Prime Ministers and Some Others Part 3

The Parliamentary achievement of 1894 was Harcourt's masterly Budget, with which, naturally, Lord Rosebery had little to do; the Chancellor of the Exchequer loomed larger and larger, and the Premier vanished more and more completely from the public view. After the triumph of the Budget, everything went wrong with the Government, till, being defeated on a snap division about gunpowder in June, 1895, Lord Rosebery and his colleagues trotted meekly out of office.

They might have dissolved, but apparently were afraid to challenge the judgment of the country on the performances of the last three years.

Thus ingloriously ended a Premiers.h.i.+p of which much had been expected.

It was impossible not to be reminded of G.o.derich's "transient and embarra.s.sed phantom"; and the best consolation which I could offer to my dethroned chief was to remind him that he had been Prime Minister for fifteen months, whereas Disraeli's first Premiers.h.i.+p had only lasted for ten.

VII

_AUTHUR JAMES BALFOUR_

When Lord Rosebery brought his brief Administration to an end, Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the last time. His physical energy was no longer what it once had been, and the heaviest of all bereavements, which befell him in 1899, made the burden of office increasingly irksome. He retired in 1902, and was succeeded by his nephew, Mr. A. J. Balfour, The Administration formed in 1895 had borne some resemblance to a family party, and had thereby invited ridicule--even, in some quarters, created disaffection.

But when Lord Salisbury was nearing the close of his career, the interests of family and of party were found to coincide, and everybody felt that Mr. Balfour must succeed him. Indeed, the transfer of power from uncle to nephew was so quietly effected that the new Prime Minister had kissed hands before the general public quite realized that the old one had disappeared.

Mr. Balfour had long been a conspicuous and impressive figure in public life. With a large estate and a sufficient fortune, with the Tory leader for his uncle, and a pocket-borough bidden by that uncle to return him, he had obvious qualifications for political success. He entered Parliament in his twenty-sixth year, at the General Election of 1874, and his many friends predicted great performances. But for a time the fulfilment of those predictions hung fire. Disraeli was reported to have said, after scrutinizing his young follower's att.i.tude: "I never expect much from a man who sits on his shoulders."

Beyond some rather perplexed dealings with the unpopular subject of Burial Law, the Member for Hertford took no active part in political business. At Cambridge he had distinguished himself in Moral Science.

This was an unfortunate distinction. Cla.s.sical scholars.h.i.+p had been traditionally a.s.sociated with great office, and a high wrangler was always credited with hardheadedness; but "Moral Science" was a different business, not widely understood, and connected in the popular mind with metaphysics and general vagueness. The rumour went abroad that Lord Salisbury's promising nephew was busy with matters which lay quite remote from politics, and was even following the path of perilous speculation. It is a first-rate instance of our national inclination to talk about books without reading them that, when Mr. Balfour published _A Defence of Philosophic Doubt_, everyone rushed to the conclusion that he was championing agnosticism.

His friends went about looking very solemn, and those who disliked him piously hoped that all this "philosophic doubt" might not end in atheism. It was not till he had consolidated his position as a political leader that politicians read the book, and then discovered, to their delight, that, in spite of its alarming name, it was an essay in orthodox apologetic.

The General Election of 1880 seemed to alter the drift of Mr. Balfour's thought and life. It was said that he still was very philosophical behind the scenes, but as we saw him in the House of Commons he was only an eager and a sedulous partisan. Gladstone's overwhelming victory at the polls put the Tories on their mettle, and they were eager to avenge the dethronement of their Dagon. "The Fourth Party"

was a birth of this eventful time, and its history has been written by the sons of two of its members. With the performances of Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir John Gorst, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff I have no concern; but the fourth member of the party was Mr. Balfour, who now, for the first time, began to take a prominent part in public business. I must be forgiven if I say that, though he was an admirable writer, it was evident that Nature had not intended him for a public speaker. Even at this distance of time I can recall his broken sentences, his desperate tugs at the lapel of his coat, his long pauses in search of a word, and his selection of the wrong word after all.

