All these things must be granted to Mr. Chamberlain; but when I come to speak of him intellectually, I cannot see anything in him but a very perky, smart, glib-tongued "drummer," who is able to pick up the crumbs of knowledge with extraordinary rapidity, and give them forth again with considerable dexterity. He speech on Uganda, so far as its thought and its phraseology were concerned, was on the level of the profound utterances with which Sir Ashmead Bartlett tickles and infuriates the groundlings of provincial audiences. But it took the House—at least, it took the Tories; and, after all, what party orators who have not the responsibilities of office have to do, is to get cheers and embarrass the Government.

[Sidenote: Another hymn to the G.O.M.]

The reader must not be either exasperated or bored if he finds continuous mention of the G.O.M. in these pages, for he is, to a great extent, the House of Commons. I remember hearing Mrs. Gladstone once use of her distinguished husband a phrase which gave tersely and simply a complete idea of a side of his character. It was just before his historic visit to Birmingham, and there was anxiety as to the vast size of the great Bingley Hall in which it had been decided he was to speak. "He has such heart," said Mrs. Gladstone of her husband—meaning that whatever was the size of the hall, he would do his best, at whatever cost, to fill it with his voice. It is this mighty heart of his which carries him through everything, and which largely accounts for the hold he has over the imaginations and hearts of the masses. Well, one can see proof of this in his conduct whenever he is leader of a Government. Other Prime Ministers and leaders of the House are only too willing to leave as much of the work as possible to their subordinates. Disraeli used to lie in Oriental calm during the greater part of every sitting, leaving all his lieutenants to do the drudgery while he dosed and posed. Not so Gladstone. He is almost literally always on his legs. The biggest bore—the rudest neophyte—the most gulping obstructive is certain of an answer from him—courteous, considerate, and ample. No debate, however small, is too petty for his notice and intervention; in short, he tries to do not only his own work, but everybody else's.

[Sidenote: His justification.]

I have once or twice gently suggested that I thought the G.O.M. might leave a little more to his subordinates, and spare that frame and mind which bears the Atlantean burden of the Home Rule struggle. But Mr. Gladstone is able to unexpectedly justify himself when his friends are crying out in remonstrance; and it is, too, one of the peculiarities of this extraordinary portent of a man—extraordinary physically as much as mentally—that the more he works, the fresher and happier he seems to be. If you see him peculiarly light-hearted; if he be gesticulating with broad and generous sweep on the Treasury Bench; if he be whispering to Sir William Harcourt, and then talking almost aloud to Mr. John Morley—above all, if he be ready to meet all comers, you may be quite sure that he has just delivered a couple of rattling and lengthy speeches, in which, with his deadly skill and perfect temper, he has devastated the whole army of false arguments with which his opponents have invaded him. So, for instance, it was on March 28th. It was noticed that he was not in the House for some hours during the discussion of the Vote on Account. But, as evening approached, there he was in his place—fresh, smiling, happy, every limb moving with all the alertness of auroral youth. In the interval between his first appearance in the House and then later, he had delivered two lengthy speeches to two deputations of deadly foes; but he came down after this exertion just as if he had been playing a game of cricket, and had taken enough physical exercise to bring blitheness to his spirits and alacrity to his limbs.

[Sidenote: His unending progress.]

And then the best of it all is that Mr. Gladstone justifies his speech-making by improving every hour. It would scarcely seem credible that a man with more than half-a-century of speech-making and triumphs behind him would have been capable of making any change, and especially of making a change for the better. But the peculiarity of Mr. Gladstone is that even as a speaker he grows and improves every day. I have been watching him closely now for some sixteen years in the House of Commons, and I thought that it was impossible for him to ever reach again the triumphs of some of his utterances. I have heard people say, too, that they felt it pathetic to hear him deliver his speech on the introduction of the Home Rule Bill, and to remember the vigour with which his utterances on that occasion stood in such a contrast. This was superficial and false criticism. It is quite true that the old resonance of the voice is not there, and it is true that now and then he shows signs of physical fatigue, and that recently after his cold there were some days when his voice was little better than a very distinct, but also a very pathetic, whisper. But there is another side. Age has mellowed his style, so that now he can speak on even the most contentious subject with a gentleness and a freedom from anything like venom—with an elevation of tone—that make it almost impossible for even his bitterest opponent to listen to him without delight and, for the moment at least, with a certain degree of assent. If anybody really wishes to find out what constitutes the highest and most effective form of House of Commons' eloquence, he should spend his days in listening to Mr. Gladstone in the most recent style he has adopted in the House of Commons. And the lessons to be derived are that House of Commons' eloquence should be easy, genial in temper, reserved in force—in short, that it should put things with the agreeable candour, and passionlessness want of exaggeration which characterise well-bred conversation.

[Sidenote: To the slaughter.]

A foredoomed sheep could not have been brought more unwillingly to the slaughter than was Mr. Balfour to the debate on the Vote of Censure. He had nothing new to say, and unfortunately he felt that as keenly as anybody else. Every single topic with which he had to deal had been discussed already, until people were positively sick of them—in short, poor Mr. Balfour was in the position of having to serve up to the House a dish that had been boiled and grilled and stewed, and yet stewed again, until the gorge rose at it in revolt and disgust. The late Chief Secretary has the susceptibility of all nervous temperaments. The men are indeed few who have equal power with all kinds of audiences—with an audience that is friendly and that is hostile. Still more rare is it to find a man who can face an audience even worse than a downright hostile one, and that is an audience which is indifferent, There are very few men I have known in my Parliamentary experience who could do it.

[Sidenote: A memory of Parnell.]

Mr. Parnell was one. I have seen him speak quite comfortably to an audience which consisted of himself, Mr. Biggar, the Minister in attendance, and the Speaker of the House—in all, four, including himself. Indeed, he often said to me that he rather liked to have such an audience. Speaking was not easy or agreeable to him, and his sole purpose for many years in speaking at all was to consume so much time. Parnell was a man who always found it rather hard to concentrate his mind on any subject unless he was alone and in silence. This was perhaps one of the many reasons why he kept out of the House of Commons as much as he could. Anything like noise or disturbance around him seemed to destroy his power of thinking. For instance, when he was being cross-examined by Sir Richard Webster in the course of the Forgeries Commission, his friends trembled one day because, looking at his face, with its puzzled, far-away look, they knew that he was in one of those moods of abstraction, during which he was scarcely accountable for what he said. And sure enough he made on that day the appalling statement that he had used certain language for the purpose of deceiving the House of Commons. He said to me that he liked to speak in an empty House because then he had time to collect his thoughts. Joe Biggar, his associate, was also able to speak in any circumstances with exactly the same ease of spirit. To him, speaking was but a means to an end, and whether people listened to him or not—stopped to hang on his words or fled before his grating voice and Ulster accent—it was all one to him. Two other men have the power of speaking always with the same interest and self-possession. These are Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. O'Connor Power.

[Sidenote: The Sensitiveness of Mr. Balfour.]

But Mr. Balfour is like none of these men. He requires the glow of a good audience—of a cheering party—of the certainty of success in the division lobby—to bring out his best powers. The splendid, rattling, self-confident debater of the coercion period now no longer exists, and Mr. Balfour has positively gone back to the clumsiness, stammering, and ineffectiveness of the pre-historic period of his life before he had taken up the Chief Secretaryship. That was bad enough; but what is worse is that the House is beginning to feel it. If you lose confidence in yourself, the world is certain to pretty soon follow your example. And so it is now with Mr. Balfour, for when he stood up to speak on March 27th there was the sight—which must have made his soul sink to even profounder depths of depression—of members leaving the House in troops and rushing to the lobby, the library, or the smoke-room, rather than listen to a debater whose rise a few months ago would have meant a general and excited incursion of everybody that could hear. Starting thus, Mr. Balfour made the worst of a bad case, his speech was a failure, and as the American would put it, a fizzle; in short, a ghastly business.

[Sidenote: The G.O.M.'s outburst.]

It was in the midst of this debate that Mr. Gladstone made his magnificent and unexpected outburst. He had been paying attention to the debate—but very quietly, and not at all in a way that suggested an idea of intervening in it. It was, too, about nine o'clock when Mr. Gladstone stood up, and anybody acquainted with the House of Commons knows that nine o'clock is in the very crisis of that dinner hour which nightly makes the House of Commons a waste and a wilderness. Nor, indeed, was there much in the opening sentences that seemed to indicate the fact—the great fact—that the House of Commons was about to listen to one of the most extraordinary manifestations of eloquence it has ever heard during its centuries of existence. For the Old Man was in his most benignant mood. He spoke of his opponents and their case in sorrow rather than in anger. Evidently, the House was about to listen to one of those delightful little addresses—half paternal, half pedagogic—to which it has become accustomed in recent years, since Mr. Gladstone threw off the fierce, warring spirit of earlier days, and became the honey-tongued Nestor of the assembly. But, as time went on, the House began to perceive that the Old Man was in splendid fighting trim, and seized with one of those moments of positive inspiration, in which he carries away an assembly as though it were floated into Dreamland on the waves of a mighty magician's magic power. Smash after smash came upon the Tory case—as though you could see the whole edifice crumbling before your eyes, as though it were an earthquake slitting the rocks and shaking the solid earth. And, all the time, no loss whatever of the massive calm, the imperturbable good-humour, the deadly politeness which the commercial gentlemen from Ulster have also found can kill more effectively than the shout of rhetoric, or the jargon of faction, or the raucous throat of bigotry.

[Sidenote: In the Empyrean.]

