Charles Russell. Or had you asked him to come?
Mr. Labouchere. No.
Sir Charles Russell. Now tell us what took place on the occasion.
Mr. Labouchere. He came in. I did not catch the name when the servant introduced him. I was writing at the table, and looked up, and saw him standing before me, and he said to me, "I suppose you are surprised at seeing me here?" And I said, "Oh! not at all. Pray take a seat."
Sir Charles Russell. I said what——?
Mr. Labouchere. "Not at all." Nothing would surprise me about Mr. Pigott. He sat down. He then said that he had come over to confess everything; that he supposed he should have to go to prison, and he was just as well there as anywhere else. I said that he must thoroughly understand if he did confess, the confession would be handed to Mr. Lewis, and that I must have a witness.
Of the historic interview in Mr. Labouchere's study in Grosvenor Gardens there has been no more graphic an account written than the one by its only witness, the veteran journalist, George Augustus Sala:
In February 1889 [he wrote] I was the occupant of a fiat in Victoria Street, Westminster, and one Saturday, between one and two P.M., a knock came at my study door, and I was handed a letter which had been brought in hot haste by a servant who was instructed to wait for an answer. The missive was of the briefest possible kind, and was from my near neighbour Mr. Henry Labouchere, M.P., whose house was then at 24 Grosvenor Gardens. The note ran thus: "Can you leave everything and come here at once? Most important business.—H.L." I told the servant that I would be in Grosvenor Gardens within a quarter of an hour, and, ere that time had expired, I was ushered into a large library on the ground floor, where I found the senior member for Northampton smoking his sempiternal cigarette, but with an unusual and curious expression of animation on his normally passive countenance.
He was not alone. Ensconced in a roomy fauteuil, a few paces from Mr. Labouchere's writing-table, there was a somewhat burly individual of middle stature and more than middle age. He looked fully sixty, although I have been given to understand that his age did not exceed fifty-five; but his elderly aspect was enhanced by his baldness, which revealed a large amount of oval os frontis fringed by grey locks. The individual had an eyeglass screwed into one eye, and he was using this optical aid most assiduously; for he was poring over a copy of that morning's issue of the Times, going right down one column and apparently up it again; then taking column after column in succession; then harking back as though he had omitted some choice paragraph; and then resuming the sequence of his lecture, ever and anon tapping that ovoid frontal bone of his, as though to evoke memories of the past, with a little silver pencil-case. I noted his somewhat shabby genteel attire, and, in particular, I observed that the hand which held the copy of the Times never ceased to shake. Mr. Labouchere, in his most courteous manner and his blandest tone, said, "Allow me to introduce you to a gentleman of whom you must have heard a great deal, Mr.——." I replied, "There is not the slightest necessity for naming him. I know him well enough. That's Mr. Pigott."
The individual in the capacious fauteuil wriggled from behind the Times an uneasy acknowledgment of my recognition; but if anything could be conducive to putting completely at his ease a gentleman who, from some cause or another, was troubled in his mind, it would have been the dulcet voice in which Mr. Labouchere continued: "The fact is that Mr. Pigott has come here, quite unsolicited, to make a full confession. I told him that I would listen to nothing he had to say, save in the presence of a witness, and, remembering that you lived close by, I thought that you would not mind coming here and listening to what Mr. Pigott has to confess, which will be taken down, word by word, from his dictation in writing." It has been my lot during a long and diversified career to have to listen to a large number of very queer statements from very queer people; and, by dint of experience, you reach at last a stage of stoicism when little, if anything, that is imparted to you excites surprise. Mr. Pigott, although he had screwed his courage to the sticking place of saying that he was going to confess, manifested considerable tardiness in orally "owning up." Conscience, we were justified in assuming, had gnawed to an extent sufficient to make him disposed to relieve his soul from a dreadful burden; but conscience, to all seeming, had to gnaw a little longer and a little more sharply ere he absolutely gave tongue. So we let him be for about ten minutes. Mr. Labouchere kindled another cigarette. I lighted a cigar.
At length Mr. Pigott stood up and came forward into the light, by the side of Mr. Labouchere's writing-table. He did not change colour; he did not blench; but when—out of the fulness of his heart, no doubt—his mouth spake, it was in a low, half-musing tone, more at first as though he were talking to himself than to any auditors. By degrees, however, his voice rose, his diction became more fluent. It is only necessary that, in this place, I should say that, in substance, Pigott confessed that he had forged the letters alleged to have been written by Mr. Parnell; and he minutely described the manner in which he, and he alone, had executed the forgeries in question. Whether the man with the bald head and the eyeglass in the library at Grosvenor Gardens was telling the truth or was uttering another batch of infernal lies it is not for me to determine. No pressure was put upon him, no leading questions were asked him, and he went on quietly and continuously to the end of a story which I should have thought amazing had I not had occasion to hear many more tales even more astounding. He was not voluble, but he was collected, clear, and coherent; nor, although he repeatedly confessed to forgery, fraud, deception, and misrepresentation, did he seem overcome with anything approaching active shame. His little peccadilloes were plainly owned, but he appeared to treat them more as incidental weakness than as extraordinary acts of wickedness.
When he had come to the end of his statement Mr. Labouchere left the library for a few minutes to obtain a little refreshment. It was a great relief to me when he came back, for, when Pigott and I were left together, there came over me a vague dread that he might disclose his complicity with the Rye House Plot, or that he would admit that he had been the executioner of King Charles I. The situation was rather embarrasing; the time might have been tided over by whistling, but unfortunately I never learnt to whistle. It would have been rude to read a book; and besides, to do so would have necessitated my taking my eyes off Mr. Pigott, and I never took them off him. We did get into conversation, but our talk was curt and trite. He remarked, first taking up that so-often-conned Times, that the London papers were inconveniently large. This, being a self-evident proposition, met with no response from me, but on his proceeding to say, in quite a friendly manner, that I must have found the afternoon's interview rather stupid work, I replied that, on the contrary, so far as I was concerned, I had found it equally amusing and instructive. Then the frugal Mr. Labouchere coming back with his mouth full, we went to business again. The whole of Pigott's confession, beginning with the declaration that he had made it uninvited and without any pecuniary consideration, was read over to him line by line and word by word. He made no correction or alteration whatsoever. The confession covered several sheets of paper, and to each sheet he affixed his initials. Finally, at the bottom of the completed document he signed his name beneath which I wrote mine as a witness.[3]
The history of the Commission subsequent to Pigott's disappearance does not belong to this biography. It is enough to say that it terminated its business on November 20, 1889, after having sat no less than 126 times.
