British Political Leaders Part 2

Now, it is for this reason, I suppose, that the unfriendly critic, of whom I have already spoken more than once, thought himself justified in describing Mr. Chamberlain as the Rabagas of English political life. It is, indeed, hard for any of us to understand the meaning of Mr.

Chamberlain's sudden change. At the opening of 1886 he was, what he had been during all his previous political life, a flaming democrat and Radical. In the early months of 1886 he was a flaming Tory and anti-Radical. During several years of frequent a.s.sociation with him in the House of Commons I had always known him as an advocate of Home Rule for Ireland, and all of a sudden he exhibited himself as an uncompromising opponent of Home Rule. Many English Liberal members objected to some of the provisions of Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill, but when these objections were removed in Mr. Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill they returned at once to their places under his leaders.h.i.+p. But Mr. Chamberlain would have nothing to do with any manner of Home Rule measure, and when he visited the province of Ulster in the north of Ireland he delighted all the Ulster Orangemen by the fervor of his speeches against Home Rule. Moreover, it may fairly be asked why an English Radical and democrat of extreme views must needs become an advocate of Toryism all along the line simply because he has ceased to be in favor of Home Rule for Ireland. These are questions which I, at least, cannot pretend to answer.

Of course we have in history many instances of conversions as sudden and as complete, about the absolute sincerity of which even the worldly and cynical critic has never ventured a doubt. There was the conversion of Constantine the Great, and there was the sudden change brought about in the feelings and the life of Ignatius of Loyola. But then somehow Mr.

Chamberlain does not seem to have impressed on his contemporaries, either before or after his great change, the idea that he was a man cast exactly in the mold of a Constantine or an Ignatius. Only of late years has he been dubbed with the familiar nickname of "Pushful Joe," but he was always set down as a man of personal ambition, determined to make his way well on in the world. We had all made up our minds, somehow, that he would be content to push his fortunes on that side of the political field to which, up to that time, he had proclaimed himself to belong, and it never occurred to us to think of him as the a.s.sociate of Tory dukes, as a leading member of a Tory Government, and as the champion of Tory principles. Men have in all ages changed their political faith without exciting the world's wonder. Mr. Gladstone began as a Tory, and grew by slow degrees into a Radical. Two or three public men in our own days who began as moderate Liberals have gradually turned into moderate Tories. But Mr. Chamberlain's conversion was not like any of these. It was accomplished with a suddenness that seemed to belong to the days when miracles were yet worked upon the earth. Mr. Chamberlain may well feel proud in the consciousness that the close attention of the political world will follow with eager curiosity his further career.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph copyright by Elliott & Fry

HENRY LABOUCHERE]

HENRY LABOUCHERE

Henry Labouchere is the most amusing speaker in the House of Commons.

Eclipse is first and there is no second--to adopt the words once used by Lord Macaulay--at least, if there be a second, I do not feel myself qualified for the task of designating him. It is hardly necessary to say that whenever Labouchere rises in the House of Commons--and he rises very often in the course of a session--he is sure of an immediate hearing. He seldom addresses himself to any subject with the outward appearance of seriousness. He always puts his argument in jesting form; sends a shower of sparkling words over the most solemn controversy; puts on the manner of one who has plunged into the debate only for the mere fun of the thing; and brings his display to an end just at the time when the House hopes that he is only beginning to exert himself for its amus.e.m.e.nt. I do not know that he has ever made what could be called a long speech, and I think I may fairly a.s.sume that he has never made a speech which his audience would not have wished to be a little longer.

Now, I must say at once that it would be the most complete misappreciation of Henry Labouchere's character and purpose to regard him as a mere jester, or even a mere humorist endowed with the faculty of uttering spontaneous witticisms. Labouchere is very much in earnest even when he makes a joke, and his sharpest cynicism is inspired by a love of justice and a desire to champion the cause of what he believes to be the right. I heard him once make a speech in the House of Commons on behalf of some suffering cla.s.s or cause, and when coming to a close he suddenly said: "I may be told that this is a sentimental view of the case; but, Mr. Speaker, I am a man of sentiment." The House broke into a perfect chorus of laughter at the idea thus presented of Labouchere as a man of sentiment. Probably many, or most, of his listeners thought it was only Labouchere's fun, and merely another ill.u.s.tration of his love for droll paradox. I have no doubt that Labouchere knew very well in advance what sort of reception was likely to be given to his description of himself, and that he heartily enjoyed the effect it produced. But, all the same, there was a good deal of truth in the description. I have always regarded Labouchere as a man of intensely strong opinions, whose peculiar humor it is to maintain these opinions by sarcasm and witticism and seeming paradox.

