[Sidenote: Tommy "Burt."]

Nearly three hours of precious public time had been wasted over this wretched business, and at last, for the third or fourth time, the debate was resumed on the second reading of the Employers' Liability Bill. An amendment of Mr. Chamberlain's had been the obstacle which stood in the way of the Bill all this time. After the debate had gone on for hours, Mr. Chamberlain got up and declared that his amendment had served its purpose—an awkward way of putting it, which the Liberals were not slow to take up. The debate was made remarkable by the first speech of any importance made by Mr. Burt since he became a member of the Ministry. Mr. Burt is the most popular of members, and there was a ring of genuine delight in the welcome given to the honest, modest, genuine working man standing at the Treasury Bench, and symbolising the revolution of the times. Mr. Burt spoke ably and well, but it was in a foreign tongue—which it takes a little time for even a quick linguist to understand. This Northumbrian burr is the strongest accent in the House; even the broadest Scotch is less difficult to catch. It is curious how the different parts of the country betray themselves by their speech. There are Scotchmen whom it is not easy to follow, and there are very few of them who speak with anything like an English accent. Even the most fluent of the Welshmen speak with a certain hesitation, betraying their bilingual infancy and youth. The Irish have as many accents nearly as there are members. The Northumbrian burr, however, is a tongue apart. It has the pleasantness of every foreign tongue, and since Mr. Joseph Cowen left Parliamentary life, Mr. Burt is the only member who speaks it in its pristine purity. The Tories were closured finally, though they had their revenge by preventing the Bill from going to the Grand Committee, and the work of justice is a little longer postponed.

[Sidenote: Mr. Goschen playful.]

On Thursday, April 27th, the debate began on Sir William Harcourt's Budget; and it found Mr. Goschen in an unusually playful mood. He had a task for which his talents eminently fitted him. Irresolute, timid, changeable, he is the very worst man in the world for constructive legislation; but give him the opportunity of criticising what somebody else has proposed, and he is in his real element, and is, perhaps, the very best man in the House of Commons. There wasn't much to criticise in the Budget of Sir William Harcourt from the Tory point of view. Finding himself with a deficit the Liberal leader was unable to go in for any startling novelty, especially in a Session when everything is to be opposed in order that Home Rule may be defeated. But one would have thought that this would have delighted the timid and conservative soul of Mr. Goschen. Not a bit of it. Taking cleverly the rather auroral promises of the election period, Mr. Goschen contrasted all these hopes and glowing prospects with the thin and meagre fare of Sir William's Budget. It was very well done—full of unwonted fire, of biting and effective raillery and of excellent party hits; it lit up for a brief space the sombreness which has fallen so completely on the Tory Benches in this year of wails and lamentations.

[Sidenote: Sir William as an early Christian.]

But the debate soon relapsed under a soporific speech from Sir John Lubbock, who made an insinuating proposal to open a discussion on Home Rule in the midst of the debate on the Imperial Budget. Sir William was a delight during these proceedings. Everybody knows that he has both a warm heart and a warm temper, and there have been times when the collisions between himself and Mr. Goschen have seemed to indicate a violence of personal as well as of party antagonism. But the duty of great ministers is to practise the scriptural principle of turning the other cheek to the smiter. It is wonderful, indeed, to see how humanity can attune itself to a situation. The most violent and vehement free-lance below the gangway sobers down in office to politeness, and peace with all men of good or bad will. Sir William, sitting on the Treasury Bench that night—beneath the wild tirade of Mr. Goschen—under the dreary drip of Sir John Lubbock—was a sight that a new Addison might show to his child; not that he might see how a Christian might die, but how a great Christian official could suffer with all the patience of silent and suffering merit. There was a look of almost dazzling and beatific sanctity on Sir William's face that was perfectly delightful to behold. And when he got up to reply to Mr. Goschen and to Sir John Lubbock, whither had departed that splendid rotundity of voice—that resonant shout of triumph or of defiance? Sir William coo'd gently as the white-feathered dove; and the Tory Benches, which had been ebullient with excitement a few moments before, could not find it in their hearts to do other than listen reverently to this good and holy man expostulating with heathen foes. And thus the first resolution of the Budget got quietly through, which was exactly what the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted; whereupon there might have been observed, perhaps, by a close looker-on, a sinking of one of Sir William's eyelids, which might have suggested in a lesser mortal the wink of the man who takes off the mask when the comedy is over. Sir William is a splendid artiste.

[Sidenote: A great night.]