On the 8th of March, eight days after his last appearance in the witness-box, the news of Pigott's suicide reached London. It appeared that after his interview with Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Sala, he treated himself to an evening's amusement at the Alhambra Music Hall. He left on Monday morning for Paris, whence he posted the envelope containing his confession and other enclosures to Mr. Shannon. He reached Madrid on Thursday, where he put up at the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, and spent the afternoon and following morning in visiting the churches and picture galleries. He would not have been tracked so quickly by the detectives if he had not sent a wire to Mr. Shannon—the Dublin solicitor who had assisted Mr. Soames—asking for the money "you promised me," which gave the clue to his whereabouts. On the following afternoon, when he was informed by the hotel interpreter that a police officer wanted him, he retired to his bedroom and shot himself through the brain.[4]
Richard Pigott had one redeeming feature in his character—unless his complete lack of self-consciousness in evil doing be counted as another—an intense love for his motherless children. There were four of these. Mr. Labouchere's compassion for the wretched man had early been aroused in connection with the really pathetic state of his domestic affairs, and, although his "underground" relations with Pigott prevented him from being able to promise definitely to give him any assistance for his children in the event of the Times or Parnell prosecuting him as a consequence of his confession, it is easily to be imagined that Pigott would have perceived during his visits to Grosvenor Gardens the extraordinary tenderness of feeling that Mr. Labouchere could never conceal where there was a question of any suffering to be saved to a child. In his examination by Sir Charles Russell Mr. Labouchere had said: "Pigott said to me, 'I shall go to prison, but perhaps I am better there than anywhere else; the only thing I regret is the position of my children, who will starve.' I said: 'Well, I think they won't starve, or anything of that sort, but if you want me to make any terms about your children, you must not expect it from me.'" Poor puzzled Pigott! He had done everything he could to please every one round him, and yet he could get no one at this crisis to do the one thing that would have set his fluttering mind at ease. No one would promise to befriend the four little boys at Kingstown. Truly, as he had told Mr. Labouchere, he was in a terrible mess.
But as soon as the poor fellow was dead, and his motives could no longer be impugned by the vigilant Tories, Mr. Labouchere set himself with energy to see that the children were cared for. He sent a friend to Kingstown to report to him on the condition of the orphans, and she wrote to him as follows: "I had a long chat with the housekeeper who is to my mind an excellent woman. A more self-forgetful creature I never saw, and nobody ever wrapped truths in softer garments. She pitied her master. She says that Pigott adored these children, and that it was his desire to give them comforts and education which drove him into such crimes. I do hope that something will be done for these poor friendless children, to whom the father was a most indulgent parent. I saw lying in the room little toy yachts and tricycles, bearing evidence that there was softness as well as weakness in the character of the dead man. The only relative that the housekeeper knows of is an uncle, who holds a good position under the Government. She wrote to him and got no reply." A fund was started for the benefit of the children, and in the pages of Truth Mr. Labouchere pleaded their cause with eloquence. In May Archbishop Walsh wrote to him as follows:
4 RUTLAND SQUARE,
DUBLIN, May 23, 1889.
DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,—There are two ways in which effect can be given to your charitable purpose. The trust can be executed direct through me, or I can arrange to have the matter carried out by the parish priests of the place where Pigott lived—Glasthule close by Kingstown, Dublin. I may say to you that two generous offers were made to me immediately after the suicide. One was a proposal to take charge of the two elder boys with a view to their emigration to the U.S. or Canada, where something would be done to give them a fair start. The other was an offer to take one of the younger children and practically to provide for this little fellow by an informal adoption.
In both cases I pointed out that there is, I fear, a serious difficulty in the way of my interfering in any prominent way in the case, and indeed in the interference of anyone who is an active sympathizer (as was the case in the two offers) with Home Rule, etc.
The Liberal Unionists of Dublin who brought the unfortunate father into temptation have a heavy responsibility towards the poor children. It is worse than mean of them to shirk it. But they not only shirk it, they try to throw the responsibility on to the other side. The insinuation made by many of them is that Pigott was got out of the country by sympathizers with Mr. Parnell, and that the suicide even may have been managed for a consideration.
A very serious question then arises as to what can be prudently done in the case of the children. Of course they must not be neglected. But, so far as I can see, there is no present danger on that score. The two elder boys are at school at Clongowes, a high-class school for lay pupils, conducted by the Jesuit Fathers. Their schoolfellows have, throughout the whole case, shown a splendid spirit towards them. The two younger boys are safely placed in charge of the former housekeeper in a place where they are not known, not far from Dublin.
My advice would be to let matters lie until the school holiday time comes on, about the beginning of July.
In the meantime I shall communicate with the persons who made the offers of which I have told you.
When the case comes to be dealt with, I should suggest that the best way to act would be through Canon Harold, the parish priest.
Meanwhile should not something be done through the newspapers to work up the call, which can be most legitimately made, on the Irish Liberal Unionists to do at all events something really substantial in the case?—I remain, dear Mr. Labouchere, faithfully yours,
WILLIAM WALSH, Archbishop of Dublin.
The statement of Dr. Walsh that there were people in Dublin who insinuated that Pigott had been got out of the country by the friends of the Nationalists seems almost incredible, but it is a fact that, even in England, in country places, lectures were given, under the auspices of the Primrose League, to persuade rural voters, who might have been reading the newspapers, that the forgery of the Pigott letters had never been proved, and even more ridiculous statements were made in some places. Mr. Labouchere wrote in Truth on March 7:
I feel it my duty solemnly to affirm that (incredible as it may appear to Primrose Dames) I did not bribe Pigott to commit suicide by promising him an annuity. It is somewhat fortunate for me that I can prove an alibi; otherwise I make no doubt that I should have been accused of having been concealed in Pigott's room at Madrid, and having shot him. Well, well, I suppose that allowance must be made for the crew of idiots who have gone about vowing that the Times forgeries were genuine letters, and who are now grovelling in the mire that they have prepared for themselves.
Nothing can exceed my sorrow that we were not privileged to hear in court the evidence of the expert in handwriting, Inglis. So great, indeed, is my regret that I will willingly (if the Times is in want of money) pay the sum of £20 for his "proof." I have always regarded these experts as the most dreary of humbugs, and in this view I am now confirmed. I myself subjected the photographs of the Times forgeries to the limelight in a magic-lantern, and I soon discovered that there were signs of tracing. In some of the words—and particularly in the signatures—there is a small white line, where the ink had not taken over the tracing. If Inglis had done the same, he would not probably have made so ridiculous a fool of himself.