Certainly no public man in England has given clearer evidence of his sincerity and disinterestedness in any cause that he advocates than Labouchere has done again and again. I remember hearing it said many years ago in New York of my old friend Horace Greeley that whereas some other editors of great newspapers backed up their money with their opinions, Greeley backed up his opinions with his money. The meaning, of course, was that while some editors shaped their opinions in order to make their journals profitable, Horace Greeley was ready to sacrifice his money for the sake of maintaining the newspaper which expressed his sincere convictions. Something of the same kind might fairly be said of Henry Labouchere. He is the proprietor and editor of the weekly newspaper "Truth," in which he expresses his own opinions without the slightest regard for the commercial interests of the paper, or, indeed, for the political interests of the party which he usually supports in the House of Commons. I believe that, as a matter of fact, "Truth" is a most successful enterprise, even as a commercial speculation, for everybody wants to know what it is likely to say on this or that new and exciting question, and n.o.body can tell in advance what view Labouchere's organ may be likely to take. Labouchere has, however, given proof many times that he keeps up his newspaper as the organ of his individual opinions, and not merely as a means of making money or sustaining the interests of a political party. He has again and again hunted out and hunted down evil systems of various kinds, shams and quacks of many orders, abuses affecting large ma.s.ses of the poor and the lowly, and has rendered himself liable to all manner of legal actions for the recovery of damages. If, because of some technical or other failure in his defense to one of those legal actions, Labouchere is cast in heavy damages, he pays the amount, makes a jest or two about it, and goes to work at the collection of better evidence and at the hunting out of other shams with as cheery a countenance as if nothing particular had happened. Fortunately for himself, and, I think, also very fortunately for the public in general, Labouchere is personally a rich man, and is able to meet without inconvenience any loss which may be brought upon him now and then by his resolute endeavors to expose shams.

Labouchere spent ten years of his earlier manhood in the diplomatic service, and was attache at various foreign courts and at Was.h.i.+ngton. He had always a turn for active political life, and entered the House of Commons in 1865, and in 1880 was elected as one of the representatives for the const.i.tuency of Northampton. His colleague at that time in the representation of the const.i.tuency was the once famous Charles Bradlaugh. It would not be easy to find a greater contrast in appearance and manners, in education and social bringing up, than that presented by the two representatives of Northampton. Labouchere is a man of barely medium stature; Bradlaugh's proportions approached almost to the gigantic. One could not talk for five minutes with Labouchere and fail to know, even if they had never met before, that Labouchere was a man born and trained to the ways of what is called good society; Bradlaugh was evidently a child of the people, who had led a hard and roughening life, and had had to make his way by sheer toil and unceasing exertion.

Bradlaugh as a public speaker was powerful and commanding in his peculiar style--the style of the workingman's platform and of the open-air meetings in Hyde Park. He had tremendous lungs, a voice of surprising power and volume, and his speeches were all attuned to the tone of open-air declamation. Most observers, even among those who thoroughly recognized his great intellectual power and his command of language, would have taken it for granted beforehand that he never could suit himself to the atmosphere of the House of Commons. Labouchere's speeches, even when delivered to a large public meeting, were pitched in a conversational key, and he never attempted a declamatory flight. His speeches within the House of Commons and outside it always sparkled with droll and humorous ill.u.s.trations, and when he was most in earnest he seemed to be making a joke of the whole business. Bradlaugh was always terribly in earnest, and seemed as if he were determined to bear down all opposition by the power of his arguments and the volume of his voice. In Labouchere you always found the man accustomed to the polished ways of diplomatic circles; in Bradlaugh one saw the typical champion of the oppressed working cla.s.s. Labouchere comes, as his name would suggest, from a French Huguenot family of old standing; Bradlaugh was thoroughly British in style even when he advocated opinions utterly opposed to those of the average Briton.

The House of Commons is, on the whole, a fair-minded a.s.sembly, and even those who were most uncompromising in their hostility to some of Bradlaugh's views came soon to recognize that by his election to Parliament the House had obtained a new and powerful debater. Both men soon won recognition from the House for their very different characteristics as debaters, and at one time I think that the college-bred country gentlemen of the Tory ranks were inclined, on the whole, to find more fault with Labouchere than with Bradlaugh. They seemed willing to make allowances for Bradlaugh which they would not make for his colleague in the representation of Northampton. One can imagine their reasoning out the matter somewhat in this way: This man Bradlaugh comes from the working cla.s.s, is not in any sense belonging to our order, and we must take all that into account; while this other man, Labouchere, is of our own cla.s.s, has had his education at Eton, has been trained among diplomatists in foreign courts, is in fact a gentleman, and yet is constantly proclaiming his hostility to all the established inst.i.tutions of his native country. Even the Tory country gentlemen, however, found it impossible wholly to resist the wit, the sarcasms, and the droll humors of Labouchere, and whenever he spoke in the House he was sure to have attentive listeners on all the rows of benches.

Bradlaugh's actual Parliamentary career did not last very long. When he was first elected for Northampton, he refused to take the oath of allegiance, on the ground that he could not truthfully make that appeal to the higher power with which the oath concludes. He was willing to make an affirmation, but the majority of the House would not accept the compromise. A considerable period of struggle intervened. The seat was declared to be vacant, but Mr. Bradlaugh was promptly re-elected by the const.i.tuents of Northampton, and then there set in a dispute between the House and the const.i.tuency something like that which, in the days of Daniel O'Connell, ended in Catholic emanc.i.p.ation. Bradlaugh was enabled to enter the House in 1886, and he made himself very conspicuous in debate. His manners were remarkably courteous, and he became popular after a while even among those who held his political and religious opinions in the utmost abhorrence. His career was closed in 1891 by death.

I can well remember my first meeting with Henry Labouchere. It was at a dinner party given by my friend Sir John R. Robinson, then and until quite lately manager of the London "Daily News." The dinner was given at the Reform Club, and took place, I think, some time before Labouchere's election for Northampton. I had never seen Labouchere before that time, and had somehow failed to learn his name before we sat down to dinner.