It was probably under the influence of Sir William that this turned out to be the greatest and best night the Government had had so far. The Railway Servants' Bill got through its third reading amid cheers, and then, before it knew where it was, the House found itself actually in the same night discussing a third Ministerial measure—the Scotch Fisheries Bill. It is one of the privileges of Scotland that nobody takes the least interest in her measures outside her own representatives, and that even they are sombre and joyless in the expression of their delight. The demand for Scotch Home Rule does not come assuredly from the intervention of English or Irish speech. I have never seen the House with more than a score or two of members when a Scotch question is under discussion, and on the rare occasions on which a Southron does dare to intrude upon the sacred domain, it is with the most shamefaced looks. And so Sir George Trevelyan and his Scotch friends were allowed to have their nice little tea-party without any interruption, and the Bill got very nicely through. Thus ended a remarkable night.

[Sidenote: The bullet in Downing Street.]

And now I come to the point which, after all, had been the most interesting during the week, and which, though rarely mentioned, was in everybody's mind. It was on the Thursday evening that Mr. Sexton got up quietly to ask whether the reports published in the evening papers were true, that a man had been arrested the previous night in Downing Street, who had apparently intended to attempt the assassination of the Prime Minister. There was death-like stillness all over the House as Mr. Sexton put his question—picking his words slowly and deliberately. If men were not so anxious and so shocked there might have been some demonstration of the vehement anger which was felt in so many breasts as Mr. Sexton brought out the words which put in collocation in the mind of the unfortunate lunatic the idea of attempting to kill Mr. Gladstone, and the phrase of Sir Henry James during the debate on the Home Rule Bill. But feeling was too intense and solemn for outspoken or loud utterance, and Mr. Sexton was allowed to put his question to the end without any interruption from the intensely excited and profoundly thrilled assembly. This is one of the curiosities of Parliamentary and British nature—that the moments of tensest feeling are so often those which, to a stranger, would appear listless, indifferent, impassive. Mr. Asquith spoke in tones suitable to the temper of the assembly. This was a very grave matter, he said; but it was for the moment before the courts of law, and his lips were sealed. And so the subject dropped.

[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone.]

The people were asking themselves what would happen, when Mr. Gladstone entered the House; but if there had been any desire to mark the occasion, he himself prevented it. He dropped more quietly into his seat than usual, and at the moment when, to a thin House, Sir William was giving one of those gentle and beatific answers to which I have already alluded. To judge by Mr. Gladstone's quietness of entrance, nothing unusual had happened to him, and he himself had declined even to talk about the matter. And yet there was a certain look as of reverie on his face—as though of a man who had looked into that dark and hideous abyss called Death. He had not been looking very well for some days, and perhaps there was not—though imagination saw it—a deadlier pallor than usual on the face. But it was only when he was sitting on the deserted bench beside Sir William Harcourt that one had an opportunity of detecting any difference between his usual appearance and his appearance at that particular moment. The minute he had any part to take in the proceedings of the House, he was just as alert, cheerful, self-composed as ever. This wonderful man is as much a miracle physically as mentally. The giant intellect is backed by a steady nerve, the perfect mind by the perfect body. And thus he is able to go through trials, dangers, fatigues, which would destroy any ordinary man, as though nothing had occurred. During this week, indeed, he was especially playful. On the Tuesday night, when the onslaught was being made on Mr. Bryce, Sir Henry James spoke of Lord Sefton as being a strong Liberal. Mr. Gladstone uttered a quiet, gentle, deprecatory "Oh!" whereupon Sir Henry James reiterated his statement with a look of surprise and shock. Mr. Gladstone didn't depart from his attitude of gentle and almost plaintive remonstrance. He waved his hand mildly, and with a smile, and Sir Henry James was allowed to proceed to the solemn end of his solemn harangue.

[Sidenote: A visit to the Lords.]