It must be owned that Mr. Labouchere made himself exceedingly annoying in the pages of Truth on the subject of the forged letters. His taunts and scathing witticisms at the expense of the prosecuting side and Messrs. Soames, Houston & Co. were almost past enduring, and more than one apology was furiously demanded of him, to which he usually replied by heaping more ridicule on the unfortunate, writhing victim. Some abortive attempts were made to hoax him and make a fool of him as he succeeded so frequently in doing of others. In the winter of 1889 a somewhat unpleasant case was brought before the Central Criminal Court, the only event of public interest connected with which was the departure from England of a well-known nobleman on the very eve of the day that the warrant was issued for his arrest, and it was in connection with this affair that someone tried to put salt on Labby's tail. Whoever the joker was he must have felt rather sold when he read the following paragraph in the next issue of Labby's journal;
I have received through the post the following letter and enclosure. Evidently someone is attempting to Pigott me. I do not hesitate to say that the letters are not from those by whom they profess to be written. It is really shameful that two such good men and true as Lord Salisbury and Mr. Houston should be selected for this reprehensible hoax.
PRIMROSE LEAGUE CENTRAL OFFICES,
VICTORIA STREET.
SIR, I enclose you an autograph letter of Lord Salisbury. I obtained it from a man of the name of Hammond, whom I promised to reward if he could get me any letters likely to injure the character of Tory leaders. He tells me that a client of his in Cleveland Street called upon him and produced it from a black bag. I have already offered the letter to Lord Hartington and to the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, but they have both declined to have anything to do with it. If you use it I must request you to send me a cheque for £1000, and you must pledge yourself never to give up the name of Hammond. He is a very worthy man, and he fears that if it were known that he had given me the letter some Tory would shoot him.—Your obedient servant,
E. C. HOUSTON.
(Enclosure)
HATFIELD HOUSE, Oct., 17.
MY DEAR LORD***,—There is a good deal of evidence against you, although the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-General have decided that the evidence of identity is not sufficient, but I hear a rumour that more evidence can be obtained. I can count upon the Chancellor standing to his guns, but I am not quite so sure of Webster. He, you know, will have to answer that scoundrel Labouchere in the House of Commons, when he brings on the subject and he is getting shaky. Perhaps he will be forced to issue a warrant.—Yours very truly,
SALISBURY.
Another hoax practised on Mr. Labouchere came off, and a considerable time elapsed before the perpetrator of it was discovered. He eventually turned out to be a member of one of the most staid and respectable clubs in London. Here is the story of the hoax, as Mr. Labouchere related it in Truth:
During the last few weeks I have received a number of anonymous letters, all in the same handwriting, couched in terms the reverse of complimentary. Some of them were on the paper of the East India United Service Club, St. James's Square. This did not trouble me, as I receive so many of such letters that I am accustomed to them. On Thursday last, however, my anonymous friend sent orders signed in my name to a number of tradesmen desiring them to send me goods. He ordered two hearses each with two mourning coaches, and requested a representative of the cremation company to call and arrange for my cremation. He also ordered a marriage cake of Messrs. Buzzard, a bed of Messrs. Shoolbred furniture of Messrs. Maple, Messrs. Druce, and Messrs. Barker & Co.; coal of Messrs. Whiteley, Ricketts, Herbert Clarke & Co.; Cockerell & Lee; a coat of Mr. Cording, caps of Messrs. Lincoln & Bennett, a billiard table of Messrs. Thurston, prints of Messrs. Clifford, carpets of Messrs. Swan & Edgar, beer, spirits, and wine from several firms, some of which was delivered, and a vast number of other goods from West End houses, including an umbilical belt for hernia from a city firm. He also sent letters to various physicians in my name, and they have favoured me in reply with prescriptions for divers diseases. He further engaged cabins for me to India and to the United States. Not content with this he ordered a salmon to be sent in my name to Mr. Gladstone, a Stilton cheese to Sir William Harcourt, a travelling bag to Mr. Asquith, and a haunch of venison to Sir George Trevelyan. And he supplemented these liberal orders by issuing invitations in the name of a mythical niece to a party at Twickenham and a dinner at my London house. All this is far more annoying to the tradesmen than it is to me, and I would therefore suggest to my friend to revert to his old plan of anonymous letters. Neither of the hearses came, owing to representatives of the firms having called to know how many men would be required to carry my corpse downstairs. Had the hearse arrived it would have been curious, as the mutes would probably have disputed in which I was to be moved off, and would have had to appeal to me eating my marriage cake and arrayed in my umbilical belt to decide to which I would give my preference.
[1] Barry O'Brien, Life of Lord Russell of Killowen.
[2] Macdonald, Diary of the Parnell Commission.
[3] Life of Sala, written by himself, vol. ii.
[4] Macdonald, Diary of the Parnell Commission.
There is no doubt about the fact that Mr. Labouchere was always at his best when he was in Opposition. This characteristic was not peculiar to him, but was shared by Sir William Harcourt, and, in a marked degree, by Lord Randolph Churchill. During the six years of Lord Salisbury's second administration (August, 1886-August, 1892), he stood out prominently as a man of ability and independent courage in what was an extremely weak and inefficient Opposition. Always true to his Radical principles, he protested ably whenever the questions of Civil Service estimates were to the fore—the expenses incurred in the removal or restoration of diplomatic and consular buildings, or in the organisation of missions and embassies to foreign countries, all the involved expenditure that is comprehended under the term, so mysterious to the lay mind, of "miscellaneous legal buildings," in the upkeep of the royal parks and palaces. The annual expenditure for the warming and lighting of Kew Palace especially aroused his ire. He had, he said, hunted for the building and at last perceived over an iron gate a tumble down, depressed-looking house in which he could not imagine that anyone less insane than George III. in his later years could be expected to wish to reside, and if there were any such, they might, at least, warm and light themselves without any application to the British taxpayer. As for Kensington Palace, to vote an annual sum for its maintenance was merely dropping water into a bottomless well. It was dilapidated and useless. Why not pull it down or turn it into a large restaurant—an investment which would certainly pay—and put money into the taxpayer's pockets for a change? Of course he should advocate that only temperance drinks should be sold upon the premises, but even with that restriction a profit would be certain. Then he would attack the extravagance of the House of Commons. Oil lamps in the committee rooms! Were Ministers a species of patron saints before whom perpetual lamps had to be kept burning in order to secure their favours? Electric light had been installed in the House, and yet the annual sum spent on oil lamps was undiminished. Perhaps, replied the long-suffering Mr. Plunkett, after the expenditure on oil had been ruthlessly gone into and shown to be superfluous, the hon. member for Northampton will soon be a Minister himself and will then know the awkwardness of attending in the House from three in the afternoon to one in the morning and having to turn up or down an oil lamp every time he went from one room to another. In short, Mr. Labouchere's obstructionary tactics were magnificent.