We were not a large party, and the conversation was general. I was soon impressed by the vivid and unstrained humor of Labouchere's talk and by the peculiarity of his manner. He spoke his sentences in quiet, slow, and even languid tones; there was nothing whatever of the "agreeable rattle" in his demeanor; he had no appearance of any determination to be amusing, or even consciousness of any power to amuse. He always spoke without effort and with the air of one who would just as soon have remained silent if he did not happen to have something to say, and whatever he did say in his languorous tones was sure to hold the attention and to delight the humorous faculties of every listener. My curiosity was quickly aroused and promptly satisfied as to the ident.i.ty of this delightful talker, and thus began my acquaintances.h.i.+p with Labouchere, which has lasted ever since, and is, I hope, likely to last for some time longer. Labouchere is a wonderful teller of stories drawn from his various experiences in many parts of the world, and, unlike most other story-tellers, he is never heard to repeat an anecdote, unless when he was especially invited to do so for the benefit of some one who had not had an opportunity of hearing it before. If he were only a teller of good stories and an utterer of witty sayings, he would well deserve a place in the social history of England during our times; but Labouchere's skill as a talker is one of his least considerable claims upon public attention. Nature endowed Labouchere with what might be called a fighting spirit, and I believe that whenever he sees any particular cause or body of men apparently put under conditions of disadvantage, his first instinctive inclination is to make himself its advocate, so far at least as to insist that the cause or the men must have a fair hearing.

In the House of Commons it could not have happened very often that Henry Labouchere was found on the side of the strong battalions. I know that during the heaviest and the fiercest struggles of the Irish National party against coercive laws and in favor of Ireland's demand for Home Rule, Henry Labouchere was always found voting with us in the division lobby. Some of those days were very dark indeed. Before Gladstone had become converted to the principle of Home Rule for Ireland, and before the later changes in the system of Parliamentary representation had given an extended popular suffrage to the Irish const.i.tuencies, the number of Irish representatives who followed the leaders.h.i.+p of Charles Stewart Parnell was for many sessions not more than seven or eight.

There were some English members who always voted with us, and conspicuous and constant among these were Sir Wilfred Lawson and Henry Labouchere. Unquestionably neither Labouchere nor Lawson had anything whatever to gain in Parliamentary or worldly sense by identifying himself with our efforts in the House of Commons. As soon as Ireland got her fair share of the popular franchise, Parnell was followed by some eighty or ninety members out of the hundred and three who const.i.tute the whole Irish representation. This was the very fact which first brought Gladstone, as I heard from his own lips, to see that the demand of Ireland was in every sense a thoroughly national demand, and that the whole principle of the British const.i.tution claimed for it the consideration of genuine statesmans.h.i.+p. Labouchere had identified himself with the national cause in the days before that cause had yet found anything like representation in the House of Commons. Through all his political career he remained faithful to that principle of nationality, and in the time--I hope not distant--when the Irish claim for Home Rule is recognized and accepted by the British Parliament, Ireland is not likely to forget that Henry Labouchere was one of the very few English members who recognized and championed her claim in the hour when almost every man's hand was against it.

Perhaps the inborn spirit of adventure which makes itself so apparent in Labouchere's temperament and career may have had something to do with his champions.h.i.+p of the oppressed. I do not say this with any intention to disparage Labouchere's genuine desire to uphold what he believes to be the right, but only to ill.u.s.trate the peculiarities of his nature.

Certainly his love of adventure has made itself conspicuous and impressive at many stages of his varied career. There is a legend to the effect that Labouchere joined at one time the company of a traveling circus in the United States for the novelty and amus.e.m.e.nt of the enterprise. I do not know whether there is any truth in this story, but I should certainly be quite prepared to believe it on anything like authentic evidence. The adventure would seem quite in keeping with the temper of the man. Most of us know what happened when the Germans were besieging Paris during the war of 1870. It suddenly occurred to Labouchere that it would be a most interesting chapter in a man's life if he were to spend the winter in the besieged city. No sooner said, or thought, than done. Labouchere was then one of the proprietors of the London "Daily News," and he announced his determination to undertake the task of representing that journal in Paris as long as the siege should last. Of course he obtained full authority for the purpose, and he contrived to make his way into Paris, and when there he relieved the regular correspondent of the "Daily News" from his wearisome and perilous work by sending him off, in a balloon, I believe, to Tours, where he was out of the range of the German forces, and could continue his daily survey of events in general. Then Labouchere set himself down to enjoy all the hards.h.i.+ps of the siege, to live on the flesh of horse and donkey and even cat and rat, to endure the setting in of utter darkness when once the sun had gone down, and to chronicle a daily account of his strange experiences. This was accomplished in his "Diary of a Besieged Resident," which appeared from day to day in the columns of the "Daily News," and was afterwards published as a volume, and a most entertaining, humorous, realistic, and delightful volume it made.

The very difficulties of its transmission by means of balloons and pigeons and other such floating or flying agencies must have been a constant source of amus.e.m.e.nt and excitement to the adventurous besieged resident.