But to the Fourth Party, more than to any other section of the House, was due that defeat over the Budget which, in June, 1885, drove Gladstone from power and enthroned Lord Salisbury. In the new Administration Mr. Balfour was, of course, included, but his sphere of work was the shady seclusion of the Local Government Board, and, for anything that the public knew of his doings, he might have been composing a second treatise on philosophic doubt or unphilosophic c.o.c.ksureness. The General Election of 1885 marked a stage in his career. The pocket-borough which he had represented since 1874 was merged, and he courageously betook himself to Manchester, where for twenty years he faced the changes and chances of popular election.

The great opportunity of his life came in 1887. The Liberal party, beaten on Home Rule at the Election of 1886, was now following its leader into new and strange courses. Ireland was seething with lawlessness, sedition, and outrage. The Liberals, in their new-found zeal for Home Rule, thought it necessary to condone or extenuate all Irish crime; and the Irish party in the House of Commons was trying to make Parliamentary government impossible.

At this juncture Mr, Balfour became Chief Secretary; and his appointment was the signal for a volume of criticism, which the events of the next four years proved to be ludicrously inapposite. He, was likened to a young lady--"Miss Balfour," "Clara," and "Lucy"; he was called "a palsied, masher" and "a perfumed popinjay"; he was accused of being a recluse, a philosopher, and a pedant; he was p.r.o.nounced incapable of holding his own in debate, and even more obviously unfit for the rough-and-tumble of Irish administration.

The Irish, party, accustomed to triumph over Chief Secretaries, rejoicingly welcomed a new victim in Mr. Balfour. They found, for the first time, a master. Never was such a tragic disillusionment.

He armed himself with anew Crimes Act, which had the special merit of not expiring at a fixed period, but of enduring till it should be repealed, and he soon taught sedition-mongers, Irish and English, that he did not bear this sword in vain. Though murderous threats were rife, he showed an absolute disregard for personal danger, and ruled Ireland with a strong and dexterous hand. His administration was marred by want of human sympathy, and by some failure to discriminate between crime and disorder. The fate of John Mandeville is a black blot on the record of Irish government; and it did not stand alone.

Lord Morley, who had better reasons than most people to dread Mr.

Balfour's prowess, thus described it:

"He made no experiments in judicious mixture, hard blows and soft speech, but held steadily to force and tear.... In the dialectic of senate and platform he displayed a strength of wrist, a rapidity, an instant readiness for combat, that took his foes by surprise, and roused in his friends a delight hardly surpa.s.sed in the politics of our day."

It is not my business to attack or defend. I only record the fact that Mr. Balfour's work in Ireland established his position as the most important member of the Conservative party. In 1891 he resigned the Chief Secretarys.h.i.+p, and became Leader of the House; was an eminently successful Leader of Opposition between 1892 and 1895; and, as I said before, was the obvious and unquestioned heir to the Premiers.h.i.+p which Lord Salisbury laid down in 1902.

As Prime Minister Mr. Balfour had no opportunity for exercising his peculiar gift of practical administration, and only too much opportunity for dialectical ingenuity. His faults as a debater had always been that he loved to "score," even though the score might be obtained by a sacrifice of candour, and that he seemed often to argue merely for arguing's sake. It was said of the great Lord Holland that he always put his opponent's case better than the opponent put it for himself. No one ever said this of Mr. Balfour; and his tendency to sophistication led Mr. Humphrey Paul to predict that his name "would always be had in honour wherever hairs were split." His manner and address (except when he was debating) were always courteous and conciliatory; those who were brought into close contact with him liked him, and those who worked under him loved him. Socially, he was by no means as expansive as the leader of a party should be. He was surrounded by an adoring clique, and reminded one of the dignitaries satirized by Sydney Smith: "They live in high places with high people, or with little people who depend upon them. They walk delicately, like Agag. They hear only one sort of conversation, and avoid bold, reckless men, as a lady veils herself from rough breezes."