His speeches on the Triple Alliance were marked by an intimate knowledge of European politics acquired by a long and sympathetic frequentation of the best politicians in Europe and as different as possible from the accumulation of facts out of text-books which formed the mental equipment on the subject of many of his colleagues. The point of departure of his first speech on the Triple Alliance was a statement made in the Italian Parliament on May 14, 1891, by a deputy named Chiala to the effect that the Italian position was now secure by land and sea, English interests being identical with Italian. On June 2, 1891, he asked Sir James Fergusson whether special undertakings were entered into in 1887 between England and Italy of such importance as to justify Signor Chiala's remark, which had met with no challenge in the Italian Chamber, and he spoke with characteristic eloquence both then and on July 9, against the renewal of the Triple Alliance, which obliged England, he said, to side with Italy against France, under the pretext of maintaining the status quo in the Mediterranean. Mr. Gladstone wrote him the following letter on the subject:
HAWARDEN CASTLE, CHESTER, July 11, 1891.
DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,—So far as I can understand I think you have left the question of the Triple Alliance and our relation to it standing well in itself and well for us. If ever there was a complication from which England ought to stand absolutely aloof it is this. I would take for a proof apart from all others the astounding letter of Mr. Stead in yesterday's Pall Mall Gazette, who founds an European policy on the isolation of France still perhaps at the head of continental civilisation. I fear with you that Salisbury has given virtual pledges for himself which in all likelihood he will never even be called upon to redeem, and which Parliament and members of Parliament may with perfect propriety object to his redeeming. What a little surprises me is that the Italians should not better understand the frailty of the foundation on which I fear they have built their hopes.
In the Daily News yesterday Mr. White says the alliance was first concluded in 1882. If so it was certainly without our approbation, I think without our knowledge.—Yours faithfully,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
In Mr. Labouchere's attacks on Lord Salisbury's Foreign Office administration, he found many of the opportunities which he loved of pouring ridicule upon the whole institution of diplomacy. He told the Committee, during the discussion on the Foreign Office vote, how the service is recruited. A friend of his, he said, who reached the top of his profession, presented himself for examination. Of the questions put before him he could answer none, being completely ignorant of the subjects upon which they were supposed to test him. Great was his surprise when the results of the examination were made known. He found himself not only passed but at the top of the list of candidates. "How can these things be?" he asked the examiner when he next met him. "Well," replied the great man, "we saw you knew nothing, but your manner was so free from constraint under what to some people would have been embarrassing circumstances, that we decided: 'That's the very man to make a diplomatist,' and so we passed you." That this little anecdote was introduced to the notice of Sir James Fergusson as a prelude to Mr. Labouchere's bland explanation that, according to his personal experience, Under-Secretaries for Foreign Affairs and members of the diplomatic body generally were of all men the most ignorant, did not rob it of any of its sting. Across the Channel, Mr. Labouchere's abilities, where foreign politics were concerned, were rated at their true value. In February, 1892, the Voltaire published a long article dealing with the personality of this "remarkable man" and his knowledge of European affairs, which concluded with these words: "Mr. Labouchere is one of those grand Englishmen who do credit both to the party which they defend and to the party which they condescend to attack. Moreover, shortly he will be a member of the Cabinet, and Mr. Gladstone depends on his co-operation to finish the last struggle with the dying Tory party."
That Mr. Labouchere's name was not included in Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet of 1892 was an omission that struck not only European politicians but the public of England, both Conservative and Radical, as curious. Mr. Gladstone, who had intended him to have one of the most important offices in the Cabinet (not the Post Office, as has been so often asserted), was himself taken aback, and so much so that when he was made aware that the Queen would object to Mr. Labouchere's name being submitted to her, he went the length of privately asking Mr. Labouchere to write him a letter stating that he should not accept office were it offered to him. Had Mr. Labouchere been under the necessity of wishing to improve his political position in the country, there is no doubt that this would have been his opportunity for doing so. Such a course of action would have appeared to the superficial observer to fit in with his Radical principles, and he could have pretended to his followers that he considered his power greater below the gangway than on the pedestal of office, and (a matter, however, which was of supreme indifference to him) his enemies could not have pointed the finger of scorn at him. Incidentally, too, Mr. Gladstone would have been saved from an imputation of ingratitude to a follower who had stood by him, through thick and thin, to win the cause that the Grand Old Man had nearest his heart, to wit, Home Rule for Ireland, and a follower, who, throughout a long and original political career, had never once failed towards his leader in any detail of the minutiæ that went to make up the etiquette of political intercourse in the last century. But, as Mr. Labouchere explained to a near relative at the time, he couldn't stand the humbug of the suggestion, and he would, moreover, have been pledged to support the Ministry. Besides, that the Queen should have objected to him was not a surprise. Nobody was able to appreciate better than himself, with his tolerant view of human nature, the fact that tastes differ, and to realise more fully that, in so far as personal feelings went, he might very easily be a persona ingrata where Court favour was concerned. "So that the good ship Democracy sails prosperously into Joppa," he wrote at the time, "I care not whether my berth is in the officers' quarters or in the forecastle. Jones or Jonah it is all the same to me, and if I thought that my being thrown overboard would render the success of the voyage more certain, overboard I would go with pleasure—all the more as I can swim." But, in his surmise as to why the Queen had objected to him he was mistaken, and he did not know the real reason until several years afterwards. He imagined it was because he had so persistently protested against the Royal grants, whenever they had appeared to him excessive.[1] It is difficult to see why Mr. Gladstone, having told him as much as he did, did not tell him more—to wit, the actual facts. It would have been perfectly straightforward and perfectly consistent, and the explanation was one that Mr. Labouchere could have accepted with dignity, and all appearance of a slight put upon an eminent politician, by treating him as a nobody to be passed over without any kind of justification, would have been avoided. The fact of Mr. Labouchere's being the proprietor of and "chief writer" in Truth was the ground of the Queen's objection, and if my readers have followed the course of this biography with care, they will very easily be able to imagine how early, and also how very reasonably, the Queen's dislike to the publication had taken root.
Mr. Labouchere's jest about Mr. Gladstone laying upon Providence the responsibility of always placing the ace of trumps up his sleeve was a good one. In one of his private letters I find the quip worded a little more pungently. "Who cannot refrain," he says, referring to the then Prime Minister, "from perpetually bringing an ace down his sleeve, even when he has only to play fair to win the trick." Clearly in the case of the exclusion of Mr. Labouchere from his Cabinet, Mr. Gladstone had only to play a simple and straightforward game for the trick to be his. In fact, it was his with the Queen. There was no necessity for any further ruse, and the matter would have ended.
Mr. Labouchere, still in the dark about the reason of the slight put upon him, replied thus to one of his supporters at Northampton, who questioned him as to the fact that he was not included in the Cabinet. He seems to have made an effort to put the matter as well as he could for his leader:
5 OLD PALACE YARD, Aug. 19, 1892.
DEAR MR. TONSLEY,—The Queen expressed so strong a feeling against me as one of her Ministers that, as I understand it, Mr. Gladstone did not think it desirable to submit my name to her.—Yours truly,
HENRY LABOUCHERE.