Labouchere has always been in the habit of seeking excitement by enterprises on the Stock Exchange. I do not believe that these ventures have been made with the commonplace desire to make money, but I can quite understand that they are prompted by the very same desire for new experiences which prompted the residence in besieged Paris. I remember meeting Labouchere one day many years ago in a West End London street, and being told by him that he had just incurred a very heavy loss by one of his financial ventures on the Stock Exchange. He told me in his usual tones of almost apathetic languor the amount of his loss, and it seemed to my modest experiences in money affairs to be a positive fortune sacrificed. He was smiling blandly while recounting his adventure, and I could not help asking him how he had felt when the loss was first made known to him. "Well," he replied, in the same good-humored tone, "it was an experience, like another." That, I think, is a fair ill.u.s.tration of Labouchere's governing mood. The great thing was to get a new sensation. At one time Labouchere became the founder and the owner of a new theater in London, and he took part in many a newspaper enterprise.

He was, as I have said, for a long time one of the proprietors of the "Daily News," and he entered into that proprietors.h.i.+p at the very time when the "Daily News" was making itself most unpopular in capitalist circles and in what is known as society, by its resolute and manly adherence to the side of the Federal States during the great American Civil War. It suited Labouchere's pluck and temper to join in such an undertaking at the time when the odds seemed all against it; and it is only fair to say that I am sure no love for a new sensation could induce Labouchere to take up any cause which he did not believe to be the cause of right.

Labouchere was one of those who went in with the late Edmund Yates in founding "The World," then quite a new venture as a society journal.

Labouchere, however, did not long remain a sharer in this enterprise.

Yates was the editor of the paper, and Yates went in altogether for satirical or at least amusing pictures of West End life, and did not care anything about politics and the struggles of this or that political movement. Labouchere could not settle down to any interest in a newspaper which dealt only with changes of fas.h.i.+on and the whimsicalities of social life. His close interest in political questions filled him with the resolve to start a journal which, while dealing with the personages and the ways of society, should also be the organ of his own views on graver subjects. He therefore withdrew from all concern in Edmund Yates's "World" and started his own weekly newspaper, "Truth,"

which has since enjoyed a life of vigor and success. There is room enough for both papers apparently. The "World" has not lost its circle of readers, while "Truth" is beyond question a great power in political and financial as well as in social movements.

One of Labouchere's special delights is to expose in "Truth" some successful adventurer in pretentious financial schemes, some hypocritical projector of sham philanthropic inst.i.tutions, some charlatan with whom, because of his temporary influence and success, most other people are unwilling to try conclusions. Such an impostor is just the sort of man whom Labouchere is delighted to encounter.

Labouchere's plan is simple and straightforward. He publishes an article in "Truth" containing the most direct and explicit charges of imposture and fraud against the man whom he has determined to expose, and he invites this man to bring an action against him in a court of law and obtain damages, if he can, for slander. Labouchere usually intimates politely that he will not avail himself of any preliminary and technical forms which might interpose unnecessary delay, and that he will do all in his power as defendant to facilitate and hasten the trial of the action. It happens in many or most cases that the personage thus invited to appeal to a court of law cautiously refrains from accepting the invitation. He knows that Labouchere has plenty of money, perceives that he is not to be frightened out of his allegations, and probably thinks the safest course is to treat "Truth" and its owner with silent contempt. Sometimes, however, the accused man accepts battle in a court of law, and the attention of the public is riveted on the hearing of the case. Perhaps Labouchere fails to make out every one of his charges, and then the result is formally against him and he may be cast in damages, but he cares nothing for the cost and is probably well satisfied with the knowledge that he has directed the full criticism of the public to the general character of his opponent's doings and has made it impossible for the opponent to work much harm in the future. Even the strongest political antagonists of Labouchere have been found ready to admit that he has rendered much service to the public by his resolute efforts to expose shams and quackeries of various kinds at whatever pecuniary risk or cost to himself.

I do not know whether it would be quite consistent with the realities of the situation if I were to describe Labouchere as a favorite in the House of Commons. He has provoked so many enmities, he has made so many enemies by his sharp sarcasms, his unsparing ridicule, and his sometimes rather heedless personalities, that a great many members of the House must be kept in a state of chronic indignation towards him. A man who arouses a feeling of this kind and keeps it alive among a considerable number of his brother members could hardly be described with strict justice as a favorite in the House of Commons. Yet it is quite certain that there is no man in the House whose sayings are listened to with a keener interest, and whose presence would be more generally missed if he were to retire from public life.

One of the many stories which I have heard about Labouchere's peculiar ways when he was in the diplomatic service is worth repeating here. It has never been contradicted, so far as I know. When Labouchere was attache to the British Legation at Was.h.i.+ngton--it was then only a Legation--his room was invaded one day by an indignant John Bull, fresh from England, who had some grievance to bring under the notice of the British Minister. That eminent personage was not then in the house, and the man with the grievance was shown into Labouchere's room. Labouchere was smoking a cigarette, according to his custom, and he received the visitor blandly, but without any effusive welcome. John Bull declared that he must see the Minister at once, and Labouchere mildly responded that the British Minister was not in the Legation buildings. "When will he return?" was the next demand, to which Labouchere could only make answer that he really did not know. "Then," declared the resolute British citizen, "I have only to say that I shall wait here until he returns." Labouchere signified his full concurrence with this proposal, and graciously invited his countryman to take a chair, and then went on with his reading and noting of letters and his cigarette just as before.