At last the Old Man had come to a contrast between the action of the Tory Government of 1885 and the Liberal with regard to the treatment of prisoners in Ireland. The history of that period is one upon which Mr. Gladstone is now able to speak without feeling; but he dragged out from that period and its hidden recesses the whole story of the negotiations between Parnell and Lord Carnarvon, and all the other circumstances that make that one of the most remarkable epochs in the history of English parties. He was now sweeping all before him. This Lord Randolph felt, and it was almost timorously he rose to make an interruption. The Old Man courteously gave way; but it was only to jump up again and pour on his young opponent a tide of ridicule and answer which overwhelmed him. Higher and higher he soared with every succeeding moment, and stranger and more impressive became the aspect of the House. There is nothing which becomes that assembly so much as those moments of exaltation during which it is under the absolute spell of some great master of its emotions. Then a death-like stillness falls upon it—you can almost hear the same heavy-drawn sighs as those that in a Paris opera-house tell of all the passion, the flood of memory and regret, and the dreams which are evoked by the voice of a Marguerite before her final expiation—of a Juliet before her final immolation. Laughter and cheers there were in abundance during this portion of Mr. Gladstone's speech; but the general demeanour was one of deadly stillness and rapt emotion—the stillness one can imagine on that Easter morning when De Quincey went forth and washed the fever from his forehead with the dew of early day.

[Sidenote: An episode.]

And in the midst of it all there came one of the most pathetic little episodes I have seen in the House of Commons of recent years. Mr. Gladstone has somewhat changed his habits in one respect. There was a time when he rarely came to the House to deliver a great speech without a little bottle—such as one sees containing pomade on the dressing-table of the thin-haired bachelor. Of late, the pomade-bottle has disappeared. The G.O.M. is now content to take the ordinary glass of water. It is very seldom that he requires even that amount of sustenance during his great speeches. However, he had been doing a good deal that day—he had already made a long speech to his supporters in the Foreign Office—and he required a glass of water. He called out for it, and, at once, there was a rush from the Treasury Bench to the lobby outside. But, before this could be done, the very pleasant little episode to which I have alluded took place. There stood opposite Mr. Jackson, the late Chief Secretary, an untouched glass of water. When he heard the cry of the Old Man, Mr. Jackson—who has plenty of Yorkshire kindliness, as well as Yorkshire bluffness—at once took up the glass that stood before him, and handed it across the table. With a bow, and a delighted and delightful smile, the Old Man took the glass, and drank almost greedily. And then, turning to his opponents, he said, "I wish the right hon. gentleman who uses me so kindly, were as willing to take from my fountainhead as I am from his." The grace, the courtesy, the readiness with which it was said, took the House by storm, and it was hard to say whether the delighted laughter and cheers came in greater volume from the Tory or the Liberal side of the House.

[Sidenote: The peroration.]

And Mr, Gladstone's power increased with his power over the House. It looked as if you were watching some mighty monarch of the air that rises and rises higher, higher into the empyrean on slow-poised, even almost motionless, wing. Leaving behind the narrow issues of the particular motion before the House, Mr. Gladstone entered on a rapid survey of the mournful and touching relations between English officialism and Irish National sentiment. From the dead past, he called up the touching, beautiful, and sympathetic figure of Thomas Drummond, and all his efforts to reconcile the administration of the law with the rights and sentiments of the Irish people. The time for cheering had passed. All anybody could do was to listen in spellbound silence, as sonorous sentence rolled after sonorous sentence. And then cams the end, in a softer and lower key. It was a direct personal allusion to Mr. Morley. It was the whole weight of the Government and of its head thrown to the side of the Chief Secretary in the new policy in Ireland. "We claim," said Mr. Gladstone, "to be partakers of his responsibility, we appeal to the judgment of the House of Commons, and we have no other desire except to share his fate." And then a hurricane of applause.

[Sidenote: A first experience.]

It was impossible not to feel sympathy for Lord Randolph Churchill in the difficult task of following such a speech. The first thing he had to do was to bear testimony to the extraordinary effect the speech had made upon the House of Commons. It was, he said, a speech "impressive and entrancing"—two most happily-chosen epithets to describe it. And then Lord Randolph told a little bit of personal history which was interesting. In all his Parliamentary career, this was the first time he had been called upon to immediately follow a speech of Mr. Gladstone. He would willingly have abandoned the opportunity, for it was a speech which no man in the House of Commons was capable of confronting. After it, everything else was bound to fall flat, dull, and unimpressive. Lord Randolph had the misfortune of having prepared a speech of considerable length—going into the dead past, forgotten things, and found himself—almost for the first time in his life—incapable of holding the attention of the House of Commons. Then the division followed, with 47 of a majority—and loud ringing cheers came from the friends of the Government—and especially from the Irish benches—represented in the division by every single member of the party, with the exception of one, absent on sick leave.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM.

[Sidenote: Still holiday-making.]

The Easter holidays were slow in coming to an end. People who were fortunate enough to obtain pairs, lingered by the seaside or in the country house. Others were busy with the work which the recess now imposes as much as in the most feverish Parliamentary times on leading political men. Mr. Balfour was away in Ireland, among the Orangemen of Ulster and the Loyalists of Dublin; Lord Randolph Churchill was at Liverpool making silly and violent speeches; Mr. Chamberlain was colloguing—to use an excellent Irish phrase—with the publicans of the Midlands. The Irish were especially conspicuous by the smallness of their attendance. They had been months away from business, wives, children, and naturally they were anxious to take advantage of the brief breathing space which was left to them before that time came when they could not leave Westminster for a moment in the weeks during which the Home Rule Bill was in Committee!

[Sidenote: Return of the G.O.M.]

Mr. Gladstone, of course, was in his place. Down in Brighton, in a pot-hat, antediluvian in age and shape, he had been courting the breeze of the sea under the hospitable wing of Mr. Armitstead; escaping from the crowds of hero-worshippers, and attending divine service sometimes twice in the same day. He had not been idle in his temporary retreat. When the day comes to record his doings before the accurate scales of Omnipotent and Omniscient Justice, he will stand out from all other men in the absolute use of every available second of his days of life. It was clear that during his retreat, as during his hours of official work, his mind had been busy on the same absorbing and engrossing subject. He was armed with a considerable manuscript, and had evidently thought out his sentences, his arguments, his statements of facts with intense devotion and thought.

This is one of the things which distinguishes him from other public men of his time. There are men I wot of—and not very big men either—who are nothing without their audience. They deem their dignity abused if there be not the crowded bench, the cheering friends, the prominent and ostentatious place. Not so Mr. Gladstone. Perhaps it is the splendid robustness of his nerves, perhaps the absorption in his subject to the forgetfulness of himself; whatever it is, he faces this small, distrait, perhaps even depressed, audience with the same zest as though he were once again before that splendid gathering which met his eyes on the memorable night when he brought in his Home Rule Bill. Who but he could fail to have noticed the contrast, and noticing, who but he could remain so loftily unobservant and unimpressed?

[Sidenote: In splendid form.]

But then Mr. Gladstone has too much of that splendid oratorical instinct not to fashion and shape his speech to the change in the surroundings. He has an impressionability—not to panic, not to depression, not to wounded vanity, but to the appropriateness and the demands of an environment, which is something miraculous. I have already remarked, that the infinite variety of his oratory is Shakespearian in its completeness and abundance. The speech on April 6th was an additional proof of this. Comparisons were naturally made between this speech and the speech by which he introduced the Bill, and everybody who was competent thought that the second speech was the finer and better of the two. Stories have trickled through to the public of the anxieties and worries with which Mr. Gladstone was confronted—not from the Irish side—on the very night before he had to bring forth this prodigious piece of legislative work. It is these small worries that to many Statesmen are the grimmest realities and the most momentous and effective events of their inner lives. It is reported that one of the few sleepless nights which have ever disturbed the splendidly even and sane and healthy tenor of this tempestuous and incessantly active life, was the night before the introduction of the Home Rule Bill. There are points to be finally settled—clauses to be ultimately fixed—phrases to be polished or pared at the eleventh hour in all human affairs. Measures finally settled and fixed for weeks before the last hour exist—like all perfection—only in the brains and pages of dramatists and novelists.

[Sidenote: Sunburnt, vigorous, self-possessed.]

It was not unnatural under these circumstances that when Mr. Gladstone made his speech introducing the Home Rule Bill there should have been on his cheek a pallor deadlier even than that which usually sits upon his brow. That pallor, by the way, I heard recently, has been characteristic of him from his earliest years. A schoolfellow from that far-off and almost pre-historic time when our Grand Old Man was a thin, slim, introspective and prematurely serious boy at Eton, tells to-day that the recollection he has of the young Gladstone is of a slight figure, never running, but always walking with a fast step, with earnest black eyes, and with a pallid face—the ivory pallor, be it observed, not of delicacy, but of robustness. Still there was on that Home Rule night, a pallor that had the deadlier hue of sleeplessness, worry, over-anxiety—the hideous burden of a great, weighty, and complex speech to deliver.

On April 6th all this was gone. The fresh, youthful, cheerful man who stood up in his place had drunk deep of the breezes that sweep The Front at Brighton; his cheeks were burned by the blaze of a splendid spring sun; in the budding, blossoming vital air around him he had taken some of that eternal hopefulness with which the new birth of nature in the spring inspires every human being with any freshness of sensation left. Perchance from his windows in the Lion Mansion he had looked in the evening over the broad expanse of frontierless waters, and risen to the exaltation of the chainless unrest, the tireless and eternal youth, the illimitable breadth of the sea. At all events, he stood before the House visibly younger, brighter, serener than for many a day.