The following correspondence ensued. In reading it, it must always be borne in mind that Mr. Labouchere did not at that time know the precise grounds upon which he had been excluded from the Cabinet:
Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Labouchere
HAWARDEN CASTLE, Aug. 22, 1892.
DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,—My attention has been called to a letter addressed by you to Mr. Tonsley, and printed in the Times of to-day, and I have to assure you that the understanding which has been conveyed to you is not correct. I am alone responsible for recommendations submitted to Her Majesty respecting the tenure of political office, or of the absence of such recommendation in any given instance. I was aware of the high position you had created for yourself in the House of Commons and of the presumption which would naturally arise that your name could not fail to be considered on any occasion when a Government had to be formed. I gave accordingly my best consideration to the subject, and I arrived at the conclusion that there were incidents in your case which, while they testified to your energy and influence, were in no degree disparaging to your honour, but which appeared to me to render it unfit that I should ask your leave to submit your name to Her Majesty for a political office which would involve your becoming a servant of the Crown.—Believe me very faithfully yours,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
Mr. Labouchere to Mr. Gladstone
5 OLD PALACE YARD, Aug. 23, 1892.
DEAR MR. GLADSTONE,—I beg to acknowledge your letter of yesterday's date, and to thank you for its kindly tone towards myself. I had been away from home, and only got it when it was too late to alter anything that I had written for this week's Truth upon the matter, as the paper goes to press on Tuesday at 12 o'clock. I feel sure that you will recognise that I have never asked you—directly or indirectly—for any post in your administration. I should indeed not have alluded publicly to the the matter, owing to its personal character, had it not been that the newspapers were discussing why I was not asked to become a member of your administration, the implication being that I had urged "claims," and that I resented their being ignored. I fully perceive the difficulty of your position, and, whilst I cannot admit that the Sovereign has a right to impose any veto on the Prime Minister that she has selected in the choice of his colleagues, I admire your chivalry in covering the Royal action by assuming the constitutional responsibility of a proceeding, in regard to which I must ask you to allow me to retain the conviction that you were not a free agent.
With respect to myself, it is a matter of absolute unimportance that I am not a servant of the Crown, or—as we Radicals should put it—an Executive servant of the Nation. The precedent, however, is a dangerous one, as circumstances might occur in which the Royal ostracism of some particular person from the public service might impair the efficiency of a Liberal Ministry representing views not in accordance with Court opinion. Of this there is no danger in the present case. My personality is too insignificant to have any influence on public affairs, and I am—if I may be allowed to say so—far too stalwart a Radical not to support an administration which I trust will secure to us Home Rule in Ireland; true non-intervention abroad; and many democratic reforms in the United Kingdom. My only regret is that the Liberal party has not seen its way to include many other and more drastic reforms in its programme, notably the abolition of the House of Lords and the Disendowment and Disestablishment of the Church of England.
It will always be a source of pride to me that you thought me worthy of being one of your colleagues, and that, in regard to the incidents which rendered it impossible for you to act in accordance with this flattering opinion, you consider that they testify to my energy and influence, and are in no way disparaging to my honour.
With the sincerest hope that you may long be preserved as the People's Minister, I have the honour to be yours most faithfully,
H. LABOUCHERE.
Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Labouchere
HAWARDEN CASTLE, Aug. 25, 1892.
DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,—I cannot hesitate to answer your appeal. At no time and in no form have I had from you any signification of a desire for office. You do me personally more than justice. My note to you is nothing more nor less than a true and succinct statement of the facts as well as the constitutional doctrine which applies to them. I quite agree with you that men in office are the political servants of the country, as well as of the Crown. There are incidents attaching to them in each aspect, and I mentioned the capacity which alone touched the case before me.—Believe me very faithfully yours,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
It would be idle to deny that the fact of not being in the Cabinet was, temporarily, a very great disappointment to Mr. Labouchere. Faithful Northampton forwarded to him, through the Executive of their Liberal Association, the following resolution, the sentiment and kindly feeling of which was appreciated to the full by Northampton's member: "That this Executive records its warmest praise for the brilliant defences of democracy put forth by the senior member for Northampton, and rejoices at his fealty to the ties of party, notwithstanding the personal affront of unrequited services; and, further, it is more than satisfied that, by this tactical error, he continues free to serve the cause of the people, in which in the past he has so signally distinguished himself." It was to Northampton that Mr. Labouchere frankly expressed where the real sting of his treatment by his party lay: "Mr. Gladstone handsomely testified," he said, "that I had never asked for office. It is, however, one thing not to desire office, and another thing to be stigmatised as a political leper unfitted for it owing to incidents which, while testifying to my energy and influence are in no way disparaging to my honour."[2]
Mr. Labouchere spent his summer holiday as usual at Cadenabbia, and his mind soon resumed its equable habit of thought. The return of Sir Charles Dilke to the House of Commons had been a genuine pleasure to him, and he was in constant correspondence with him during his holiday, which he extended some weeks beyond its usual limits. His letters dealt largely with the, to him, all-absorbing subject of the renewal of the Triple Alliance.
"Notwithstanding," he wrote on September 17, "the excitement about the Italian workmen in France (which has now cooled down) I very much doubt whether the King will be able for long to keep going the Triple Alliance. The customs Union with Austria has not been a success, and the taxes are so enormous that there must come a crash. The Socialists and the Anarchists are joined by many who simply want to live, and who put down the heavy taxation and the want of a market to the policy of the Government. As for the Army, it is not worth much, as they have depleted the line regiments of good men in order to form a few crack regiments. If the French were to play their cards well, they might soon force the King into a friendly understanding. I wonder when Parliament will meet next year, if it sits until Xmas. I suspect that our revered leader is angling to be able to get south in January and possibly February. If he can he will dodge every question except H.R."