Hours glided away, and no further word was exchanged. At last the hour came for closing the official rooms, and Labouchere began to put on his coat and make preparations for a speedy departure. The visitor thereupon saw that the time had come for some decided movement on his part, and he sternly put to Labouchere the question, "Can you tell me where the British Minister is just now?" Labouchere replied, with his usual unruffled composure, "I really cannot tell you exactly where he is just now, but I should think he must be nearly halfway across the Atlantic, as he left New York for England last Sat.u.r.day." Up rose John Bull in fierce indignation, and exclaimed, "You never told me that he had left for England." "You never asked me the question," Labouchere made answer, with undisturbed urbanity, and the visitor had nothing for it but to go off in storm.

Labouchere is the possessor of a beautiful and historic residence on the banks of the Thames--Pope's famous villa at Twickenham. There he is in the habit of entertaining his friends during the summer months, and there one is sure to meet an interesting and amusing company. I have had the pleasure of being his guest many times, and I need hardly say that I have always found such visits delightful. Labouchere is a most charming host, and although he is himself a wonderful talker, full of anecdote and reminiscence, he never fails to see that the conversation is thoroughly diffused, and that no guest is left out of the talk. In London he always mixes freely with society, and his London home is ever hospitable. Many of his friends were strongly of opinion that he ought to have been invited to become a member of a Liberal administration. I suppose, however, that most of the solid and steady personages who form a Cabinet would have been rather alarmed at the idea of so daring and damaging a free lance being appointed to a high place in the official ranks of a Government, and it would have been out of the question to think of offering any subordinate position to so brilliant a master of Parliamentary debate. For myself I do not feel any regret that Labouchere, so far, has not taken any place in an administration. He has made his fame as a free lance, and has done efficient public work in that capacity, such as he could hardly have accomplished if he had been set down to the regular and routine duties of an official post. He has made a name for himself by his independent support of every cause and movement which he believed to have justice on its side, and I could not think with any satisfaction of a so-called promotion which must submerge his individuality in the measured counsels and compromises of a number of administrative colleagues. I prefer still to think of him as Henry Labouchere, and not as the Right Honorable Gentleman at the head of this, that, or the other department of State.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Photograph copyright by London Stereoscopic Co.

JOHN MORLEY]

JOHN MORLEY

No English public man of the present day has had a more remarkable political career than that of John Morley. Almost everything that could be against success in political life was against John Morley when he arose from the student's desk to take his place on the political platform. I am not now making any allusion to the difficulties set in a man's way by those accidents which the first Lord Lytton described grandiloquently as the "twin gaolers of the human heart, low birth and iron fortune." I am not quite certain what iron fortune may be, but if I a.s.sume it to be early poverty I do not regard it as a very formidable obstruction to human genius in our times. We have many successful men in public life just now who were born in humble station and had to struggle hard for a long time against poverty. John Morley was not born in humble life, as the phrase goes, and had not, so far as I know, to struggle against early poverty. He had an Oxford University education and was called to the bar, but did not make any effort after success in that profession. The difficulties to which I have alluded as standing in his way when he determined to seek a career in political and Parliamentary life had nothing to do with birth and with poverty--they were of quite a different order.

Morley had taken to literature as a profession, and had made for himself a distinguished name as a writer of books and an editor of reviews and newspapers before he obtained a seat in the House of Commons. Now, there is, or used to be, a sort of fixed belief in the British public mind that a literary man is not, in the nature of things, qualified for success in Parliamentary work. We are somewhat getting over this idea of late, and indeed there were at all times living evidences enough to shake such a faith. The generation which recognized the success won in Parliamentary debate by a Macaulay, a Disraeli, and a Bulwer-Lytton might well have got over the notion that literary men cannot succeed in Parliament; but even up to the time of John Morley's election to the House of Commons the idea found still a very general acceptation.

Another and much more serious difficulty in John Morley's way was the fact that he was a proclaimed agnostic in questions of religious faith.

Now, the average Englishman can hardly be described as one imbued with profound and exalted religious convictions, but it may be taken for granted that he thinks every respectable person who is fit to be a member of Parliament ought to conform to some recognized creed and to attend some authorized place of wors.h.i.+p. John Morley was at one time not merely an agnostic, but an avowed and somewhat aggressive agnostic, and his brilliant pen had often been employed to deal satirically with some established doctrine.

In England there is little or no general objection to freedom of opinion so long as it is a question merely of opinion. We may know that a man holds free-thinking opinions, but we feel no wish to inflict any manner of punishment or deprivation on him so long as he keeps his opinions to himself and does not endeavor to make them prevail with others. This, however, was what John Morley had got into the way of doing. When he felt a strong conviction on any subject which seemed to him important, he always endeavored to justify his faith by argument and to bring others round to his views of the question.