It is not often that a rational man takes the trouble of paying a visit to the House of Lords. But that assembly was certainly worth a visit on May 1st. When the fight in Woodford, County Galway, was at its height, and everybody was repeating the name of Lord Clanricarde, people began to ask if there were ever such a person, or if he were not merely the creation of some morbid imagination—desirous of conjuring up a human bogey for the purpose of demonstrating the iniquities of Irish landlordism. The story on the estate which he owned, and whose destinies he controlled, was that, on one occasion, a strange spectral figure had been seen following the coffin of the old Clanricarde to the tomb of his fathers; that the figure had disappeared as suddenly and as noiselessly as it had come; that it had not reappeared even on the solemn occasion when again the historic and century-old vaults of the family graveyard had opened to receive the late lord's wife and the existing lord's mother. Writing his missives from afar—invisible, unapproachable, unknown—or known, rather, only by harsh refusal—by dogged, obdurate rejection of all terms—save the full pound of flesh—not even rendered human by passionate and eloquent outburst of remonstrance, but represented by thin, brief, business-like and curt notes as of a very crusty solicitor—such Lord Clanricarde appeared to the imaginations of the people of the district of which he was almost the supreme master. There were riots—fierce conflicts extending over days—then dreary sentences of lengthy imprisonments, with gaol tragedies; but still this strange, dry, inarticulate, obstinate figure remained immutable, always invisible, unapproachable, obdurate, spectral. Even the Tory leaders were disgusted and wearied, and Mr. Balfour was careful, in the very crisis and agony of his fight with the National League, to disavow all sympathy with the strange being that was bringing to his assistance all the mighty resources of an Empire's army, an Empire's exchequer, and an Empire's overwhelming power to crush in blood, in the silence of the cell and the deeper silence of the tomb, all resistance to his imperious will.

[Sidenote: Entry of a ghost.]

It must have been with something of a shock that the House of Lords, with all its well-trained and high-bred self-control, found that this curious and fateful figure was within its gates. Probably, to scarcely half-a-dozen of his colleagues and fellow-peers, was this figure anything but a strange and unexpected incursion from the dim ghost-land, in which, hermit-like, he seems to dwell. Indeed, the Marquis of Londonderry was careful to explain that he had no personal acquaintance with the man whose case he was defending against the action of the Commission presided over by Mr. Justice Mathew. And it was easy to see, that Lord Clanricarde was a stranger, and a very lonely one, too, in that assembly in which he is entitled to sit and vote on the nation's destinies. On a back seat, on the Liberal side of the House, silent, forlorn, unspeaking and unspoken to, he sat throughout the long and tedious debate in which he was a protagonist. There was, indeed, something shocking to the sense—shocking in being so surprising—that this should be the figure around which one of the fiercest and most tragic political struggles of our time should have surged. He is a man slightly above the middle height, thin in face and in figure. Somehow or other, there is a general air about him that I can only describe by the word shabby—I had almost ventured on the term ragged. The clothes hang somewhat loosely—are of a pattern that recalls a half century ago—and have all the air of having been worn until they are positively threadbare. Altogether, there is about this inheritor of a great name—of vast estates—of a title that in its days was almost kingly—an air that suggests a combination between the recluse and the poor man of letters, who makes his home in the reading-room of the British Museum. It was also a peculiarity of the position that he seemed an almost unwelcome visitant, even to those who had to defend him. There was an awful pause when he rose, silently and so spectre-like, from his seat in the dim land of the back benches, and passed to the seat immediately behind the Marquis of Salisbury. Lord Salisbury made a very vivid and amusing speech in the course of the evening, in defence of Lord Clanricarde and in an attack on Mr. Justice Mathew; but observers thought they saw a look of palpable discomfort pass across his face at the approach of the Marquis of Clanricarde. The Lord of Woodford handed to Lord Salisbury a little bundle of papers; in the distance, the bundle had an inexpressibly shabby look—the look one might expect on the bundle which some Miss Flit of the Legislature would bring every day, as the record of her undetermined claim. Altogether, this appearance of Lord Clanricarde in the glimpses of the moon, rather added to the mysterious atmosphere in which he loves to live.

[Sidenote: Sir Charles Dilke.]

In the meantime, a very interesting debate was going on in the House of Commons. I have already remarked that Sir Charles Dilke has, in an extremely short time, re-established that mastery over the ear and the mind of the House of Commons which he used to exercise with such extraordinary power in the old days before misfortune overcame him. It is a power and mastery derived from a perfect House of Commons mind. Sir Charles Dilke, doubtless, has written on many subjects outside mere politics; but in politics his whole heart and soul are concentrated. There is no man in the House of Commons so thoroughly political. It would be bewildering to give even the heads of the subjects on which he has written and in which he is profoundly learned. He has written about our Army—he could tell you everything about every army corps in the German Army—he knows all about every fortress on the French frontier—he can convey to you a photographic picture of every great public man on the Continent—he would be able in the morning to take charge of the Admiralty, and over and on top of all this knowledge he could tell you every detail of the law of registration, of parochial rating, of vestry work, and all the rest of that curious technical, dry, detailed information which raises the ire of parish souls, and forms the fierce conflicts of suburban ratepayers.