But, unfortunately, a Prime Minister, though he may "avoid" reckless men, cannot always escape them, and may sometimes be forced to count them among his colleagues. Lord Rosebery's Administration was sterilized partly by his own unfamiliarity with Liberal sentiment, and partly by the frowardness of his colleagues. Mr. Balfour knew all about Conservative sentiment, so far as it is concerned with order, property, and religion; but he did not realize the economic heresy which always lurks in the secret heart of Toryism; and it was his misfortune to have as his most important colleague a "bold, reckless man" who realized that heresy, and was resolved to work it for his own ends. From the day when Mr. Chamberlain launched his scheme, or dream, of Tariff Reform, Mr. Balfour's authority steadily declined. Endless ingenuity in dialectic, nimble exchanges of posture, candid disquisition for the benefit of the well-informed, impressive phrase-making for the bewilderment of the ignorant--these and a dozen other arts were tried in vain. People began to laugh at the Tory leader, and likened him to Issachar crouching down between two burdens, or to that moralist who said that he always sought "the narrow path which lies between right and wrong." His colleagues fell away from him, and he was unduly ruffled by their secession. "It is time," exclaimed the Liberal leader, "to have done with this fooling"; and though he was blamed by the Balfourites for his abruptness of speech, the country adopted his opinion.

Gradually it seemed to dawn on Mr. Balfour that his position was no longer tenable. He slipped out of office as quietly as he had slipped into it; and the Liberal party entered on its ten years'

reign.

IX

_HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN_

"He put his country first, his party next, and himself last." This, the n.o.blest eulogy which can be p.r.o.nounced upon a politician, was strikingly applicable to my old and honoured friend whose name stands at the head of this page. And yet, when applied to him, it might require a certain modification, for, in his view, the interests of his country and the interests of his party were almost synonymous terms--so profoundly was he convinced that freedom is the best security for national welfare. When he was entertained at dinner by the Reform Club on his accession to the Premiers.h.i.+p, he happened to catch my eye while he was speaking, and he interjected this remark: "I see George Russell there. He is by birth, descent, and training a Whig; but he is a little more than a Whig." Thus describing me he described himself. He was a Whig who had marched with the times from Whiggery to Liberalism; who had never lagged an inch behind his party, but who did not, as a rule, outstep it.

His place was, so to speak, in the front line of the main body, and every forward movement found him ready and eager to take his place in it. His chosen form of patriotism was a quiet adhesion to the Liberal party, with a resolute and even contemptuous avoidance of sects and schisms.

He was born in 1836, of a mercantile family which had long flourished in Glasgow, and in 1872 he inherited additional wealth, which transformed his name from Campbell to Campbell-Bannerman--the familiar "C.-B." of more recent times. Having graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, he entered Parliament as Member for the Stirling Burghs in 1868, and was returned by the same delightful const.i.tuency till his death, generally without a contest. He began official life in Gladstone's first Administration as Financial Secretary to the War Office, and returned to the same post after the Liberal victory of 1880. One of the reasons for putting him there was that his tact, good sense, and lightness in hand enabled him to work harmoniously with the Duke of Cambridge--a fiery chief who was not fond of Liberals, and abhorred prigs and pedants. In 1884, when Sir George Trevelyan was promoted to the Cabinet, Campbell-Bannerman was made Chief Secretary for Ireland, and in that most difficult office acquitted himself with notable success. Those were not the days of "the Union of Hearts," and it was not thought necessary for a Liberal Chief Secretary to s...o...b..r over murderers and outrage-mongers. On the other hand, the iron system of coercion, which Mr. Balfour administered so unflinchingly, had not been invented; and the Chief Secretary had to rely chiefly on his own resources of firmness, shrewdness, and good-humour. With these Campbell-Bannerman was abundantly endowed, and his demeanour in the House of Commons was singularly well adapted to the situation. When the Irish members insulted him, he turned a deaf ear. When they pelted him with controversial questions, he replied with brevity. When they lashed themselves into rhetorical fury, he smiled and "sat tight" till the storm was over. He was not a good speaker, and he had no special skill in debate; but he invariably mastered the facts of his case. He neither overstated nor understated, and he was blessed with a shrewd and sarcastic humour which befitted his comfortable aspect, and spoke in his twinkling eyes even when he restrained his tongue.