I can well remember that many of Morley's admirers and friends were but little gratified when it was first made known that he intended to seek for a seat in the House of Commons. Their impression was that he was just then doing in effective and admirable style the very kind of work for which he was best qualified, and that it was a pity he should run the risk of marring such a career for the sake of entering a political field in which he might possibly win no success, and in which success, even if won, would be poor compensation for the sacrifice of better work. Morley, however, seems to have made up his mind, even at an early period of his career, that he would try his chance in Parliament. So long ago as 1865 he became a candidate for a const.i.tuency in the North of England, but was not successful; and in 1880, after he had won genuine celebrity by his biography of Edmund Burke, that of Voltaire, that of Rousseau, and other books of the same order, he became a candidate for the great metropolitan division of Westminster. Here again he was unsuccessful, and it was only in 1883 that he first obtained a seat in the House of Commons as the representative of Newcastle-on-Tyne. I can well remember listening with the deepest interest to his maiden speech in the House of Commons. The general impression of the House was that the speech would prove a failure, for only too many members had already made up their minds, according to the usual fas.h.i.+on of the day, that a successful literary man was not likely to become a Parliamentary success. There was a common impression also that, despite his great gifts as a writer and his proved capacity as a journalist and editor, John Morley must be an impracticable sort of person. He had been at one time well known as an a.s.sociate of the famous Positivist order of thinkers--the order to which men like Frederic Harrison and Richard Congreve belonged. The average member of Parliament could see no chance for a disciple of that school, which this average member regarded merely as a group of dreamers, to make any mark in a practical a.s.sembly where the routine business of legislation had to be carried on. Morley's speech was, however, a distinct and unmistakable success.

What first impressed the House of Commons was the ready, quiet force of Morley's delivery. He had a fine, clear voice, he spoke without notes and without any manifest evidence of preparation, every sentence expressed without effort the precise meaning which he wished to convey, and his style had an eloquence peculiarly its own. What most men expected of him was the philosophical discourse of a student and a thinker no longer in his fitting place, and what was least expected of him was just that which he delivered, a ready, telling, and powerful Parliamentary speech. He had some unexpected difficulties to encounter, because he gave out his opinions so forcibly and so boldly that their utterance called forth frequent interruptions--an unusual event in the case of a maiden speech, which is generally regarded as a mere introductory ceremonial and is taken politely as a necessary matter of form. The House soon found, however, that John Morley's speech did not by any means belong to the ordinary category of maiden performances, and the very interruptions were therefore a positive tribute to the importance of the new member's argument. The interruptions were in every sense fortunate for Morley, because they enabled him at this very first opportunity to prove his ready capacity for debate. He replied on the spur of the moment to every interruption and every interjected question, and he showed all the composure, all the prompt.i.tude and the command, of a practiced Parliamentary debater. Every man in the House whose opinion was worth having at once recognized the fact that a new force had come up in Parliamentary debate, and when John Morley resumed his seat he must have known that he had accomplished a complete success. From that time onward John Morley has always been recognized as one of the most powerful speakers in the House of Commons. His voice is clear, resonant, and musical, the light of intellect gleams in his earnest eyes, his argument is always well sustained and set off with varied and appropriate ill.u.s.tration, and whenever he rises to speak he is sure to have a deeply attentive audience.

Morley is not in the highest sense one of the orators of Parliament. He is not to be cla.s.sed, and has never sought to be cla.s.sed, with such men as Gladstone and Bright. But, short of the highest gift of eloquence, he has every quality needed to make a great Parliamentary debater. When he addresses the House of Commons, one ceases to think of him merely as the scholar and the author, and he becomes the man who can command the House by the arguments and the eloquence which the House best understands. There are many men of high intellectual capacity who occasionally take part in a Parliamentary debate and who are always regarded as in the House but not of it. John Morley proved from his very first effort that he was of the House as well as in it. I have heard him make great platform speeches, and I think he comes nearer to the highest order of eloquence when addressing an ordinary political meeting than even when addressing the House, but it is quite certain that at the present time the House of Commons has no member who can more completely command its attention. It must be said, too, that the character of the man himself, his transparent sincerity, his absolute devotedness to principle, his fearless and unselfish consistency, count for much in the commanding position which he has obtained. The integrity of Morley's career is absolutely beyond criticism or cavil. It never entered into the mind of his bitterest opponent to suspect for a moment that Morley could be influenced by any personal consideration in the course which he took or the words which he uttered. Other men of high position in Parliament are commonly set down as having taken this or that course, modified or suppressed this or that opinion, for the sake of personal advancement, or at least for the sake of maintaining the interests of a party. But everybody knows that John Morley has never sought for office, and could never be induced to make any compromise of political principle even for the sake of maintaining in power the political party to which he belongs. The universal recognition of that great quality in him has added unspeakably to his influence in Parliament. He was not at any time a frequent speaker in the House of Commons, and of course he never was a mere talker. He speaks only when he has something to say which he believes ought to be said and to be said by him, and he never seems to have any temptation to enter into debate for the mere pleasure of taking part in the controversy. If a man is really a good speaker, the House is always ready to listen to him no matter how often he may speak, for the plain reason that debate has to go on for a certain number of hours each day, and it is more pleasant to listen to a member who talks well than to one who talks badly. But, no matter how effective and eloquent a speaker may be, it is quite certain that the House will give him a more attentive ear if it knows beforehand that whenever he rises to take part in debate it is sure to hear something which up to that moment has not been spoken. John Morley, therefore, very soon became one of that small body of men in the House of Commons whose rising to speak is always regarded as an event of interest and importance.

In the retrospect of John Morley's career one is brought up with something approaching to a shock of surprise when he remembers that at the opening of Morley's Parliamentary life he was closely a.s.sociated with Joseph Chamberlain. I remember having heard people say at the time that Chamberlain took much credit to himself on the ground that he had urged and prevailed upon John Morley to persevere in seeking a seat in the House of Commons. Mr. Chamberlain was at that time an extreme and uncompromising Radical. He was an avowed and constant supporter of the Home Rule party; was in close alliance with Parnell; took a leading part in the arrangement of the so-called Kilmainham Treaty, and delivered a warm panegyric on Parnell himself and Parnell's policy to a crowded and for the most part an indignant House of Commons. There was, therefore, nothing surprising in the fact that Morley and Chamberlain were at that time friends and allies in political affairs, nor had any one then the faintest reason to believe that Chamberlain was ever destined to undergo a sudden and miraculous conversion to ultra-Tory principles. When Mr.