[Sidenote: Egypt.]

It could be seen after he had been five minutes on his legs that Sir Charles Dilke was about to give on Egypt a speech which would suggest this sense of easy and complete mastery of all the facts, and that, therefore, the speech would be a thorough success. And so it was—so successful, indeed, that it was listened to with equal attention by the Tories as by the Liberals, though nothing could be more abhorrent to the Tory imagination than the proposal by Sir Charles Dilke of an early evacuation of Egypt. Perhaps their indignation was a little mitigated by the fact which Sir Charles Dilke brought out with such clearness, that Lord Salisbury was just as deeply committed to the eventual evacuation of Egypt as any other public man.

[Sidenote: An awkward situation.]

It was curious to watch the House of Commons during this debate. There is no doubt that a very awkward situation was before that assembly. On the one hand, there were the interests of the country—as they are understood by the Tory party; on the other, there was a very difficult party situation—a situation difficult enough to tempt even the most patriotic, self-denying, and impartial Tory to gaze on the Liberal leaders opposite with a certain amount of mischievous curiosity. How was Mr. Gladstone going to make a speech which would fulfil those extremely diverse purposes? First, leave the door open for a continued stay for some time longer, and at the same moment for final evacuation; secondly, please Sir Wm. Harcourt on the one side, and Lord Rosebery on the other; thirdly, keep together a party which ranges from the strong foreign policy of moderate men to the ultra-nonintervention of Mr. Labouchere. Mr. Gladstone had, however, to do a good deal more than this. For it was easy to see from the condition of the Tory seats, and especially from the attitude of the front Opposition Bench, that party instinct had suggested that this was just one of the occasions on which the Government might be put in a very tight place. Let Mr. Gladstone say something which would satisfy Mr. Labouchere, and immediately Mr. Goschen would be down upon him—the late Chancellor of the Exchequer had the air of a man who was thoroughly primed for damaging criticism and ardent attack—with a philippic charging him with abandoning the most sacred interests of the country. Indeed, it was quite evident that Mr. Gladstone had to face a very ugly little question, and that his political foes had come down in full force to enjoy the spectacle of a Christian flung to the lions.

[Sidenote: A historic triumph.]

I cannot tell you how it was done—I have read the speech in the Times report—and I know that some people brought away from the speech no other impression than that it was delivered in a low tone of voice, and was not easily grasped; but the fact is, that judged by results this little speech, not much above half-an-hour in duration, was one of the most extraordinary triumphs of Mr. Gladstone's long oratorical life. What constitutes the greatest of all Parliamentary triumphs? It is that without abandoning your own principles, you shall so state a case that even your bitterest political opponents will rest contented with, and be ready to accept, your speech as the expression of their views. And this is just what occurred. Mr. Goschen, I have said, came down to the House chock-full of attack—I have, indeed, heard that he has confessed to having been prepared to make a speech of some length. On the other side of the House there sat Labby—full of that dogged, immutable Radicalism which will make no distinction between Liberal and Tory when his principles of foreign policy are at stake; and he was ready to pounce upon the Prime Minister if he had detected any departure from the narrow and straight path which leads to Radical salvation. In the background were the dim forces of Unionism, more eager—perhaps even more reckless—in readiness to attack Mr. Gladstone than his opponents on the opposite benches. And behind them and above them, in all parts of the House, was that countless host of busybodies, bores and specialists who see in Egypt an opportunity of airing fads, fanaticism, or vanities.

[Sidenote: A great eirenicon.]

The paper which contained the list of pairs for the night was crammed with the names of members from both sides, who, anticipating a debate of hours' duration, had wisely resolved to spend the interval between the motion and a division in the bosoms of their families—miles away from the floor of the House of Commons. The Whips had prepared their followers for a big division somewhere about midnight. And, lo! on all this vast and turbulent sea of conflicting waves the Prime Minister poured half an hour of oratorical oil, and the waters were stilled, and the great deep at perfect rest. In other words, Mr. Goschen threw away his notes; Labby advised Sir Charles Dilke not to go to a division; the debate had not begun and then it was over, and all that followed was addressed to a House empty of everybody. The Old Man—dexterous, calm, instinctive—had spoken the right word to meet every view, and there was nothing more for anybody to say. There is nobody else in the House who can do it; when his voice is stilled, the greatest of all Parliamentary secrets will die with him—the secret of saying the exact thing in the most difficult and embarrassing of situations. To the outside public, perhaps, this speech appeared nothing remarkable, and the allusions to it I have seen in the press have been few and perfunctory. You should hear House of Commons' opinion; you should listen to Unionists who hate him, to Tories who distrust him, to know what an estimate was formed of this marvellous speech by House of Commons' opinion.