The Liberal Government came to an end in June, 1885. The "Home Rule split" was now nigh at hand, and not even Campbell-Bannerman's closest friends could have predicted the side which he would take.

On the one hand, there was his congenital dislike of rant and gush, of mock-heroics and mock-pathetics; there was his strong sense for firm government, and there was his recent experience of Irish disaffection. These things might have tended to make him a Unionist, and he had none of those personal idolatries which carried men over because Mr. Gladstone, or Lord Spencer, or Mr. Morley had made the transition. On the other hand, there was his profound conviction--which is indeed the very root of Whiggery--that each nation has the right to choose its own rulers, and that no government is legitimate unless it rests on the consent of the governed.

This conviction prevailed over all doubts and difficulties, and before long it became known that Campbell-Bannerman had, in his own phrase, "found salvation." There were those who were scandalized when they heard the language of Revivalism thus applied, but it exactly hit the truth as regards a great many of the converts to Home Rule. In a very few cases--_e.g._, in Gladstone's own--there had peen a gradual approximation to the idea of Irish autonomy, and the crisis of December, 1885, gave the opportunity of avowing convictions which had long been forming. But in the great majority of cases the conversion was instantaneous. Men, perplexed by the chronic darkness of the Irish situation, suddenly saw, or thought they saw, a light from heaven, and were converted as suddenly as St. Paul himself. I remember asking the late Lord Ripon the reason which had governed his decision. He answered: "I always have been for the most advanced thing in the Liberal programme, and Home Rule is the most advanced thing just now, so I'm for it." I should not wonder if a similar sentiment had some influence in the decision, arrived at by Campbell-Bannerman, who, when Gladstone formed his Home Rule Cabinet in 1886, entered it as Secretary of State for War. He went out with his chief in the following August, and in the incessant clamour for and against Home Rule which occupied the next six years he took a very moderate part.

When Gladstone formed his last Administration, Campbell-Bannerman returned to the War Office, and it was on a hostile vote concerning his Department that the Government was defeated in June, 1895.

He resented this defeat more keenly than I should have expected from the habitual composure of his character; but it was no doubt the more provoking because in the previous spring he had wished to succeed Lord Peel as Speaker. He told me that the Speakers.h.i.+p was the one post in public life which he should have most enjoyed, and which would best have suited his capacities. But his colleagues declared that he could not be spared from the Cabinet, and, true to his fine habit of self-effacement, he ceased to press his claim.

In October, 1896, Lord Rosebery, who had been Premier from 1894 to 1895, astonished his party by resigning the Liberal leaders.h.i.+p.

Who was to succeed him? Some cried one thing and some another. Some were for Harcourt, some for Morley, some for a leader in the House of Lords. Presently these disputations died down; what logicians call "the process of exhaustion" settled the question, and Campbell-Bannerman--the least self-seeking man in public life--found himself the accepted leader of the Liberal party. The leaders.h.i.+p was an uncomfortable inheritance. There was a certain section of the Liberal party which was anxious that Lord Rosebery should return on his own terms. There were others who wished for Lord Spencer, and even in those early days there were some who already saw the makings of a leader in Mr. Asquith. And, apart from these sectional preferences, there was a crisis at hand, "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow."