Another sentence from a letter to the same correspondent I cannot resist quoting. It is so easy to picture how very much he must have enjoyed reading the German and Italian papers to which he refers, for the details of the great Italian statesman's policy were almost like spelling-book knowledge to him. "I have been amused," he wrote on September 10, "at the comments of the German and Italian papers upon Mr. Gladstone's declaration that Cavour would have been for Irish Home Rule." Here is another charming letter written from Cadenabbia: "A man who is owned by a dog has a troublous time. I am owned by a child, who is owned by a dog. I have a daughter. This daughter insisted on my buying her a puppy which she saw in the arms of some dog stealer when we were at Homburg. My advice to parents is, Never allow your parental feelings to lead you to buy your daughter a dog, and then to travel about with daughter and dog. This puppy is the bane of my existence. Railroad companies do not issue through tickets for dogs. The unfortunate traveller has to jump out every hour or so to buy a fresh ticket. I tried to hide the beast away without a ticket, but it always betrayed me by barking when the guard looked in. I tried to leave it at a station, but the creature (who adds blind fidelity to its other objectionable qualities) always turned up before the train started, affectionately barking and wagging its tail. The puppy, being an infant, is often sick, generally at the most undesirable moments for this sort of thing to happen. When it is not sick it is either hungry or thirsty, and it is very particular about its food. I find bones surreptitiously secreted in my pockets. I am told that they are for the puppy, and if I throw them away I am regarded as a heartless monster. Yesterday he ate a portion of my sponge. I did not interfere with him, for I had heard that sponges were fatal to dogs. It disagreed with him, but alas, he recovered. I take him out with me in boats, in the hope that he will leap into the lake, but he sticks to the boat. I am reduced to such a condition on account of this cur that I sympathise with Bill Sikes in his objection to being followed everywhere by his faithful dog. Am I doomed, I ask, to be for ever pestered with this animal? Will he never be lost, will he never be run over, will he recover from the distemper if fortune favours me by his having this malady? Never, I repeat, buy your daughter a dog, and travel with daughter and dog."[3]
Mr. Labouchere did not return to London before the middle of October. The question of foreign affairs interested him unceasingly throughout Mr. Gladstone's fourth administration. When the composition of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet had been published in the continental papers, many comments had been made upon the appointment of Lord Rosebery to be Foreign Secretary, and the Temps published a pointed leading article on the subject. It declared that Lord Rosebery was regarded by many persons as the incarnation of Imperialism and Chauvinism, but it went on to reassure its readers by saying that after all, as Mr. Gladstone would be so occupied with his Home Rule scheme and minor social questions, the hankerings of the Foreign Office after national glory would be suppressed. In any case, it added, Mr. Labouchere will, if necessary, criticise and protest against dangerous ardour. The subject of Uganda occupied the English Parliament early in 1903, and Mr. Labouchere moved an amendment to the Address to the effect that he hoped that the Commissioner sent by Her Majesty to Uganda would effect the evacuation of that country by the British South African Company without any further Imperial responsibility being incurred. He gave an account of how the treaty with the King of Uganda had been obtained, culled from Captain Lugard's own report. Captain Lugard arrived in the country, he said, with a considerable force of Zanzibaris with breech-loaders and two Maxim guns. A warm discussion arose on many points. Some of the chiefs were for signing, but the King held back and giggled and fooled. He demanded time. "I replied," reported Lugard, "by rapping the table and speaking loudly, and said he must sign now. I threatened to leave the next day if he did not, and possibly to go to his enemies. I pointed out to him that he had lost the southern half of his kingdom to the Germans by his delay, and that he would lose more if he delayed now. He was, I think, scared at my manner, and trembled very violently." ... And so on. The speech was one of remarkable power. Although it covers over ten pages of Hansard, the reader's interest does not flag for an instant. It was replied to by the Prime Minister with appreciation and vigour.
On February 13 Mr. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill,[4] and the speech Mr. Labouchere made during the debate is his last utterance on the subject that I shall quote. He was true to his great leader to the very end, although that end had been extended to a date far beyond the period that might reasonably have been expected. It was a remarkable fact, said Mr. Labouchere, that in 1886 they were told that Home Rule would ruin Ireland and the proof was that securities had gone down. They were now told that Home Rule would ruin Ireland because securities had gone up! As a matter of fact, balances at savings banks had gone up because of certain Land Acts and Rent Acts, by which a good deal of money which used to go into the landlord's pockets now went into the savings bank.... A matter like the Home Rule scheme was necessarily very complicated. They had two islands, one a large one and one a small one. The object of the Bill was to enable them to produce such a state of things as would enable them to have a local Parliament in Ireland dealing alone with Irish matters, and a Parliament in England dealing with British local matters, and also with Imperial matters. It was very much like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. He quite agreed that the angles of the peg would remain. They could not get the fit geometrically perfect, but the great object was to get the best fit they could under the circumstances. It must always be remembered in this matter of Home Rule that they had to choose between two alternatives. After the Bill of 1886 the Unionists went before the country saying that there was a third course, that of some species of local government. When they got into power where was the third course? It entirely disappeared.... The Duke of Devonshire had tried to terrify them the other night about the House of Lords, that the House was going to defend the liberties of the United Kingdom by running counter to the will of the people. For his part, he had never been strongly in favour of an assembly like the House of Lords. He could not understand why some six hundred gentlemen should interfere with the decisions of the representatives of the people. If they did they would find that additional force would be given to the intention of the democracy to put an end to their existence.[5] It is interesting to note that in this, his last Parliament, the Prime Minister himself was converted to Mr. Labouchere's views on the Upper Chamber. When his Home Rule Bill was thrown out by the Lords, and his Parish Councils Bill maimed and emasculated, he came to the conclusion that there was a decisive case against the House of Lords. "Upon the whole, he argued," says Lord Morley, "it was not too much to say for practical purposes the Lords had destroyed the work of the House of Commons, unexampled as that work was in the time and pains bestowed upon it. 'I suggested dissolution to my colleagues in London, where half or more than half the Cabinet were found at the moment. I received by telegraph a hopelessly adverse reply.' Reluctantly he let the idea drop, always maintaining, however, that a signal opportunity had been lost."[6]
In spite of Mr. Labouchere's activity during the winter of 1892-3 his health was not good. He suffered from constant colds and coughs, and his throat, too, was troublesome. The desire for change was upon him, and his mind went back to the happy days of his youth in America. He would have liked to be made Minister at Washington. The idea had occurred to him at Cadenabbia when some American friends had suggested to him how popular such an appointment would be on the other side of the Atlantic. The climate would have suited him, and, above all, the friction which was so inevitable between him and the Cabinet would have been avoided. Washington was quite removed from any of those quarters of the globe where Mr. Labouchere's and Lord Rosebery's foreign policy might possibly come into collision. But his desire was not to be fulfilled. Perhaps naturally, Lord Rosebery thought that his appointment to such an important post would look rather as if he were trying to get rid of a formidable opponent, or at least as if he were trying to bribe him into silence. His refusal to grant Mr. Labouchere's request was unqualified, and Mr. Labouchere acknowledged the repulse, with his usual philosophic calm. "However," he wrote to Lord Rosebery, on December 8, 1892, "as the matter rests with you, and as you are averse to the suggestion, I can only say that all is for the best in the best of worlds."