The voice bore traces of the transformation of body and soul which this short visit to the sea has produced. It was soft, mellow, strong. There were none of the descents to pathetic and inaudible whispers which occasionally in the hours of fag and fatigue have painfully impressed the sympathetic hearer. As Mr. Gladstone subdued himself to the temper of the House, the House accommodated itself to the tone of Mr. Gladstone. I have heard his speech on the second reading described as a pleasant, delightful, historical lecture. Certainly, no stranger coming to the House would have imagined that these sentences, flowing in a beautiful, even stream, dealt with one of the conflicts of our time which excite the fiercest passion and bitterest blood. It is this calmness that is now part of Mr. Gladstone's strength. It soothes and kills at the same time.

[Sidenote: The Nestor-patriot.]

The evening was soft and sunny, the air of the House subdued, and the absence of anything like large numbers prevented outbursts of party passion. And yet all this seemed to heighten the effectiveness of the scene and the speech. Once again one had to think of Mr. Gladstone—as posterity will think of him at this splendid epoch of his career—not as the party politician, giving and receiving hard blows—riding a whirlwind of passion—facing a hurricane of hate—but as the Nestor-patriot of his country, telling all parties alike the gospel that will lead to peace, prosperity, and contentment. The Tories, doubtless, see none of this; but even they cannot help falling into the mood of the hour, and under the fascination of the speaker. Now and then they interrupt, but, as a rule, they sit in respectful and awed silence. Whenever they do venture on interruption, the old lion shows that he is still in possession of all that power for a sudden and deadly spring, which lies concealed under the easy and tranquil strength of the hour. He happens to mention the case of Norway and Sweden as one of the cases which confirm his contention that autonomy produces friendly relations. He has to confess, that in this case some difficulties have arisen; there is a faint Tory cheer. At once—but with gentle good humour—with an indulgent smile—Mr. Gladstone remarks that he doesn't wonder that the Tories clutch at the smallest straw that helps them to eke out a case against autonomy, and then he proceeds to show that even the case of Norway and Sweden doesn't help them a bit.

[Sidenote: A vivid gesture.]

There is another little touch which will bring out the perfection and beauty of the speech. One of the things which tell the experienced observer that Mr. Gladstone is in his best form, is the exuberance and freedom of his gesture. Whenever he feels a thorough grip of himself and of the House, he lets himself go in a way upon which he does not venture in quieter moods. He was dealing with the question of our colonies and of the difference which had been made in them by the concession of Home Rule. It was while thus engaged that he made one of those eloquent little asides, which bring home to the mind the vastness and extent of this great career. Nearly sixty years ago—just think of it, nearly sixty years ago—he had been associated with the Government of the Colonies—referring to the time when Lord Aberdeen was his chief, and he held office for the first time as an Under-Secretary. And then he made from Lord Aberdeen a quotation in which the Colonial Secretary calls delighted attention to the fact that Heligoland is tranquil—the single one of all the dependencies of the Crown of which that could be said at that moment.

But it was not at this point that the significant gesture came in, to which I have alluded. Mr. Gladstone had another document to read. By the way—even over the distance which divides the Treasury Bench from the Opposition Benches below the gangway, where we Irishry sit—I could see that the document was written in that enormous hand-writing, which is necessary nowadays when the sight of the Prime Minister is not equal to the undimmed lustre of the eagle eye. This letter, said Mr. Gladstone, was not addressed to him. It was not addressed to a Home Ruler. By this time, curiosity was keenly excited. But Mr. Gladstone—smiling, holding the House in firm attention and rapt admiration—was determined to play with the subject a little longer. The letter was not directed even to the Commoner. It was directed to a "Peer;" and as he uttered this sacred word, with a delicious affectation of reverence, he raised the index finger of his hand to high heaven, as though only a reference to a region so exalted could sufficiently manifest the elevation of the personage who had been the recipient of the letter. The House saw the point, and laughed in great delight. It is on occasions like these that one sees the immense artistic power which lies under all the seriousness and gravity of Mr. Gladstone—the thorough exuberance of vitality which marks the splendid sanity of his healthy nature.

[Sidenote: Mr. Birrell.]

I always tremble when I see a literary man, and especially a literary man with a high reputation, rise to address the House of Commons. The shores of that cruel assembly are strewn with the wrecks of literary reputations. It was, therefore, not without trepidation that I saw Mr. Augustin Birrell—one of the very finest writers of our time—succeed in catching the Speaker's eye. My misgivings were entirely unnecessary. With perfect ease and self-possession—at the same time with the modesty of real genuine ability—Mr. Birrell made one of the happiest and best speeches of the debate. Now and then, the epigram was perhaps a little too polished—the wit perhaps a trifle too subtle for the House of Commons. But careful preparation always involves this; and every man must prepare until he is able to think more clearly on his legs than sitting down. It was just the kind of speech which was wanted at a moment when the general air is rent with the rhodomontade and tomfoolery of Ulster. Applying to these wild harangues the destructively quiet wit of obiter dicta, Mr. Birrell made the Orangemen look very foolish and utterly ridiculous. Mr, Gladstone was one of Mr. Birrell's most attentive and cordial hearers. Mr. Birrell is going to do great things in the House of Commons.

[Sidenote: In penal servitude.]

The keen, playful, and penetrating wit of Mr. Birrell did not do anything for Mr. Dunbar Barton. Mr. Barton is—as he properly boasted—the descendant of some of that good Protestant stock that, in the days of the fight over the destruction of the Irish Parliament, stood by the liberties of Ireland. He is a nephew of Mr. Plunket—he inherits the talent which is traditional in the Plunket family, and is said not to be without some of the national spirit that still hides itself in odd nooks and corners of estranged Irish minds. But he has none of the saving grace of his country or family. A solemn voice that seems to come from the depths of some divine despair, and from the recesses of his innermost organs, together with a certain funereal aspect in the close-shaven face, gives him an air that suggests the cypress and the cemetery. But with deadly want of humour, he spoke of the possibility of his spending the remainder of a blameless life in penal servitude, and was deeply wounded when the uproarious and irreverent House refused to take the possibility seriously.

[Sidenote: Mr. Stansfeld.]

The following Friday was made memorable by a fine speech from Mr. Stansfeld. Full of activity, with undimmed eye, with every mental faculty keen and alert, with every lofty and generous aspiration as fresh as in the days of hot and perilous youth, Mr. Stansfeld yet appears something of a survival in the House of Commons. His appearance, his style of speech, even the framework of his thought, seem to belong to another—in some respects a finer and more passionate period than our own. The long hair combed straight back—the strong aquiline nose—the heavy-lined and sensitive mouth—the subdued tenderness and wrath of the eyes—even the somewhat antique cut of the clothes—suggest the days when the storm and stress of the youthful century were still in men's souls, and were driving them to conspiracy, to prison, to scaffold, to barricades, to bloody fields. There is also a deliberation in the delivery—a sonorousness in the phraseology—that has something of a bygone day. But all this adds to the impressiveness of the address. The fervour is all there, the unalterable conviction, the lofty purpose. There is reason for the warm note of welcome which comes from the Irish benches; for this man—perhaps disappointed—perchance not too well used—stands up to defend his principles with the same utter forgetfulness of self which belongs only to the finest and the truest natures.

[Sidenote: Commercial culture.]

Mr. Chamberlain has not a wide range of ideas, and his small stock has not been increased by anything like extensive reading. The House was relieved to find after his return to Westminster on the 10th of April that he had just begun to read Tennyson. It is always easy to know when Mr. Chamberlain is making the acquaintance of an author for the first time. Strictly business-like in even his reading, he apparently first thinks of reading a book when he has somewhere seen a quotation from it which might be worked into a speech; the next and almost immediate process is to transfer it to one of his speeches. This is one of the many differences between him and the exhaustless brain and universal reading of Mr. Gladstone. It was, therefore, not much of a surprise to those who had watched Mr. Chamberlain for years, to see that he was making a very bad and poor speech on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill—a speech certainly far inferior to that which he had delivered on the first reading. He had exhausted the poor soil; he had really no more to say. He was unfortunately helped by Mr. Gladstone, who, instead of listening in silence to attacks grown stale by their infinite repetition, attempted to correct some of Mr. Chamberlain's statements. This was especially the case in reference to the famous speech in which Mr. Parnell is spoken of as passing "through rapine to dismemberment." Mr. Chamberlain wished to insist that the language had been applied to all the Irish leaders: Mr. Gladstone insisted that they were applied to Mr. Parnell alone. This controversy between the Prime Minister and Mr. Chamberlain gave a little life to a speech that hitherto had been falling desperately flat, and as such the interruption was a tactical mistake.

[Sidenote: De mortuis.]

But it brought with curious unexpectedness a scene not without pathos and significance. In the midst of the thrust and ripost of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain, a strange and yet familiar voice was heard to shout out, "They put all the blame on Parnell because he is dead." It was a startling—even an embarrassing interruption. The memory of Parnell is still dear to the vast majority of the old comrades who were compelled to separate themselves from him in the Great Irish Disruption. At the time when Mr. Gladstone made the speech quoted, Mr. Parnell was the loved leader of the whole Irish people and a united Irish party; and the speech was made at a moment particularly solemn and glorious in the strange life and career of Parnell. The great controversy between the English and the Irish leader, which Mr. Chamberlain had raked up from the almost forgotten past, took place at the moment when Mr. Parnell had gone from town to town and county to county in Ireland, in the midst of vast and enthusiastic receptions—imperial demonstrations—with salvoes of cheers, enthusiasm, and auroral hope such as have taken place so often in Irish history on the eve of some mighty victory or hideous disaster. And, then, immediately after came Parnell's imprisonment, which he bore so well—the suppression of the National Land League, and the era of unchecked and ferocious coercion in which the good intentions and kindly feelings of Mr. Forster finally were buried. To separate themselves from Mr. Parnell at that great moment in his and their life, was a thing which none of Parnell's old comrades could do; and when this startling interruption came, it was the spoken utterance of many of their thoughts brought back by Mr. Chamberlain's venomous tongue in painful reverie over a glorious but dead moment, and a tragically wrecked and superb career.