Gladstone came into office in 1886 with what was known to be a Home Rule administration, John Morley obtained the position of Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, with a seat in the Cabinet. It is not by any means a matter of course that the Irish Chief Secretary should be a Cabinet Minister. Sometimes the Lord-Lieutenant himself has a place in the Cabinet and the Chief Secretary is merely an ordinary member of the Government; sometimes, when the Chief Secretary is regarded as a very strong man, he is invited to a seat in the Cabinet and his official master remains outside. John Morley was recognized from the first by Gladstone as a man of the highest political capacity and character, and when the new administration came to be formed Gladstone made evident this estimate of Morley by offering him a place in the Cabinet. The keenest interest was felt alike both by political friends and political enemies in Morley's management of Irish affairs. The new Secretary for Ireland was entering bravely on an enterprise the immediate success of which was, under the conditions, absolutely impossible. I have no doubt whatever that success could have been easily and completely accomplished if John Morley had been allowed his own way in dealing with the whole Irish question--if, for instance, he had been placed in such a position of dictators.h.i.+p as that which was given to Lord Durham when Durham was sent out to deal with the rebellion in Canada. Durham saw but one remedy for the long discontents and troubles of the Canadian populations, and that remedy he found in the system of Home Rule which has since made Canada peaceful, prosperous, and well content with the place she holds in the British Empire. If John Morley could have been invested with such powers as those given to Lord Durham, he might have made of Ireland another prosperous and contented Canada. But Morley had to administer the affairs of Ireland at a time when the opinion of the English majority had not yet risen to the principle of Home Rule, at least so far as Ireland was concerned, and without such recognition it was beyond the reach of statesmans.h.i.+p to satisfy the national demands of the Irish people. Every Irish Nationalist knew perfectly well that John Morley's heart and intellect alike were with the cause of Irish Home Rule. All that Morley could do to mitigate the troubles of the country and the people he did bravely and steadfastly. Ireland was then the victim of an acc.u.mulation of coercion laws which made almost every popular movement, every attempt to maintain an oppressed tenant against an oppressive landlord, every protest against despotic legislation, liable to be treated as an offense calling for the interference of the police. John Morley did all that could be done to mitigate the rigors of such a system, and to administer Ireland on something like the principles of civilization and freedom. He had in this task the full support, encouragement, and sympathy of the statesman who was then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland--the Earl of Aberdeen, a man of the most thoroughly Liberal principles and a sincere friend to Ireland. But, of course, neither Lord Aberdeen nor John Morley could abolish at a word of command a whole system of penal legislation, and all that could be done was to take care that the laws should be administered in a temperate and reasonable spirit, and that the rulers of Ireland should show themselves to be at heart the friends of Ireland.

There comes back to my memory a somewhat curious ill.u.s.tration of the difficulties which then stood in the way of any cordial intercourse between the representatives of English rule in Ireland and the representatives of the Irish national cause, and I cannot resist the temptation to tell the story here. During Morley's first term of office as Chief Secretary I made some visits to Dublin. I had many meetings with Morley, of course, and he invited me to dine with him at the Chief Secretary's Lodge in Phoenix Park. Now, there had been during all my time a rigorous rule among Irish Nationalists not to accept any of the hospitalities of those who exercised imperial authority in Dublin. No true Nationalist would make one at any social gathering in the official residence of the Viceroy or the Chief Secretary. There were more than merely sentimental reasons for such a principle. In former days the Irish people had in several well-remembered instances seen some vehement advocate of the Irish National cause won over by the promises and the blandishments of Dublin Castle to take office under the Government and to renounce the political faith the profession of which had won for him his seat in Parliament. Therefore it was above all things necessary, in order to maintain the confidence of the Irish people, that the national representatives should show themselves determined not to be drawn into any familiar social relations with the representatives of English rule in Ireland. This was especially a part of Parnell's policy, and on it Parnell laid much stress. John Morley came over to Ireland in a spirit of full friends.h.i.+p towards the Irish people, and he had every reason to believe that the Irish people thoroughly understood his feelings and his hopes. He and I had known each other during many years in London, and when we met in Dublin, he, being still new to the conditions of the place, invited me to dine with him. I explained to him that, however delighted I should be to dine with my friend John Morley, it was quite impossible that I should dine with the Chief Secretary at his official residence in Dublin. I a.s.sured him that if I were to accept such an invitation the Tory papers of Dublin would be certain to make characteristic comments on the fact that the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant and the Vice-Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary party had been dining together in the Chief Secretary's official home, and that we should both alike find ourselves the objects of something approaching to a public scandal. Morley was surprised at first and then a good deal amused, but he accepted my explanation, and thoroughly understood that it was not any want of friendly feeling which led me to decline his invitation. So we parted as good friends as ever. We still met frequently and talked over questions relating to Irish administration. One day Morley came to see me at the Shelburne Hotel, which was then my home in Dublin. We had a long talk, and, as the hour was growing late, I asked him to stay and dine with me, not remembering at the time that the eye of the public was supposed to be on our movements. One of Morley's happiest gifts is a delightful sense of humor. He rose to the situation at once. Addressing me in solemn tones, but with a gleam of the comic in his eyes, he informed me that if my principles did not allow me to dine with the Chief Secretary in Dublin, so neither did the Chief Secretary's principles allow him to dine there with me. Thus, as some newspaper writers would say, the incident terminated, and we made no further effort at convivial meetings in Dublin.