[Sidenote: The triumph of the miners.]

On the Wednesday, again, Mr. Gladstone gave another example of his extraordinary dexterity. The miners had come down in full force to demand a legal eight hours. Sam Woods, of the Ince Division, on the one side, John Burns, of the Battersea Fields, on the other, frowned on the Old Man and bade him surrender. Behind him sat the great Princes of Industry—silent, but none the less militant, fierce, and minatory; opposite him was Lord Randolph Churchill, ready to raise the flag of Social Democracy and to wave it before the advancing masses against the Liberal party. Out of this difficulty, Mr. Gladstone rescued himself with all that perfect, that graceful ease which he most displays when situations are most critical. The debate was further made remarkable by a speech from Lord Randolph Churchill, who, amid the grim and ominous silence of the Tory Benches, thundered against Capital and Capitalists in tones for which Trafalgar Square or the Reformers' Tree would be the appropriate environment; and then came the remarkable division, with 279 for the Bill and 201 against.

[Sidenote: Hull Again.]

This was not the only victory which Labour was able to win in the course of this week. The House presented a very notable spectacle on May 4th. It was only by the aid of the Irish members, it is true, that Mr. Havelock Wilson was able to get the necessary forty to procure the adjournment of the House for the discussion of the Hull strike; but then, when Mr. Wilson was enabled to bring the subject before the House, he was listened to with an attention almost painful in its seriousness and gravity. Nothing, indeed, shows more plainly the vast social and political changes of our time, than this transformation in the attitude of the House of Commons towards labour questions. There was a time—even in our own memory—when such a question as the strike at Hull would have been promptly ruled out of order; and when the workmen who rose to call attention to it would have been coughed or even hooted down; and he would be certain to receive very rough treatment from the Tory party. The Tory party still remains the party of the monopolists and the selfish, but it has learned that household suffrage means a considerable weapon in the hands of working men, and, accordingly, though it may put its tongue in its cheek, it keeps that tongue very civil whenever it begins to utter opinion. To Mr. Wilson, then, the Tories, as well as the Liberals, listened with respectful and rapt attention as he made his complaint of employment of the military and naval forces of the Crown in—as he alleged—the buttressing of the case of the employers. And yet there was a something lacking. Mr. Asquith was able to show that he had done no more than he was compelled to do by the obligations of his office; and entirely repudiated any idea of allowing the forces of the Empire to be ranged on the one side or the other. Mr. Mundella was able to make a good defence of his officials against the charge which had been brought by Mr. Wilson. There was a good speech from John Burns, and it looked as if not another sympathetic word was going to be said for those starving men and women, who are making so heroic a fight for the right to live. Altogether, the situation was awkward and even distressing. The House, divided between the desire to remain neutral and to be sympathetic, was puzzled, constrained, and silent. It was at this moment that Mr. Lockwood made a most welcome and appropriate intervention. Gathering together the scattered and somewhat tangled threads of the debate, he put to Mr. Mundella several pertinent questions—among others, the very relevant one, whether or not the Shipping Federation had the right to employ sailors, whether they are not violating the law against "crimping" in so doing. Incidentally, Mr. Lockwood remarked, amid cheers from the Radical Benches—delighted at this opportunity of departing from its painful and embarrassed silence—that Liberal members had been returned to support the cause of labour, and that they ought to be true to their pledges. Mr. Gladstone at once grasped the situation with that unerring instinct which he has displayed so splendidly in the present Session, and at once undertook that the point raised by Mr. Lockwood should be considered; and so, with a word of sympathy and hope to the strikers, Mr. Gladstone rescued the House and himself from a painful situation.



CHAPTER XL.

THE BILL IN COMMITTEE.

[Sidenote: The first fence.]

Yes, there was something intoxicating to an Irish Nationalist—after all his weary years of waiting—in seeing the House of Commons engaged in Committee on the Bill which is to restore the freedom of Ireland. And as I looked across the House on May 8th, with every seat occupied—with galleries crowded—with that air of tense excitement which betokens the solemn and portentous occasion—there rose to my brain something of the exaltation of passion's first hour. The Unionists might rage—the Tories might obstruct—faction might bellow its throat hoarse—Orangemen swear that they would die rather than see Home Rule—for all that, nobody could get over this great fact, of which I saw the palpable evidence at that solemn and historic hour.