[Sidenote: Crocodile tears.]

There was a painful pause, and then came, however, an antidote. It was not in the Irish Nationalist party—it was not in even his own colleagues in the small band of Parnell's supporters, that Mr. Redmond's observation found a responsive echo. A tempest of cheers broke forth from the Tory Benches—from the backers of the Times and the supporters of Piggott; and to add to the painful and almost hideous irony of the situation, Mr. Chamberlain made unctuous profession of sympathy with the vindication of Parnell's memory. To those who know that of all the fierce animosities and contempts of Parnell, Mr. Chamberlain's was perhaps the fiercest—to those who remember that strange and almost awful scene when Mr. Parnell—in one of those outbursts of concentrated rage which it was almost appalling to witness—turned and rent Mr. Chamberlain as first false to his colleagues and then false to Parnell himself—to those who remembered that deadly pallor that made even more ghastly the ordinarily pale cheek of Mr. Chamberlain beneath this withering attack—to those, I say, who remembered all this, nothing could be more grotesque than Mr. Chamberlain shedding a pious tear over Parnell's grave.

[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone and Parnell.]

The situation passed off, but in many breasts it had left its sadness and its sting behind. And then it was that once more the Old Man brought back the House to the temper from which it had been carried by the malignities of Mr. Chamberlain. Very pale, very calm, and, at the same time, with evident though sternly repressed emotion—even in the very height and ecstasy of Parliamentary passion there is a splendid composure and self-command about Mr. Gladstone that conveys an overwhelming sense of the extraordinary masculinity and strength of his nature—very pale, and very calm, Mr. Gladstone stood up. Speaking in low and touching tones he asked to make an explanation, because he feared that some observations of his might have given pain to gentlemen who were deeply attached to the memory of Mr. Parnell. Then he stated that while he had formed an opinion, which might be right or wrong, with regard to Mr. Parnell before his imprisonment in Kilmainham, he had always believed, after his release, that Mr. Parnell was working honestly for the good of Ireland; that he had made a communication to Mr. Parnell to that effect through a friend; and that from that time forward no hard word could be found in his speeches with regard to the Irish leader. This little speech was uttered with exquisite dignity and kindliness, and Mr. Redmond received it with the handsomest acknowledgment of its gentleness and grace.

[Sidenote: No manipulating.]

This episode has made me anticipate a little, and almost tempted me to pass by one of the incidents in the speech of Mr. Chamberlain. But that would have been a mistake, for it is an incident that brings out fully the reason why he is so utterly disliked and distrusted even in those Tory circles which, for the moment, are making use of him. It is an incident that likewise throws a flood of light upon the inner, hidden, dark depths of his sinister nature. He was arguing on the financial aspects of Mr. Gladstone's Bill. Under this portion of the Bill the trader who has residences in both countries is entitled to make his return for his income-tax in either England or Ireland. Mr. Chamberlain proceeded to put the case of a trader in that position who wished to embarrass the Irish Government, and who would wish accordingly to give England, and not the Irish Exchequer, the advantage of his income-tax. This he could do, Mr. Chamberlain pointed out, in the easiest manner imaginable; he could "manipulate his books." There it stands; these are the very words he used. Incredible, everybody would say who didn't know Mr. Chamberlain, and wasn't told by the evidence of eyes and ears that the words had actually been uttered. The Irish members were not slow to seize the point, and to shout aloud at this revelation of Mr. Chamberlain's nature; and even his Tory friends shuddered at such a manifestation of the real kind of man that lies hidden under Mr. Chamberlain's oily and smooth exterior. At first, he seemed surprised at the visible shock and tremor and involuntary sense of repulsion which this odious suggestion awakened on all sides—then he slowly realized that he had made a mistake; and, for once, this readiest of debaters was nonplussed, and even a little abashed.

[Sidenote: The Irish Members and the Bill.]

Mr. MacCarthy followed Mr. Chamberlain; he spoke just from ten to fifteen minutes—plainly, simply, to the point, and what he had to say was that he and his friends did look on this Bill as a final settlement, which Ireland would be honourably pledged to carry out. Unselfish, straightforward, unpretentious, kindly, Mr. MacCarthy brought into more vivid contrast the personal venom—the ruthless hunger for vengeance and the humiliation of his enemies—which came out with almost painful vividness from the speech to which we had just ceased to listen. Mr. Gladstone, sitting opposite, attentive and watchful, was evidently much pleased at the heartiness of Mr. MacCarthy's acceptance of his great measure.

[Sidenote: Sir George Trevelyan.]

The night wound up with the very best speech I have ever heard Sir George Trevelyan deliver. Sir George had to answer violent, fierce, almost malignant assault; but he did so without ever uttering a harsh word—without losing one particle of his courteous and admirable self-control—he raised the debate of a great issue to the high place of difference of principles and convictions, instead of personal bickerings and hideous and revolting personal animosities. It is the vice of Sir George Trevelyan as a speaker that he over-prepares—writing out, as a rule, nearly every word he has to utter, and often some of the very best speeches I have heard him deliver have been spoiled by giving the fatal sense of being spoken essays. The speech was carefully prepared, and, so far as I could observe, was even written out; but its grace of diction, its fine temper, above all, its manly explanation of a change of view and its close-knit reasoning, made it really one of the very finest addresses I have heard in the course of many years' debating.

[Sidenote: Toryism of the gutter.]

And, then, if you wanted to appreciate Sir George Trevelyan the more, you had only to wait for a few moments to hear the man who followed him. I am told on pretty good authority that, next to Lord Randolph Churchill, the favourite orator of the Tory provincial platform is Sir Ashmead Bartlett. I can well believe it. The empty shibboleths—the loud and blatant voice—the bumptious temper—that make the commoner form of Tory—all are there. He is the dramatically complete embodiment of all the vacuous folly, empty-headed shoutings, and swaggering patriotism which make up the stock-in-trade of most provincial Tories. Poor Mr. Balfour was caught by Sir Ashmead before he had time to escape, and in sheer decency had to remain while his servile adulator was pouring on him buckets of butter, which must have appalled and disgusted him. Indeed, the effect of the bellowings of the man from Sheffield could be seen in the bent back, the depressed face, the general air of limpness which overcame the Tory leader—as helpless, dejected, bent double, he looked steadily at the green bench underneath him, and concealed from the House as much as possible the tell-tale horror of his face.

[Sidenote: A portrait of Michael Davitt.]

On an assembly which had been jaded and almost tortured by this tremendous display, it was Mr. Davitt's fortune to come with his first speech in Parliament. For hour after hour he had sate, very still, with deeply-lined face, but with a restless and frequent twist of the heavy dark moustache, that spoke of the intense nervous strain to which this weary waiting was subjecting him. Davitt is a man whose face would stand out in bold relief from any crowd of men, however numerous or remarkable. He has a narrow face, with high cheek-bones, and the thick, close black whiskers, beard and moustache, make him look almost as dark as a Spaniard. The eyes are deep-set, brilliant, restless—with infinite lessons of hours of agony, of loneliness, torture in all the million hours which filled up his nine years of endless and unbroken gloom in penal servitude. The frame is slight, well-knit—the frame of a sturdy son of the people—kept taut and thin by the restless nervous soul within. An empty sleeve hanging by his side tells the tale of work in the factory in childhood's years, and of one of the accidents which too often maim the children of the poor in the manufacturing districts of England. The voice is strong, deep, and soft; the delivery slow, deliberate, the style of the English or American platform rather than of the Irish gathering by the green hillside.

[Sidenote: Dartmoor.]

Altogether, never did there stand before this British assembly in all its centuries of history, a figure more interesting, more picturesque, more touching, above all, more eloquent of a mighty transformation—of a great new birth and revolution in the history of two nations. Go back in memory to the day, when with cropped hair—with the broad-arrowed coat, the yellow stockings—this man dragged wearily the wheelbarrow in the grim silences under the sinister skies of Dartmoor, with warders to taunt, or insult, or browbeat the Irish felon-patriot—with the very dregs and scum of our lowest social depths for companions and colleagues—and then think of this same man standing up before the supreme and august assembly where the might, sovereignty, power, and omnipotence of this world-wide empire are centred, and holding it for more than an hour and a half under a spell of rapt attention that almost suggested the high-strung devotion of a religious service in place of a raging political controversy—think of this contrast, and then bless the day and the policy that have made possible such a transformation.

[Sidenote: Westminster.]

I cannot attempt to give all the strong points of a speech which bristled with strong points at almost every turn. To the House its entire character must have come as a surprise. The mass of members that crowded every bench, and filled the vacancies which Ashmead Bartlett had made—Mr. Gladstone sitting attentive on the Treasury Bench—Mr. Balfour listening with evident friendliness and sympathy—all these were enough to transport any orator into the realms of high stirring rhetoric, and to attune the nerves to poetic and exalted flight. But Davitt's nerves stood the test. Slowly, deliberately, patiently, he developed a case for the Bill, of facts, figures, historical incident, pathetic and swift pictures of Irish desolation and suffering, which would have been worthy of a great advocate placing a heavy indictment. Now and then there was the eloquence of finely chosen language—of a striking fact—even of a touching personal aside—but, as a whole, the speech was a simple, weighty, careful case against the Union—based on the eloquent statistics of diminished population, exiled millions, devastated homesteads.

[Sidenote: Tragic comedy.]