John Morley's quick sense of humor is not one of the qualities which a stranger would naturally look for in him. Those who have not met him and have known him only through his writings are apt to think of him as a grave and even an austere man, a man wholly immersed in the serious contemplation of life and history, and, if endowed with any sense of humor, only with a sense of its more grim and saturnine aspects. The man himself is altogether and curiously unlike the impression thus formed of him very commonly by those to whom he is not personally known. John Morley has a quick, keen, and delightful sense of humor. He can talk on any subject from grave to gay, from lively to severe. He is one of the most charming of companions, and he is a great favorite among women, even among those who do not greatly concern themselves with the question of woman's political emanc.i.p.ation. There is nothing of the stern philosopher about his manner of comporting himself in social life.

Indeed, for all the clear composure of his philosophic contemplations, he has a temperament far too quick and sensitive to allow of his meeting all life's vexatious questions in the mood of stoical endurance. He is by nature somewhat nervous, is decidedly quick in temper, frankly acknowledges that he is rather impatient of contradiction, and is likely to become overheated in the course of an eager argument. I feel the less hesitation in noticing these little peculiarities on the part of my friend because I have heard Morley himself speak of them with perfect frankness as some of his troubles in political controversy. I must say that, so far as I know, these unphilosophical qualities of Morley's temperament only tend to make him all the more a charming friend to his friends. We may admire the marble-like composure of the stern philosopher who yields to no pa.s.sing human weaknesses of temper, but it must be very hard to keep always on friendly terms with so superhuman a personage.

Mr. Morley goes into society a good deal in London, is often to be seen at the theaters on first nights, seems to enjoy a dinner party or an evening party as well as the most commonplace among us might do, but I do not believe that he has any liking for great shows and pompous celebrations and the other formal demonstrations of Court festivity and Ministerial display. In his quiet London home he leads the life of a man of culture, a scholar and a writer, so far as his political and Parliamentary engagements allow him leisure for such recreation, and he neither seeks the madding crowd nor shuns it. It has always been a wonder to me how such a man can find time for his many and diverse studies and occupations, and should never either neglect the work of his life or shut himself away from its reasonable enjoyments. John Morley is indeed a rare and almost unique combination of the philosophical thinker, the vivid biographer, the Parliamentary debater, and the practical administrator. His life of Richard Cobden is one of the most complete and characteristic pieces of biography accomplished during our time. There would not seem to have been much that was congenial between the temperament of Richard Cobden and that of John Morley. Cobden was not a laborious student of the past; he had no widespread and varied literary or artistic sympathies; he did not concern himself much with any scientific studies except those which have to do with the actual movements of man's working lifetime; he was a great practical reformer, not a scholar, a philosopher, or even a devoted lover of books. I do not know that John Morley was personally well acquainted with Cobden, and I am rather inclined to believe that in his biography of the great free-trader he relied mainly on Cobden's correspondence and on the information given to him by members of Cobden's family. Yet he has created a perfect living picture of Cobden as Cobden's friends all knew him, and he has shown to coming generations, not merely what Cobden said and did, what great reforms he accomplished, and what further reforms he ever had in view, but he has shown what Cobden actually was, and made the man himself a familiar figure to all who read the book. So far as I can judge, he has achieved the same success when telling us of Burke, of Voltaire, and of Rousseau, and has made us feel that with his guidance we come to know the men themselves as well as the parts they performed in politics or in literature.

Morley has for a long time been engaged in preparing his life of Gladstone, and the mind of England, which has lately been distracted by the vicissitudes of war, is now free to turn to quieter thoughts, and to look with eager expectation for the completion of the book. No other living man could have anything like John Morley's qualifications as the biographer of Gladstone. He is one of the greatest masters of lucid and vigorous English prose. He has been what I may call a professional student of the lives of great men; he is a profound political thinker; and he has the faculty of describing to the life and making his subject live again. In addition to all these claims to the position of Gladstone's authorized biographer comes the fact that Morley was for many years intrusted with Gladstone's fullest confidence. To no one did Gladstone make his feelings and his purposes on all political questions more fully known than to John Morley; and I think I am justified in saying that at more than one critical period in his later political history Gladstone chose Morley as his especial and, for the time, his only confidant. I can say of my own knowledge that in the later years of Gladstone's active political life there were momentous occasions when John Morley acted as the one sole medium of private communication between Gladstone and the leaders of the Irish party. I know, too, how careful and methodical Morley showed himself on all such occasions, and with what ample and accurate notes he preserved the exact record of every day's intercommunications. This is, indeed, one of Morley's characteristic peculiarities--the combination of exalted thought with the most minute attention to the very routine of practical work. That combination of qualities will display itself, I feel quite certain, with complete success in Morley's history of Gladstone's life. John Morley has still, we may well hope, a long political career before him. When the Liberal party next comes into power, John Morley will unquestionably have one of its most commanding offices placed at his disposal.