But if for a few brief moments one was inclined to abandon oneself to the intoxication of this great hour, there was plenty to bring one very quickly back to solid earth, and to the sense of the long, dreary, and thorny road which Home Rule has yet to traverse.

Time after time Mr. Chamberlain gets up to continue the obstructive debate. Gravelled for matter, he clutches any topic as a means of lengthening the thin chain of his discourse. Mr. Redmond—the Parnellite leader—happens to be for a few moments out of the House. Here at once, and with eager welcome, Mr. Chamberlain seizes upon this fact to string a few sentences together—something after this fashion:—"I observe that the hon. and learned member for Waterford is not in his place. This is very remarkable. Indeed, I may go further and say that this is a most sinister fact. For we all know what the hon. and learned gentleman has said with regard to the kind of Parliamentary supremacy which alone he will accept. Well, now we are discussing this very point of the Imperial supremacy, and the hon. and learned gentleman is not in his place. I repeat, Mr. Mellor, it is a very remarkable, a very significant, a very sinister, and instructive fact!" And so on and so on.

[Sidenote: The stony silence of the Irishry.]

This kind of speech had another object—it was to provoke Mr. Redmond into a speech. For it was all the same to the Obstructives who spoke—provided only there was a speech. For, first, the speech of the Irish or the Liberal member consumed so much time in itself—and then one speech justified another; and thus the speech by the Irishman, or the Liberal, would give an excellent excuse for another series of harangues by the Obstructives. And this brings me to describe one of the portents of the present House of Commons which has excited a great deal of attention and a great deal of unfeigned admiration. As speakers of eloquence—as Obstructives—as Parliamentarians of exhaustless resources—as gladiators, tireless, brave, and cool—and, again, as stormy Parliamentary petrels—fierce, disorderly, passionate—the Irish members have been known to the House of Commons and to all the world during all the long series of years through which they have been fighting out this struggle. In this Parliament, and at this great hour, they appear in quite another, and perfectly new character. Amid all the groups of this House they stand out for their unbroken and unbreakable silence, for their unshakable self-control. Taunts, insults, gentle and seductive invitations, are addressed to them—from the front, from behind, from their side; they never open their lips—the silent, stony, and eternal silence of the Sphinx is not more inflexible. And similarly men rage, some almost seem to threaten each other with physical violence; they sit still—silent, watchful, composed. Not all, of course. There are the young, and the vehement, and the undisciplined; but that Old Guard which was created by Parnell—which went with him through coercion, and the wildest of modern agitations—which contains men that have lived for years under the shadow of the living death of penal servitude—men who have passed the long hours of the day—the longer hours of the night—in the cheerless, maddening, spectral silence of the whitewashed cells—the Old Parliamentary Guard is silent.

I have been in the House of Commons for upwards of thirteen years; and in the course of that stormy time have, of course, seen many scenes of passion, anger, and tumult; but the scene which ensued on May 8th, after Mr. Morley's motion, was the worst thing I have ever beheld. I am a lover of the British House of Commons—with all its faults, and drawbacks, and weaknesses, it is to me the most august assembly in the world, with the greatest history, the finest traditions, the best oratory. And, verily, I could have wept as I saw the House that night. It was not that the passion was greater than I have ever seen, or the noise even, or the dramatic excitement, it was that for hours, there was nothing but sheer downright chaos, drivel, and anarchy.

[Sidenote: The unloosing of anarchy.]

It began when Mr. Mellor accepted the motion for closure. At once there arose from the Tory Benches wild, angry, insulting cries of "Shame! shame! scandalous! the gag! the gag!" This would have been all right if it had been addressed to Mr. Gladstone. Party leaders have to give and take, and in moments of excitement they must not complain if their political opponents denounce them. But closure is the act of the presiding officer of the House, and it has been an almost unbroken rule and tradition of Parliament that the presiding officer shall be safeguarded against even an approach to attack or insult. It is a tradition that has its weak side; but, on the whole, it is in accordance with that great national English characteristic of subordination to necessary authority and the maintenance of order, decency, and self-control as the trinity of public virtues and personal demeanour. If Mr. Peel had been in the chair he would have called those Tories to order; and if they had persisted as they did, he would have promptly named the highest among them. Mr. Chamberlain was not ashamed to join in those hoarse and disorderly shouts; and it was in this temper that the different sides walked slowly, silently, and frowningly to the division lobbies.