There were plenty of lighter strains to relieve the deadly earnestness of a man who had thoroughly thought out his case. And, curiously enough, these pleasant sallies nearly all had allusion to those tragic nine years of penal servitude through which Davitt has passed. Mr. Dunbar Barton, one of the Orange lawyers, had spoken of himself as likely to spend the remainder of his days in penal servitude. Mr. Davitt put the threat gently aside, with the assurance that the hon. and learned gentleman would probably be one day on the bench, and that he would advise him not to try to reach the bench by the dock. The same gentleman had expressed a doubt whether any constitutional lawyer would hold that he was guilty either of treason or treason felony, if he took up arms against Home Rule after it had been passed by both Houses of Parliament. "Would," said Mr. Davitt, with quiet pathos, "I had met such a constitutional authority in the shape of a judge twenty-three long years ago."

[Sidenote: A vulgar and caddish interruption.]

And, finally, what contributed to the marvellous effect of this speech was its temper and one interruption. In all the speech there was not one trace of the bitterness that must often have corroded that poor soul during the nine years of living death—even the allusions to political opponents of to-day were kindly and gentle. Above all things, the speech was one—not merely of an Irish Nationalist, but of a true Democrat—as desirous of the happiness of other nationalities and other peoples as of his own. It was while every part of the House was listening to this beautiful and touching speech, that a gentleman called Brookfield—one of the most offensive of the narrow and malignant section of Tories—rose and tried to trip Davitt up, by alleging that he was reading his speech. I am told that Mr. Balfour sprang in anger from his seat—there was a significant and a pained silence on the Tory Benches—there was a loud shout of anger and disgust from the Liberal and the Irish seats—with William O'Brien's voice shouting hoarsely above the tempest, "The party of gentlemen!" The Speaker showed what he thought, in that deadly quiet way with which he can administer a snub, that will never be forgotten. It was all that was wanted to complete the success of this wonderful speech.

[Sidenote: Sir John Rigby.]

Then came hand-shakings and clappings on the back, and a light in the eyes of Irish members that told of a great step forward in the progress of their cause. To a house thinned by the endless rhodomontade of a dull Orangeman—with a style of elocution to which the House is unaccustomed, and which has almost every fault delivery could have—the speech of Sir John Rigby, the Solicitor-General, was one of the finest and weightiest utterances delivered on the Bill. The massive head, the fine face, the rugged sense and leonine strength in face and figure, lent force to a criticism of extraordinary effectiveness on the attacks levelled against the Bill. First, the Solicitor-General took up the wild and whirling statement of one of the opponents of the Bill, and then coolly—as though it were a pure matter of business—he put in juxtaposition the enactments of the Bill, and the contrast was as laughter provoking with all its deadly seriousness, as the conflict between the story of Falstaff and the contemptuously quiet rejoinder of Prince Hal. Lord Randolph was taken in hand; he was soon disposed of. Then Mr. Dunbar Barton was crumpled up and flung away. Sir Edward Clarke ventured an interruption; he was crushed in a sentence. It was an admirable specimen of destructive criticism, and it hugely and palpably delighted Mr. Gladstone.

[Sidenote: Mr. Asquith.]

Mr. Asquith had intended to speak on April 14th, evening, but the portentous and prolix Courtney had shut him out, and he had to wait till the following evening. The change was, perhaps, desirable, for Mr. Asquith had thus the opportunity of addressing the House when it was fresh, vital, and impressionable. In these long debates the evenings usually became intolerably dull and oppressive. Though Mr. Asquith was an untried man when he went into office, in two speeches he succeeded in placing himself in the very front rank of the debaters and politicians in the House. Let me say at once that the speech was a remarkable triumph, and placed Mr. Asquith at a bound amid not only the orators, but the statesmen of the House of Commons—the men who have nerve, breadth of view, great courage, enormous resource.

[Sidenote: Joe's dustheap.]

One of the discoveries of the speech must have been particularly unpleasant to Mr. Chamberlain. The gentleman from Birmingham has at last found a man who does not fear him—who has a much finer mind—wider culture—who has judgment, temper, and a vocabulary as copious and as ready as that of Mr. Chamberlain himself. One had only to look at Mr. Chamberlain throughout the speech to see how palpable, how painful this discovery was—especially to a man to whom politics is nothing but a mere conflict between contending rivalries and malignities. Mr. Asquith—calm, self-possessed, measured—put Joe on the rack with a deliberation that was sometimes almost cruel in its effectiveness and relentlessness; and Joe was foolish enough to point the severity and success of the attack by losing his self-control. When Mr. Asquith said that Joe could find no better employment than that of "scavenging"—here was a word to make Joe wince—"among the dustheaps" of past speeches, Joe was a sight to see. A "scavenger"—this was the disrespectful way in which those quotations were described which had often roused the Tory Benches to ecstasies of delight. Joe was so angered that he could not get over it for some time. "Dustheaps!" he was heard to be muttering several times in succession, as if the word positively choked him. Indeed, throughout Mr. Asquith's speech, whenever the allusions were made to him, Joe was seen to be muttering under his teeth. It was the running commentary which he made on the most effective attack that has been uttered against him; it was the highest tribute to the severity and success of the assailant.

[Sidenote: Limp Balfour.]

Badly as Mr. Chamberlain bore his punishment, Mr. Balfour was even worse. It is seldom that the House of Commons has seen a more remarkable or more effective retort than the happy, dexterous, delightful—from the literary point of view, unsurpassable—parody which Mr. Asquith made of Mr. Balfour's flagitious incitements to the men of Belfast. Mr. Asquith put the case of Mr. Morley going down to a crowd in Cork, and using the same kind of language. Mr. Balfour, in his speech, had over and over again used the name of the Deity. "I pray God," said the pious leader of the Tory party, as he addressed the Orangemen. When, in the imaginary speech which Mr. Asquith put into the mouth of Mr. Morley, he recurred again and again to the phrase, "I pray God," there was just the least lifting of the eyes and lowering of the voice to the sanctimonious level of the Pharisee which made this part of the speech not merely a fine piece of oratory, but a splendid bit of acting. Mr. Balfour's appearance during this portion of Mr. Asquith's speech was pitiable. His face, with its pallor—look of abashed pain—was tell-tale of the inner shame which he felt, as thus calmly, coldly, cruelly—with extraordinary art, and amid a tempest of cheers—he was brought by his opponent face to face with realities which lay underneath his bland and oily phrases.

[Sidenote: Another unmannerly interruption.]

In the midst of the calm and stately flow of Mr. Asquith's speech, while the House, spellbound, listened in awe-struck and rapt silence, suddenly, there was a commotion, a shout, then the roar of many voices. The whole thing came upon the House with a bewildering and dumbfounding surprise; it was as if someone had suddenly died, or some other sinister catastrophe had occurred. In a moment, several Irish members—Mr. Swift McNeill, Mr. Crilly, and others—were on their feet, shouting in accents hoarse with anger, inarticulate with rage. The Speaker was also on his feet, and, for a while, his shouts of "Order! Order!" failed to calm the sudden, fierce cyclone. Above the din, voices were shouting, "Name! Name!" with that rancorous and fierce note which the House of Commons knows so well when passion has broken loose, and all the grim depths of party hate are revealed. At last, it was discovered that Lord Cranborne was the culprit, and that when Mr. Asquith, amid universal sympathy and assent, was alluding to the beautiful speech of Mr. Davitt, this most unmannerly of cubs had uttered the word, "Murderer."

[Sidenote: A whipped hound.]

If he had not been so unspeakably rude, vulgar, odious, and impertinent, one might have almost felt sympathy for Lord Salisbury's son in the position in which he found himself. His face is usually pale, but now it had the deadly, ghastly, and almost green pallor of a man who is condemned to die. But, amid all the palpable terror, the Cecil insolence was still there, and Lord Cranborne declared that, though he had used the phrase, he had not intended it for the House, and that it was true. Since his relative, Lord Wolmer, made the lamest and meanest apology the House of Commons had ever heard, there never had been anything to equal this. The House groaned aloud in disgust and contempt; even his own side was as abashed as when Brookfield sought to interrupt Mr. Davitt. The Speaker, quietly, but visibly moved and disgusted, at once told the insolent young creature that this was not sufficient, and that an apology was due—to which the Cecil hopeling proceeded to do with as bad a grace and in as odious a style as it was possible for it to be done. Mr. Asquith's splendid self-control and mastery of the House bore the ordeal of even this odious incident, and he wound up the speech with one of the finest and most remarkable perorations which has ever been heard in that great assembly. Calm, self-restrained, almost frigid in delivery, chaste and sternly simple in language, Mr. Asquith's peroration reached a height that few men could ever attain. The still House sate with its members raised to their highest point of endurance, and it was almost a relief when the stately flow came to an end, and men were able to relieve their pent-up tide of feeling.



CHAPTER IX.

THE END OF A GREAT WEEK.

[Sidenote: Mr. Goschen.]

The Tories were not in good heart at the beginning of the week which saw the second reading of the Home Rule Bill carried on April 21st, and perhaps it was owing to this that they put up one of their very best men. Mr. Goschen I have always held to be one of the really great debaters of the House of Commons. It is true that he has almost every physical disadvantage with which an orator could be cursed. His voice is hoarse, muffled, raucous, with some reminiscences of the Teutonic fatherland from which he remotely comes. His shortness of sight amounts almost to a disability. Whenever he has anything to read he has to place the paper under his eyes, and even then he finds it very difficult to read it. His action is like that of a distracted wind-mill. He beats the air with his whirling arms; he stands several feet from the table, and moves backwards and forwards in this space in a positively distracting manner. And yet he is a great debater.

[Sidenote: In Opposition.]