The Eastern Question of 1876 had rent the Liberal party once; the Irish Question of 1886 had rent it again; and now for the third time it was rent by the South African Question. Holding that the South African War was a wanton crime against freedom and humanity, I wished that my leader could declare himself unequivocally against it, but he felt bound to consider the interests of the Liberal party as a whole rather than those of any particular section which he might personally favour. As the campaign advanced, and the motives with which it had been engineered became more evident, his lead became clearer and more decisive. What we read about Concentration Camps and burnt villages and Chinese labour provoked his emphatic protest against "methods of barbarism," and those Liberals who enjoyed the war and called themselves "Imperialists" openly revolted against his leaders.h.i.+p. He bore all attacks and slights and impertinences with a tranquillity which nothing could disturb, but, though he said very little, he saw very clearly. He knew exactly the source and centre of the intrigues against his leaders.h.i.+p, and he knew also that those intrigues were directed to the end of making Lord Rosebery again Prime Minister. The controversy about Tariff Reform distracted general attention from these domestic cabals, but they were in full operation when Mr. Balfour suddenly resigned, and King Edward sent for Campbell-Bannerman. Then came a critical moment.

If Mr. Balfour had dissolved, the Liberal leader would have come back at the head of a great majority, and could have formed his Administration as he chose; but, by resigning, Mr. Balfour compelled his successor to form his Administration out of existing materials.

So the cabals took a new form. The Liberal Imperialists were eager to have their share in the triumph, and had not the slightest scruple about serving under a leader whom, when he was unpopular, they had forsaken and traduced. Lord Rosebery put himself out of court by a speech which even Campbell-Bannerman could not regard as friendly; but Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey were eager for employment. The new Premier Was the most generous-hearted of men, only too ready to forgive and forget. His motto was _Alors comme alors_, and he dismissed from consideration all memories of past intrigues. But, when some of the intriguers calmly told him that they would not join his Government unless he consented to go to the House of Lords and leave them to work their will in the House of Commons, he acted with a prompt decision which completely turned the tables.

The General Election of January, 1906, gave him an overwhelming majority; but in one sense it came too late. His health was a good deal impaired, and he was suffering from domestic anxieties which doubled the burden of office. Lady Campbell-Bannerman died, after a long illness, in August, 1906, but he struggled on bravely till his own health rather suddenly collapsed in November, 1907. He resigned office on the 6th of April, 1908, and died on the 22nd.

His brief Premiers.h.i.+p had not been signalized by any legislative triumphs. He was unfortunate in some of his colleagues, and the first freshness of 1906 had been wasted on a quite worthless Education Bill. But during his term of office he had two signal opportunities of showing the faith that was in him. One was the occasion when, in defiance of all reactionary forces, he exclaimed, "La Duma est morte!

Vive la Duma!" The other was the day when he gave self-government to South Africa, and won the tribute thus n.o.bly rendered by General s.m.u.ts: "The Boer War was supplemented, and compensated for, by one of the wisest political settlements ever made in the history of the British Empire, and in reckoning up the list of Empire-builders I hope the name of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who brought into being a united South Africa, will never be forgotten."

II

IN HONOUR OF FRIENDs.h.i.+P

I

_GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS_

The 19th of May, 1898, was Ascension Day; and, just as the earliest Eucharists were going up to G.o.d, William Ewart Gladstone pa.s.sed out of mortal suffering into the peace which pa.s.seth understanding. For people who, like myself, were reared in the Gladstonian tradition, it is a shock to be told by those who are in immediate contact with young men that for the rising generation he is only, or scarcely, a name. For my own part, I say advisedly that he was the finest specimen of G.o.d's handiwork that I have ever seen; and by this I mean that he combined strength of body, strength of intellect, and spiritual attainments, in a harmony which I have never known equalled. To him it was said when he lay dying, "You have so lived and wrought that you have kept the soul alive in England." Of him it was said a few weeks later, "On the day that Gladstone died the world lost its greatest citizen." Mr. Balfour called him "the greatest member of the greatest deliberative a.s.sembly that the world has ever seen"; and Lord Salisbury said, "He will be long remembered as a great example, to which history hardly furnishes a parallel of a great Christian statesman."

I have written so often and so copiously of Mr. Gladstone, who was both my religious and my political leader, that I might have found it difficult to discover any fresh aspects of his character and work; but the Editor[*] has kindly relieved me of that difficulty. He has pointed out certain topics which strikingly connect Gladstone's personality with the events and emotions of the present hour. I will take them as indicated, point by point.

[Footnote *: Of the _Red Triangle_.]