The moment the division was over, the storm which had been stilled broke forth again, and with wilder fury. Lord Randolph Churchill, as I have several times remarked, is not the man he was. I remember the time when in such a scene he would have been perfectly at home; self-restrained, vigilant, and effective. But on this night it was nothing above mere inarticulateness—hoarse and ineffective fury—an almost painful exhibition. Sometimes his lisp became so strong that he was scarcely able to utter the words he desired to bring out. The Prime Minister became "The Primisther," the Chief Secretary the "Cheesesecry," and all this impotence was made the more manifest by thundering on the box with his open hand—in short, it was all inarticulate, painful, perplexing emptiness, weakened and not fortified by prolific tub-thumping. A poor—sad—nay, a tragic business.

[Sidenote: The young man and the old.]

Such was the young man; and then came the old. To all this inarticulate, hoarse, stammering passion, Mr. Gladstone opposed a speech gentle, persuasive, self-possessed; as admirable in its courtesy as in its reserve of gigantic strength. With the deadly pallor of his face more remarkable than ever—the white hair shining out, as it were, with the peaceful suggestion of calm and strong old age—in a voice, low, soft, gentle—Mr. Gladstone uttered a few words which revealed all the great depths. In completely quiet, almost inaudible tones, he uttered these pregnant words: "As to other passages in the noble lord's speech, I do not know whether he intended to intimidate me; but if he did, I do not think he will succeed." There they are—these few words—so simple, plain, even commonplace; but what a history—what a character—what a grandeur there is behind and beneath them! So splendid are they that even Lord Randolph is touched to the quick, and he rises to explain. The Old Man—suave, calm, unutterably courteous—hears him politely; and then puts the whole case of the Government in a few, dignified, and tranquil words.

[Sidenote: In the depths.]

But the House, exalted to a higher plane of feeling by this great little speech, was soon dragged down again to the arena of chaos let loose; and, of course, Mr. Chamberlain was the person to lead the way to the dusty pit. Mr. Mellor had very properly attempted to stop the disorderly discussion of the closure; but Mr. Chamberlain was not in the mood to respect the authority of the chair or the traditions of the House of Commons, and audaciously, shamelessly—with a perky self-satisfaction painful to witness—he proceeded to violate the ruling of the chair—to trample on the order of Parliament, and to flout the Chairman. And then the waters of the great deep were loosed. A hurricane of shouts, yells, protests arose. Member got up after member—here, there, everywhere—always excepting the sternly silent Irish Bench, where sate the Irish leaders. A half-dozen men were on their feet—all shouting, gesticulating, speaking at the same time. In short, it was utterly unlike anything ever seen before in the House of Commons; it brought vividly back to the mind the tumultuous French Convention in the days of the French Revolution.

[Sidenote: Deeper and deeper still.]

It was almost a welcome break in this passionate and scarcely civilized din that a personal encounter between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Byles for a moment interrupted the tempest. Mr. Chamberlain, in his characteristically genial way, had spoken of the Irish members as having been "squared." The Irish members, habituated to insult—conscious of Mr. Chamberlain's object—had allowed the observation to pass unnoticed; but Mr. Byles—ardent, sincere, an enthusiast on the Irish question—shouted out, "How much would it take to square you?" At once there rose a fierce tropical storm. There were loud shouts of approval—equally loud shouts demanding an instant withdrawal; members rose from every part of the House; in short, it was Bedlam let loose, and a scene impossible to describe.

This was deep enough, but there was a lower depth still to be sounded; and again it was Mr. Chamberlain's plummet that descended down to the unfathomable bottom. "I do not," he said to Mr. Byles, "object to the question, and I will answer it by saying that it would take a great deal more than the hon. member for Shipley will ever be able to pay." There the words stand—in the immensity of their vulgarity, in their unsurpassable degradation, let them lie.

[Sidenote: The first fence.]

Finally, May 10th saw the first fence taken. The genial and gentle T.W. Russell proposed the removal from the Bill of the Second Chamber—the Chamber specially created for the protection of the loyal minority. With similar and strange unscrupulousness, the Tories all trooped into the lobby against their own principles. They were accompanied by a few foolish Radicals—indeed, it was the hope of detaching a sufficient number of Radicals to place the Government in a minority which produced the Tory apostasy from their own principles. There was a little uncertainty as to the result, and everybody expected that the Government majority would have been reduced to a dangerously low figure. When Mr. Marjoribanks read out a majority of 51—or a majority bigger than the usual one—there was a loud halloo of triumph and delighted surprise from the Liberal and the Irish Benches; and so the first big fence in the Home Rule Bill was easily taken.