Mr. Gladstone resigned the Premiership on March 3, 1894, and Lord Rosebery became Prime Minister. The life of the Liberal Government was short, and Mr. Labouchere soon found himself again in his native air of Opposition, when his old interest in Parliamentary matters revived. It was a matter of common knowledge that Mr. Labouchere was strongly opposed to the Premiership of Lord Rosebery, as anyone possessed of his strong Radical nature was bound to be, but that he had anything to do with the snap division which ended Lord Rosebery's Ministry[7] is clearly contradicted by an interview which was published in the Globe on the very day after the fall of the Ministry. The Globe correspondent found Mr. Labouchere in the highest spirits smoking his "eternal cigarette" in his study at Old Palace Yard. "What do you think of the present condition of things?" he asked.
"Well," replied Mr. Labouchere, "I have only just become aware of what happened. I was sitting on the terrace yesterday evening just about seven with Sir William Harcourt, who was joking about the quietness of things, and saying it was a dull day without a crisis, when the division bell rang. I said, 'Great Heavens! What's that for? I want to get home to dinner.' With that I rushed into the division with Sir William, and really didn't know what it was about—you know you can get into the Lobby now direct by a special door. Well, having recorded my vote I hurried off to the theatre, and didn't wait to enter the House. Of course, if I had known what was going to happen I should have waited to see the row. I heard nothing of the affair until this morning, when I read it here," added Mr. Labouchere, pointing to the newspaper beside him.
"I see," said the interviewer, "that you voted with the Government?"
"Oh yes. I want less cartridges—not more, and anything in that direction gets my support. As far as I could see it was only a rag-tag division."
"Do you mean one of those dinner-time snatches, like your House of Lords amendment?"[8]
"Oh no, not even as good as that; just the swing of the pendulum."[9]
The question on South Africa was soon to agitate England, and all matters of lesser interest must be left now to show the impassioned part which Mr. Labouchere played in an affair which cannot be said even to-day to have found its final solution.
[1] The following paragraph from one of Mr. Labouchere's Draft Reports, composed when he was member of a committee to investigate the whole question of Royal grants in 1891, shows how reasonable this surmise was:
"In conclusion, your Committee desires to record its emphatic opinion, that the cost of the maintenance of the Members of the Royal Family is already so great, that under no circumstances should it be increased. In its opinion, a majority of Her Majesty's subjects regard the present cost of Royalty as excessive, and it deems it, therefore, most undesirable to prejudice any decisions that may be taken in regard to this cost, when the entire subject will come under the cognisance of Parliament, by granting, either directly or indirectly, allowances or annuities to any of the grandchildren of the Sovereign."
[2] Letter to Mr. Fredk. Covington, Chairman of the Northampton Liberal and Radical Association, Sept. 13, 1892.
[3] Truth, September, 1892.
[4] The first reading took place on Feb. 20. It was passed through Committee on July 27. After a scene of uproar it passed the House of Commons on Sept. 2, by a majority of 34. It was thrown out by the Lords on Sept. 9, by a majority of 378.
[5] Hansard, Feb. 16, 1893, vol. viii., Series 4.
[6] Morley, Life of Gladstone, vol. iii.
[7] The Government was defeated on the night of June 21, 1895, upon a vote taken in Committee on the Army Estimates.
[8] The Globe, June 22, 1895.
[9] On March 13, 1894, Mr. Labouchere had moved an amendment to the Address, praying the Queen to withdraw the power of the Lords to veto Bills. The division was called during the dinner hour, when the House was comparatively empty, and the Government were found to be in a minority of 2. Sir William Harcourt, who reproved Mr. Labouchere for the levity with which he approached a great constitutional question, got out of the dilemma by moving a new Address.
On Sunday, December 29, 1895, an armed force commanded by Dr. Jameson and Captain Willoughby invaded the territory of the Republic of the Transvaal. The object of the Jameson Raid was to combine with a body of disaffected Englishmen, living at Johannesburg, in order to upset the Government of the Transvaal, and, thereby, to provoke the intervention of the neighbouring British Commissioner, and so lead to the remission of the grievances of the Uitlander population. Such intervention, in the opinion of those responsible for the Raid, was not intended to result in the absorption of the South African Republic by the British Empire, though this point has never been made altogether clear. The English in Johannesburg, the Uitlanders as they were called in Dutch, failed, however, to meet the invaders, and Jameson and his men were captured without difficulty by the troops of the Republic, and were handed over to the Imperial Government to be tried and punished. Subsequently, a select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to investigate the causes of the Raid. The Committee, which numbered amongst its members Mr. Labouchere, met for the first time on February 5, 1897. The directors of the British South Africa Company, Messrs. C. J. Rhodes, Jameson, Alfred Beit, Lionel Phillips, and Rutherford Harris, were represented by Counsel. Mr. Labouchere frequently told me that he had never felt altogether satisfied with the composition of the Committee. There were not enough stalwart Radicals on it. It was composed as follows: Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Chamberlain, the Attorney-General, Mr. Cripps, Sir W. Hart Dyke, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Wharton, Mr. George Wyndham, Sir William Harcourt, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, Messrs. John Ellis, Sidney Buxton, Blake, Labouchere, and Bigham (now Lord Mersey). Mr. Labouchere found his chief support in Mr. Blake, but even he fell off towards the end, and the member for Northampton registered his solitary vote for the second reading of the alternative report with which he wished to replace that of the chairman. The chairman's report finally adopted by the Committee may be summarised as follows:
"(1) Great discontent had for some time previous to the incursion existed in Johannesburg, arising from the grievances of the Uitlanders.
"(2) Mr. Rhodes occupied a great position in South Africa; he was Prime Minister of Cape Colony, and, beyond all other persons, should have been careful to abstain from such a course as that which he adopted. As Managing Director of the British South Africa Company, as director of the De Beers Consolidated Mines and the Gold Fields of South Africa, Mr. Rhodes controlled a great combination of interests: he used his position and those interests to promote and assist his policy. Whatever justification there may have been for action, on the part of the people of Johannesburg, there was none for the conduct of a person in Mr. Rhodes' position, in subsidising, organising, and stimulating an armed insurrection against the Government of the South African Republic, and employing the forces and resources of the Chartered Company to support such a revolution. He seriously embarrassed both the Imperial and Colonial Governments, and his proceedings resulted in the invasion of the territory of a state which was in friendly relations with Her Majesty, in breach of the obligation to respect the right to self-government of the South African Republic under the conventions between Her Majesty and that state. Although Dr. Jameson 'went in' without Mr. Rhodes' authority, it was always part of the plan that these forces should be used in the Transvaal in support of an insurrection. Nothing could justify such a use of such a force, and Mr. Rhodes' heavy responsibility remains, although Dr. Jameson at the last moment invaded the Transvaal without his direct sanction.