But Mr. Goschen, like every other orator of the Opposition, has fallen on somewhat evil days, and is not at his very best now. "The world," said Thackeray long ago, "is a wretched snob, and is especially cold to the unsuccessful." This applies to that portion of the world which changes sides in the House of Commons according to the resolves of the popular verdict. Mr. Goschen, then, is not seen at his best in these days when all his arguments can receive the triumphant and unanswerable retort of a majority in the division lobbies. But still, the speech of Mr. Goschen on April 17th was an excellent one; it was really the first, since the beginning of this debate, which struck me as giving something to answer. Acute, subtle, a dialectician to his finger-tips, Mr. Goschen is best as a critic, and as a bit of criticism, his attack on the Bill was excellent. Mr. Morley found himself compelled for the first time for days to take serious notes; here at last were points which it was necessary to confront. After all the dreary platitudes of many days, this was a mercy for which to be thankful.

[Sidenote: Randolph dull.]

Lord Randolph Churchill, rising on the following evening, was not at his best. He has been passing through what Disraeli once called a campaign of passion in the provinces; and his speeches have been full of the wildest fury. But all the fire had become extinguished. When Lord Randolph Churchill makes up his mind to be rational, few people in the House of Commons can be more rational; but when he makes up his mind to throw prudence, sense, and reserve to the winds, nobody can rise to such heights and descend to such depths of wild, unreasonable, bellowing Toryism—always, of course, excepting Ashmead-Bartlett. But when he is rational he is often dull—when he is unreasonable he is often very entertaining. The speech of April 18th was a rational speech—it was, therefore, a dull one. Lord Randolph is not what he was. The voice which was formerly so resonant has become muffled and sometimes almost indistinct, and the manner has lost all the sprightliness which used to relieve it in the olden days. The House of Commons is like the Revolution—it often swallows its own children.

[Sidenote: Father and son.]

Mr. Chamberlain might have been seen in two very different characters in the course of that same evening. He is not a soft man—amid sympathetic sniggers from all the House, Mr. Morley at a later stage referred sarcastically to the "milk of human kindness" which flowed so copiously in his veins—but he is a man of strong and warm domestic affections. He has the proud privilege of having in the House of Commons not only a son, but one who, in many respects, seems the very facsimile of himself, for the likeness between Mr. Austen Chamberlain and his father is startlingly close. This likeness is heightened by the similarity of dress—by the single eyeglass that is worn perennially in both cases, and, to a certain extent, by the walk. When the son began to speak this Tuesday night, there was even a stronger sense of the resemblance between the two. The voice was almost the same, the gestures were the same—the diction was not unlike—nearly all the tricks and mannerisms of the elder man were reproduced by the younger. For instance, when he is going to utter a good point, Mr. Chamberlain makes a pause—the son does the same: when Mr. Chamberlain is strongly moved, and wishes to drive home some fierce thrust, there is a deep swell in his otherwise even voice, and there is the same in the voice of the son. Then there is the same crisp, terse succession of sentences—altogether the likeness is wonderful.

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain pleased.]

It was pleasant, even to those who do not love Mr. Chamberlain either personally or politically, to watch him during this episode. When the son first stood up, the pallor of the face, the unsteadiness of the voice, the broken and stumbling accents, told of the high state of nervous strain through which he was passing, and it was easy to see that the emotions of the son had communicated themselves to the father. Mr. Chamberlain had his hat low down on his forehead so as to conceal his face and its tell-tale excitement as much as possible. But it turned out that he need not have been in the least alarmed. The speech of young Mr. Chamberlain, for a maiden speech, was really wonderful. It was lucid, well knit, pointed, cogent. Its delivery was almost perfect; it had the true House of Commons air and manner. This young man will go far. I shouldn't be surprised if he became in time even a better debater than his father. His education, I should say, is broader and deeper, his mind finer, and his temper sweeter and more under control. During the latter portion of the speech his father's face had a smile, pleasant to behold; one could forgive him a great deal of his hardness, rancour, even ferocity, for this manifestation—open and frank—of kindly human-feeling.

[Sidenote: And angry.]

But, as I have said, there was another manifestation of Mr. Chamberlain in the course of this very evening. Shortly before ten o'clock Mr. Morley rose to make his reply. It was twenty minutes to ten when he rose. It was close upon midnight when he sate down. And yet there wasn't one word too many—indeed, Mr. Morley might have gone even longer without wearying the House, for it was a speech which, although not free from some of the besetting weaknesses of his oratory, was an eloquent, impressive and convincing addition to the great argument on the Irish question. Giving himself a certain freedom—departing from the over-severe self-restraint which he so often imposes upon himself—abandoning the frigidity of manner which conceals from so many people his warmth of heart and of temper, he spoke with a go, a fire and a force of attack not very common with him. Above all things the speech gave the impression of one who spoke from the inside—who knew the subjects of which he was talking, not merely in their general aspects, but in their dark recesses—in their latent passion—in their awful and appalling depths. It was while this fine speech was being delivered that the other and the darker side of Mr. Chamberlain's nature was to be seen. There are no such enmities as those between relatives or former friends; and so it apparently is between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Morley—though it should be said most of the bitterness of the hatred seems to be on the one side. While Mr. Morley is speaking there is a frown on the face of Mr. Chamberlain that never lifts. Now and then, the sulky and sullen and frowning silence was broken by an observation evidently of bitter scornfulness addressed to Sir Henry James, and once there seemed even to be an angry interchange between him and Mr. Courtney because Mr. Courtney had ventured to put a civil question to Mr. Morley. Mr. Morley had to address a few words of hearty congratulation to Mr. Austen Chamberlain on his very successful speech. He spoke with the slowness, hesitation, and effort that betrayed a certain glimpse of the pain and grief that the political separations of life produce in all but the hardest and coldest natures. It was a graceful, generous, feeling tribute, but it did not soften Mr. Chamberlain—the same steady unlifting frown was there—the same "puss"—and when Mr. Morley had finished, there was a repetition of the evidently scornful comment of Mr. Chamberlain.

[Sidenote: A hit at Mr. Chamberlain.]

But Mr. Morley may well bear all this, for he was able to strike some very effective blows at Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Chamberlain for a hard-hitter has a wonderfully keen appreciation and a very sensitive skin for anything like a dexterous hit at his own expense. Alluding to the favourite argument of Mr. Chamberlain, that the speeches of Irish members in the past may have been deplorable, Mr. Morley asked were they the only people who had made such speeches? They might be repentant sinners, but who so great a prodigal as the member for Birmingham? The loud and triumphant laughter which this produced at the expense of Mr. Chamberlain, was followed up by another even more victorious thrust. The Irish members had abandoned prairie value in the same way as the member for Birmingham had surrendered the doctrines of "ransom" and natural rights. Mr. Chamberlain was very uncomfortable, and soon showed it by an interrupting cheer. "Seriously," said Mr. Morley, passing from this lighter, but very effective vein. And then he was interrupted by his foe. "Hear, hear," shouted Mr. Chamberlain in that deep, raucous, fierce note, in which he reveals the fierceness of his hatred, as though to say that it was time for Mr. Morley to address himself to serious things.

[Sidenote: Mr. Sexton.]

So the debate proceeded during the earlier part of the week; as it neared its close it increased in brilliancy, until in the last night it went out in a blaze of splendour and glory. On the Thursday evening Mr. Sexton was the speaker. He made a speech which was two hours and a half in duration; it was in my opinion too long—I think that except in the most exceptional cases no orator ought to speak more than half an hour. And yet I would not have had the speech shorter by one second; and it is a singular proof of the extraordinary command which this man holds over the House of Commons that he kept its attention absolutely without a moment's pause or cessation, during every bit of this tremendous strain upon his attention. With the exception of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sexton is the one man in the House who is capable of such a feat. This is largely due not merely to his oratorical powers but to the extraordinary range of his gifts. To the outside public—even to the House of Commons—he is chiefly known by his great rhetorical gifts; but this is only a part, and a small part, of his great mental equipment. His mastery over figures in its firmness of grasp, its lightning-like rapidity, its retentiveness, is almost as great as that of a professional calculator. He has a judgment, cold, equable, far-seeing, and he has a humour that is kindly but can also be scorching, and that has sometimes been deadly enough to leave wounds that never healed.

[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain's arithmetic.]

Perhaps not even Mr. Gladstone—certainly not Mr. Goschen—though he, too, is a past master in figures—is as formidable and destructive a gladiator in a fight over figures as Mr. Sexton; I pity any mortal who gets into grips with him on that arena. Mr. Chamberlain was the unhappy individual whom Mr. Sexton took in hand. Mr. Chamberlain has the reputation of being a good man of business, he certainly was a most successful one; and one would expect from him some power, at least, of being able to state figures correctly. When the figures he had presented to the country in a recent speech at Birmingham came under analysis by Mr. Sexton, Mr. Chamberlain was exposed as a bungler as stupid and dense as one could imagine. Mr. Chamberlain's mighty fabric of a war indemnity of millions which the financial arrangements of this Bill would inflict on England, melted before Mr. Sexton's examination—palpably, rapidly, exactly as though it were a gaudy palace of snow which the midsummer sun was melting into mere slush. The cocksureness of Mr. Chamberlain makes his exposure a sort of comfort and delight to the majority of the House; but still, the sense of his great powers—of his commanding position as a debater—of his formidableness as a political and Parliamentary enemy—made the House almost unwilling to realize that he could be taken up and reprimanded, and birched by anybody in the House with the completeness with which Mr. Sexton was performing the task. Mark you, there was nothing offensive—there was nothing even severe in the language of Mr. Sexton's attack. It was simply cold, pitiless, courteous but killing analysis—the kind of analysis which the hapless and fraudulent bankrupt has to endure when his castles in the air come to be examined under the cold scrutiny of the Official Receiver in the Bankruptcy Court.

[Sidenote: Johnston of Ballykilbeg.]

A different tone was that which Mr. Sexton assumed to Mr. Johnston of Ballykilbeg. Mr. Johnston, known to the outer world as a fire-eater of the most determined order, inside the House is one of the most popular of men, and with no section of the House is he more popular than with those Irish Nationalists for whose blood he is supposed to thirst. With gentle and friendly wit Mr. Sexton dealt with the case of Mr. Johnston lining the ditch, declaring amid sympathetic laughter that the one object of any Irish Nationalist who should meet the Orangemen in such a position would be to take him out, even if he had to carry him to do so. This reduction of the militancy of Ulster down to the level of playful satire did much to relieve the House from the tension which the wild language of Ulsteria had been calculated to provoke. Finally, there came a beautiful peroration—tender, touching, well sustained—which was listened to with breathless attention by the House, and produced as profound a depth of emotion on the Liberal as even on the Irish Benches. It was a peroration which lifted the great issue to all the heights of solemnity, nobility, and supreme interest which it reaches in the mouth of an eloquent orator. This tremendous speech—in its variety, in its power—in its alternation of scathing scorn, copious analysis, playful and gentle wit—was perhaps the most remarkable example in our times of the sway which an orator has over the House of Commons.

[Sidenote: Mr. Carson.]

Mr. Carson was unfortunate in every sense in having to follow an oration of such extraordinary power, and in having to follow it at that dread hour when every member of the House of Commons is thinking of his long-postponed dinner. The audience of "the Sleuth Hound of Coercion"—as Mr. Carson is usually called—if it was select, was at the same time, enthusiastic and appreciative. The little band of Unionists, who get very cold comfort, as a rule, during these hard times, sate steadily in their seats and eagerly welcomed and warmly cheered Mr. Carson. Behind him, too, was a pretty strong band of Tories, and Mr. Balfour sate throughout his entire speech listening to it with the keenest and most evident appreciation. I have already described the appearance of Mr. Carson and the impression he makes upon me; curiously enough, this impression was confirmed by an experience that afternoon. I happened to stand at a point of the House where I saw Mr. Carson from profile as he was speaking. He had just got to the point where, with a hoarse and deep note in his usually cold voice, he said to Mr. Morley that if the Chief Secretary would move the omission of all the "safeguards" from the Bill, he would vote along with him. There was a tone almost of ferocity—the tone which conveyed all the rage and despair of the Ascendency party in Ireland at the prospect of departing power—the fury of the Castle official that saw the approaching overthrow of all the powerful citadel of fraud and cruelty and wrong, of which he had been one of the chief pillars. And as Mr. Carson was uttering these words, I saw his profile—which often reveals more of men's natures than the front face.

[Sidenote: A curious reminiscence.]

I suppose I shall be considered very fantastic—but do you know what I thought of at that very moment? Some years ago, I stood at Epsom close to the ropes and saw Fred Archer pass me as he swept like the whirlwind to the winning-post in the last Derby he ever rode. Between Mr. Carson and Mr. Fred Archer, especially in the profile, there is a certain and even a close resemblance; the same long lantern face, the same sunken cheeks, the same prominent mouth, the same skin dark as the gipsy's. Never shall I forget the look on Fred Archer's face at the moment when I saw it—it was but for a second—and yet the impression dwells ineffaceable upon my memory and imagination. There was a curious mixture of terror, resolve, hope, despair on the sunken cheeks that was almost appalling—that look represented, embodied, summed up, as though in some sudden glimpse of another and a nether world, all the terrible and awful passions that stormed at the hearts of thousands in the great gambling panorama all around. And there was something of the same look on the profile of Mr. Carson—I could almost have pitied him and the party and traditions and past which he represented as I saw its death-throes marked on his suffering and fierce face.

But the speech of Mr. Carson was a clever one. Whatever the inner eye may see in the depths of Mr. Carson's soul, to the outward eye he has an appearance of a self-possession amounting almost to the offensive. He is dressed almost as well as Mr. Austen Chamberlain, but, unlike Mr. Chamberlain's promising lad—who still has much of the graceful shyness and unsteady nerve of youth—Mr. Carson has all the coolness, self-assertion, and hardness of the man who has passed through the fierce and tempestuous conflicts of Irish life. Mr. Carson stands at the box and leans upon it as though he had been there all his life; he shoots his cuffs—to use a House of Commons' phrase—as dexterously and almost as frequently as Mr. Gladstone; his points are stated slowly, deliberately, with that wary and watchful look of the man who has been accustomed to utter the words that consigned men to the horrors of Tullamore. The speech of Thursday evening was a clever speech. It wasn't broad—it wasn't generous—there was not a note in it above the tone of the Crown Prosecutor, but it was subtle, well-reasoned—the blows were happy, and told—and the Tories and Unionists were hugely and justly delighted.

[Sidenote: The approach of the division.]

At last we are within sight of the end. Friday had come, and everybody knew that this was the day which would see the division; and, after all, the division was the event of the debate. In moments such as these you can hear the quickened throb of the House of Commons, and if you fail to notice it you soon learn it from the public. In the lobbies outside stand scores of excited men and women begging, imploring, threatening—using every means to get admission into the galleries to witness a historic and immortal scene. Outside there is an even denser crowd—ready to hoot or cheer their favourites. The galleries are all crowded; peers stand on each other's toes, and patiently wait for hours. About ten o'clock a man rushes into the lobby, and there is a movement that looks most like a scare—as though the messenger were some herald of disaster. In a few minutes you see a great stir and a curious suppressed excitement in the lobby, and then you observe that the Prince of Wales has come down to pay the House one of his rare visitations, and to take that place above the clock which it is his privilege on these occasions to occupy.

[Sidenote: Sir Henry James.]

The evening began with a speech of Sir Henry James for the Unionist party—legal and dry as dust, but, towards the end, reaching a height—or shall I say a depth—of fierce party passion. In language more veiled, more deliberate, but as intelligible as Mr. Balfour's and Lord Randolph Churchill's, the ex-Attorney-General called upon the Orangemen to rise in rebellion. And, working himself up gradually from the slow and funereal tones which he usually employs, Sir Henry James wound up with a fierce, rude, savage gibe at Mr. Gladstone. Almost shouting out the word, "Betrayed!" he pointed a threatening and scornful finger at the head of Mr. Gladstone, and the Tories and Unionists frantically cheered.

It was more than ten o'clock when Mr. Balfour rose. The assembly was brilliant in its density, its character, its pent-up emotion, and in many respects the speech was worthy of the occasion. He was wise enough not to entangle himself in the inextricable network of clauses and sub-sections. In broad, general lines he assailed the policy of the Bill and of the Government, and now and then worked up his party to almost frenzied excitement. The cheers of the Tories were taken up by the Unionists, who thronged their benches with unusual density of attendance. Now and then there were fierce protests from the Irish Benches; but, on the whole, they were patient, self-restrained, and silent.

[Sidenote: Gladstone.]

Mr. Gladstone, meantime, was down early, after but a short stay for dinner. His face had that rapt look of reverie which it wears on all these solemn and great occasions, and there was a slightly deadlier pallor on the cheek. Mr. Balfour persisted with his speech to the bitter end, and now and then Mr. Gladstone gave an impatient and anxious look at the clock. The hands pointed to ten minutes to midnight before this man of eighty-three was on his legs to address a crowded, hot, jaded assembly in a speech that would wind up one of the great stages in the greatest controversy of his life.

[Sidenote: The opening.]

We who love and follow him hold our breaths, and our nervous anxiety rises almost to terror. Can he stand the strain?—will he break down from sheer physical fatigue and the exhaustion of long waiting? The first few notes of the deep voice are reassuring. The opening sentences also have that full roll which nearly always is inevitable proof that the great swelling opening will carry him on to the end; and yet there is anxiety. Those who know him well cannot help observing that there is just a slight trace of excitement, nervousness, and anxiety in the voice and manner. He has evidently been put out by the lateness of the hour to which the speech has been postponed. There is beside him a vast mass of notes, and then, before he reaches that, there is the long speech to which he has just listened, many points of which it is impossible to leave unnoticed. And so the first ten minutes strike me as rather poor—poor, I mean, for Mr. Gladstone—and my heart sinks. In memory I go back to that memorable and unforgettable speech on that terrible night in 1886, when, with dark and disastrous defeat prepared for him in the lobbies the moment he sat down, Mr. Gladstone delivered a speech, the echoes of whose beautiful tones—immortal and ineffaceable—still linger in the ear. And now the moment of Nemesis and triumph has come, and is he going to fall below the level of the great hour?

Ah! these fears are all vain. The exquisite cadence—the delightful bye-play—the broad, free gesture—the lofty tones of indignation and appeal—but, above all, the even tenderness, composure, and charity that endureth all things—all these qualities range through this magnificent speech. Thus he wishes to administer to Sir Henry James a well-merited rebuke for his terrible and flagitious incitements, and, with uplifted hands, and in a voice of infinite scorn, Mr. Gladstone turns on Sir Henry, and overwhelms him, amid a tempest of cheers from the delighted Irishry and Liberals.

[Sidenote: Chamberlain touched.]

But there is another and an even more extraordinary instance of the power, grace, and mastery of the mighty orator. The G.O.M. had made an allusion to that pleasant and promising speech of young Austen Chamberlain, of which I have spoken already. Just by the way, with that delightful and unapproachable lightness of touch which is the unattainable charm of Mr. Gladstone's oratory, he alluded to the speech and to Mr. Chamberlain himself. "I will not enter into any elaborate eulogy of that speech," said Mr. Gladstone. "I will endeavour to sum up my opinion of it by simply saying that it was a speech which must have been dear and refreshing to a father's heart." And then came one of the most really pathetic scenes I have ever beheld in the House of Commons—a scene with that touch of nature which makes the whole akin, and, for the moment, brings the fiercest personal and political foes into the holy bond of common human feeling. Mr. Chamberlain is completely unnerved—I should have almost said for the first time in his life. I have seen this very remarkable man under all kinds of circumstances—in triumph—in disaster—in rage—in composure—but never before—not even in the very ecstasy of the hours of party feeling—never before did I see him lose for a moment his self-possession. First, he bowed low to Mr. Gladstone in gratitude—and then the tears sprang to his eyes; his lips trembled painfully, and his hand sprang to his forehead, as though to hide the woman's tears that did honour to his manhood. And, curiously enough, the feeling did not pass away. I know not whether Mr. Chamberlain was out of sorts on this great night; but his manner was very different on this night of nights; indeed, from what it has been at every other period of this fierce, stormy Session. He cheered as loudly and as frequently as the best of the rank and file—interrupted—in short, manifested all the passions of the hour. But on that Friday night—specially after this allusion of Mr. Gladstone's to his son—he sate silent, and in a far-off reverie.