"(3) Such a policy once embarked upon inevitably involved Mr. Rhodes in grave breaches of duty to those to whom he owed allegiance. He deceived the High Commissioner representing the Imperial Government, he concealed his views from his colleagues in the Colonial Ministry and from the Board of the British South Africa Company, and led his subordinates to believe that his plans were approved by his superiors.
"(4) Your Committee have heard the evidence of all the directors of the British South Africa Company, with the exception of Lord Grey. Of those who were examined Mr. Beit and Mr. Maguire alone had cognisance of Mr. Rhodes' plans. Mr. Beit played a prominent part in the negotiations with the Reform Union; he contributed large sums of money to the revolutionary movement, and must share full responsibility for the consequences.
"(5) There is not the slightest evidence that the late Commissioner in South Africa, Lord Rosmead, was made acquainted with Mr. Rhodes' plans. The evidence, on the contrary, shows that there was a conspiracy to keep all information on the subject away from him. The Committee must, however, express a strong opinion upon the conduct of Sir Graham Bower, who was guilty of a grave dereliction of duty in not communicating to the High Commissioner the information which had come to his knowledge. Mr. Newton failed in his duty in a like manner.
"(6) Neither the Secretary of State for the Colonies nor any of the officials of the Colonial Office received any information which made them, or should have made them or any of them, aware of the plot during its development.
"(7) Finally, your Committee desire to put on record an absolute and unqualified condemnation of the Raid and of the plans which made it possible. The result caused for the time being grave injury to British influence in South Africa. Public confidence was shaken, race feeling embittered, and serious difficulties were created with neighbouring states."[1]
It is impossible to quote even such a summary as I have just given of Mr. Labouchere's Draft Report. He began by indicating the difficulties under which the Committee laboured:
"(1) Your Committee decided, in the first instance, to limit its inquiries into that portion of the matters submitted to it for investigation having relation to the Jameson Raid.
"(2) A considerable amount of oral and documentary evidence has been placed before it. But its task was rendered difficult. Some of the witnesses, who were either cognisant of the Jameson plan, or who took part in the Jameson Raid, displayed an unwillingness to make a clean breast of all that they knew, and in many instances witnesses refused to answer questions that the Committee considered might properly be put to them. Lord Rosmead could not be called as a witness on account of ill health, although Mr. Rhodes had referred to him in his evidence as able to answer questions, to which that gentleman was not willing to reply. Documents of the greatest importance, in possession of one of the witnesses, were not forthcoming,[2] nor was an opportunity given to all the members of your Committee to examine him as to the statement that he had made in evidence in connection with them, nor was he reported to your House for contumacy, with a view to your House taking action to overcome it. It seemed probable from the evidence that much in regard to the document had been stated to the War Office, as a ground for its taking certain action with respect to the officers concerned in the Raid. But witnesses from that office were not examined as to these communications. Although these documents were in the hands of his solicitor, who informed your Committee that Mr. Rhodes claimed them as his property, and would not allow him to produce them, no direct application was made to Mr. Rhodes by your Committee to allow them to be produced. Other documents of a similar character were secured by your Committee only after Mr. Rhodes had left the country. He was not, consequently, examined in regard to their or as tenor, to his action in respect to them.
"(3) Owing to these causes your Committee cannot pretend to have become possessed of a perfect and full knowledge of everything connected with the Jameson plan and the Jameson Raid. It has consequently only been able to weigh evidence against evidence, and to deduce from what has been submitted to it the inferences that seem to flow therefrom."[3]
He proceeded to stigmatise, even more severely than the Report adopted by the Committee, the political conduct of Mr. Rhodes, for whom, in private, he had conceived considerable personal admiration. In paragraph 25 of Mr. Labouchere's Draft Report was this statement: "Your Committee is, however, of the opinion that they (Messrs. Rhodes and Beit) merit severe punishment. Mr. Rhodes is a Privy Councillor, he was a Cape Premier, and he was the autocrat of Rhodesia when the conspiracy that your Committee has investigated was in preparation, and when it was sought to carry it out. He deceived his Sovereign, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the High Commissioner of South Africa, the Governor of the Cape Colony, his colleagues in the Cape Cabinet, the Board of the Chartered Company, and the very persons whom he used as his instruments in his nefarious designs; and he abused the high positions which he held by engaging in a conspiracy, in a success of which his own pecuniary interests were largely involved, thus inflicting a slur on the hitherto unblemished honour of our public men at home and in our colonies. Mr. Beit is a German subject. In conjunction with Mr. Rhodes he fomented a revolution in a state in amity with us, and promoted an invasion of that state from British territory. These two men, the one a British statesman, the other a financier of German nationality, disgraced the good name of England, which it ought to be the object of all Englishmen to maintain pure and undefiled."
The only other important point in Mr. Labouchere's Draft Report was that referring to the alleged complicity of the Colonial Office in the Raid. While Mr. Labouchere admitted that the evidence in no way showed that any such complicity had existed, he regretted that the question had not been probed to the bottom, "because the slightest appearance of any indisposition to do this by your Committee may lead some persons erroneously to suppose that there may be some truth in the statements of witnesses connected with the Jameson plan that the secret aims of Mr. Rhodes were more or less clearly revealed to Mr. Chamberlain and to Mr. Fairfield."
He expressed himself very strongly in the following article on the Chartered Company in Truth:
If the events of the past week have not opened the eyes of Englishmen at large to the character of the patriots and heroes who have too long ruled the roost in South Africa, our boasted national common sense must indeed be a pitiful sham. What is the position? The South African Republic is a state originally brought into existence by the Boers treking from Cape Colony into the wilderness, and establishing themselves beyond what were then the limits of British colonisation. We tricked them once into surrendering their independence, merely reserving a suzerainty as against their right to conclude treaties with foreign states without our consent. But since that was done, gold was discovered within their territory, and this has led to the migration of a vast number of English and men of other nationalities into the region where the Boer imagined that he was safe from pursuit. On the whole, these settlers, considering how unwelcome their presence must have been, have not been badly treated. The taxation is not excessive, and the condition of the mining industry is infinitely better than it is ever likely to be under the Chartered Company. Out of all those who have dabbled in Transvaal mining shares during the last year I wonder how many know the facts respecting the relation of the companies to the Government of the country. The Government charges on every mining claim a ground rent or royalty of 10s. a month. To a company owning fifty claims this means a ground rent of £300 a year—a very reasonable charge, when from thirty to sixty per cent. can be earned on the capital of the Company. As against this what do the Chartered Company charge? One half the net profits of all mines worked under their jurisdiction. This alone should teach shareholders of the Transvaal mines how little they have to gain from the overthrow of Boer Government by the Rhodes gang, and how thankful they may be for the course of events last week.