But the Old Man still passes on his triumphant way—now gently, now stormy—listened to in delight from all parts; and when he is now and then interrupted by some small and rude Tory, dismissing the interruption with delightful composure and a good humour that nothing can disturb. It is only the marvellous powers of the man that can keep the House patient, for it is pointing to one o'clock, and the division has not yet come. But at last he is approaching the peroration. It has the glad note of coming triumph—subdued, however, to the gentle tone of good taste. It is delivered, like the whole of the speech, with extraordinary nerve, and without any abatement of the fire, the vehemence, the sweeping rapidity of the best days. And it ends in notes, clear, resonant—almost like a peal of joy-bells.

[Sidenote: The division.]

Then there are the shouts of "Aye" and "No," with "Agreed, agreed!" from some Irish Benches—a humorous suggestion that highly tickles everybody. Mr. Gladstone is almost the last to enter from the lobby of the majority. Alone, slowly, with pale face, he walks up the floor. The significance of the great moment, the long years of struggle, of heroic courage, of inflexible temerity, of patient and splendid hope, all this rushes tumultuously to the minds of his friends and followers, and, in a second, without a word of warning or command, the Liberals and the Irish have sprung to their feet, and, underneath their cheers—their waving hats, their uplifted forms—Mr. Gladstone passes through to his seat as under a canopy.

At last, Tom Ellis, the Junior Liberal Whip, quickly comes up the floor—the paper is handed to Mr. Marjoribanks—this announces we have won—a good cheer, but short, for we want to know the numbers—and then they are read out.

For the second reading 347 Against 304

The majority is 43. The Lord be praised! we have polled all our men! And then more cheers—taken up outside in the deeper bellow of the big crowd, and then more waving of hats and another great reception to Mr. Gladstone. And so, as the streaks of day rose on this hour of Ireland's coming dawn, we went to our several homes.



CHAPTER X.

THE BUDGET, OBSTRUCTION, AND EGYPT.

[Sidenote: Sir William.]

Sir William Harcourt, on April 24th, had the double honour of speaking before the smallest audience and making the best Budget speech for many years. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has two manners. He can be as boisterous, exuberant, and gay, as any speaker in the House, and he can also be as lugubrious as though his life had been spent in the service of an undertaker. He was in the undertaker mood this evening. Slowly, solemnly, sadly, he unfolded his story of the finances of the country. He had taken the trouble to write down every word of what he had to say—an evil habit to which he has adhered all his life. But, notwithstanding these two things—which are both, to my mind, capital defects in Parliamentary speaking—Sir William put his case with such extraordinary lucidity, that everybody listened in profound attention to every word he uttered; and when he sate down, he was almost overwhelmed with the chorus of praise which descended on his head from all quarters of the House.

Sir William Harcourt imitated most Chancellors of the Exchequer, in keeping his secret to the latest possible moment. Like a good dramatist also, he arranged his figures and the matter of his speech so well that the final solution became inevitable, and the final solution, of course, was the addition of a penny to the income-tax. The debate which followed the Budget speech was quiet, discursive, friendly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Picton is a formidable man to Chancellors of the Exchequer—for he has very strong ideas of reform—especially on the breakfast-table; but Mr. Picton is rational as well as Radical; and he cordially acknowledged the duty of postponing even the reforms on which Radicals have set their hearts until more convenient times and seasons.

[Sidenote: Belfast.]

It was after midnight when a very serious bit of business took place. The House gets to know beforehand when anything like serious debate is going to take place—even though there be no notice. Accordingly, in spite of the lateness of the hour, the House was pretty full, and there was a preliminary air of expectation and excitement. One of the iron rules of the House of Commons is that the Speaker cannot leave the chair until a motion for the adjournment of the House has been carried. This is always proposed by the senior Government Whip. The motion is usually carried in dumb show, and with that mumble in which business is carried through in the House when there is no opposition. But it is one of the ancient and time-honoured privileges of the House of Commons to raise almost any question on the motion for the adjournment of the House. The reason, I assume, is that the representatives of the people—when about to separate—thought in the olden days that it ought to be their right to raise any question whatsoever, lest the king in their absence should take advantage of the situation. Many of the rules of the House—including several which lend themselves to obstruction—are due to this feeling of constant vigilance and suspicion towards the Crown.

Mr. Sexton is one of the men whose life is centred in the House of Commons. He will attend to no other business, except under the direst pressure—he has no other interests—though he used to be one of the greatest of readers, and still can quote Shakespeare and other masterpieces of English literature better than any man in the House except Mr. Justin McCarthy. Thus, when he rose after midnight, he had in his notes before him a perfectly tabulated account of the riots in Belfast, so that every single fact was present to his mind. The story he had to tell is already known—the attacks on Catholic workmen—on Catholic boys—on Catholic girls—by the sturdy defenders of law, loyalty, and order in Belfast. It was not an occasion for strong speech—the facts spoke with their silent eloquence better than any tongue could do. The business was all done very quietly—it had the sombre reticence of all tragic crises; everybody felt the importance of the affair too deeply to give way to strong manifestation of feeling. But there were significant and profound, though subdued, marks of feeling on the Liberal Benches; and everybody could see what names were in the minds of everybody.

[Sidenote: Mr. Asquith as leader.]

Mr. Asquith was for the moment the leader of the House. Though he has still some of the ingenuous shyness of youth—though he is modest with all his honours—though he has charmed everybody by the utter absence of swagger and side in his dazzling elevation—there is a ready adaptability about Mr. Asquith to a Parliamentary situation, which is as astonishing as it is rare in men who have spent their lives in the atmosphere of the law courts. The aptitude with which the right word always comes to his lips—his magnificent composure, and, at the same time, his power of striking the nail right on the head and right into the head—all these things come out on an occasion such as that of April 24th. Very quietly, but very significantly, he told the story of the riots; and very quietly and very significantly he spoke of the responsibility of the Salisburys, and the Balfours, and the Jameses, whose wild and wicked words had led to this outburst of medieval bigotry.

[Sidenote: Mr. Dunbar Barton.]

Mr. Dunbar Barton made a valiant but vain attempt to stem the tide against him, but he, like every other Unionist, was weighted down by the feeling that the Orangemen were doing immense service to the cause of Home Rule by their brutality. However, the fumes of Unionist oratory seem to have ascended to the heads of all the excitable young men of the Tory party. Mr. Dunbar Barton, personally, is one of the gentlest of men; his manners are kind and good-natured enough to make him a universal favourite—even with his vehement Nationalist foes; and he speaks with evident sincerity. But he had so worked himself up that he babbled blithely of spending a portion of his days in penal servitude—talked big about a mysterious organization which was being got ready in Ulster, and declared that the day would come when he would stand by the side of the Orangemen in the streets of Belfast. He was listened to for the most part in silence, until he tripped into an unseemly remark about Mr. Gladstone, when the much-tried Liberals burst into an angry protest.

[Sidenote: Mr. Arnold Forster.]

Very different was Mr. Arnold Forster. I must be pardoned if, as an Irishman, I always see something genial and not wholly unlovely even in the most violent Irish enemy. We all like Johnston of Ballykilbeg—most of us rather like Colonel Saunderson, and Mr. Dunbar Barton is decidedly popular. But this Arnold Forster—with his dry, self-complacent, self-sufficient fanaticism—is intolerable and hateful. He never gets up without making one angry. There is no man whose genius would entitle him to half the arrogant self-conceit of this young member. Acrid, venomous, rasping, he injures his own cause by the very excess of his gall and by the exuberance of his pretension. He also saw that the riots would do no good, and he hinted darkly of what he called "ordered resistance," whatever that means. But, on the whole, the advocates of the Orangemen made a very poor show.

[Sidenote: Tory obstruction.]

The Tories thus early developed the policy of preventing the Government passing any Bill—English or Irish—good or bad. Whenever a good English Bill stood as the first order—a Bill which they did not dare to oppose—they found some excuse for moving the adjournment of the House. This is a privilege which was intended to be used very rarely, but in the course of the present Session it has been very freely resorted to—especially when it has afforded a chance of keeping off good Government business. On Tuesday, April 25th, the excuse given was that Mr. Bryce had been guilty of political partisanship in adding a batch of Liberals to the Bench in Lancashire over the head of Lord Sefton—the Tory or Unionist Lord-Lieutenant of the county. Mr. Legh, a young, silent, and retiring Tory member, began the attack, and did so in a very neat, well-worded, and pretty little speech. Mr. Hanbury—who is making his fame as a champion obstructive—followed this up, and Mr. Curzon addressed the House in his superior style. Mr. Bryce was able to blow to pieces the fabric of attack which had been so laboriously erected against him by stating a few facts, of which these may be given as a fair specimen. When Mr. Bryce came into office, of the borough magistrates in Lancashire 507 were Unionists and only 159 were Liberals. On the county bench there were 522 Unionists and 142 Liberals. This was a crushing reply, and an even more satisfactory retort came in the shape of the division, when 260 voted for the Government, and only 186 against.