[Sidenote: Obstructive Chamberlain.]

By the middle of the sitting on the following day the House of Commons stood face to face with the first clause. Under ordinary circumstances, the clause would have been passed after a few speeches—especially and definitely directed to the words of the clause; Mr. Chamberlain demanded the right on this clause to discuss, not only the whole Bill with all its other clauses, but the past and future of the whole Home Rule struggle. He quoted passage after passage from speeches delivered by Irish members years and years ago; in short, he entered upon a survey of the whole controversy. There were countless interruptions from the Irish Benches—not in the least because the Irish members cared for Joe's attacks, but because such a roundabout discussion was altogether a revolutionary departure from all previous precedents; and would have been held distinctly out of order by any of the predecessors of Mr. Mellor in the chair. That good-natured and easy-going official, however, gave Mr. Chamberlain his head; and so, for an hour, he poured forth a stream of clever, biting, but mean and irrelevant vituperation.

[Sidenote: The G.O.M.'s greatest speech.]

It was well that it should have been so; for to this speech the House of Commons owes one of the most remarkable and historic scenes in its long history. Every reader of Parliamentary reports knows what it means to speak at eight o'clock. By that time, three out of five at least of the members of the House have gone to their dinners in all quarters of London, and the assembly is given up to the faddists and the bores, who never get another opportunity of delivering themselves. Nothing, therefore, could have been more unexpected than a speech from Mr. Gladstone at such an hour, and especially a speech which, in the opinion of many, leaves far behind anything he ever did. But, indeed, it is probable that Mr. Gladstone himself had no notion when the sitting began, or even a few minutes before he rose, that he would say anything very special. It is one of the peculiarities of this extraordinary man to be always surprising you. His infinite variety, his boundless resource, seem to be without any limitations. By this time, you would have expected that one who had listened to him for nearly twenty years would imagine that he had no further oratorical worlds to conquer, and that he certainly would not have waited to his eighty-fourth year to do something better than ever he had done before. But so it was. In passion, in destructive sarcasm, in dramatic force, in the rush and resistless sweep of language, Mr. Gladstone was more potent in the dinner hour of that Thursday night than he was ever at any other single moment in his almost sixty years of triumphant oratory.

[Sidenote: His powers as a mimic.]

Observers are divided as to his temper when he rose. Some onlookers, observing the tremendous force of voice and language—the broad, ample, and frequent gestures—the tremulousness that sometimes underlies the swell of passion—the deadly and startling pallor of the face—thought that he was suffering from excitement almost touching and perhaps affrighting to behold; while others thought that the chief and most impressive feature of this perfect tornado of triumphant eloquence, was the perfect calm that lay in the heart and bosom of all that storm. There are two things which will tell you of the omnipotence of an orator—one is the effect of his speech on foes as well as friends, and the other is its effect upon himself. Both these evidences were present, for the Tories seemed to have been swept away by the cyclone as resistlessly as the Liberals and the Irish, and the Tory paeans in honour of the Old Man which were to be found in the Tory organs next day only echoed the bounteous and generous recognition of his matchless powers which one heard from Tories in the lobbies throughout the evening. And as to the effect of the speech on Mr. Gladstone himself, it was to bring out a dramatic and mimetic power on which he very rarely ventures, and which in anybody but a perfect master of the House of Commons might descend into bad taste and bad tact. I know that Mr. Gladstone is really triumphant when he brings these qualities into requisition. I remember the last time he used them with any approach to the abundance of this occasion was when he was making the great speech which preceded his defeat in 1885 and the fall of his Government. On that occasion I remember very well that the Old Man puckered up his forehead into a thousand wrinkles, turned and twisted that very wonderfully mobile mouth of his—with its lips so full with strength and at the same time so sensitive with all the Celtic passion of his Highland ancestry—until sometimes you almost thought it a pity he had not taken to the Lyceum and some of the great parts in which Mr. Henry Irving has made his fame. There was another occasion which dwells in my memory. It was on one of the nights of the debate on the Coercion Bill. He was describing the promises of equal laws to Ireland, with the restrictions on Irish liberty which were contained in the Bill, and as he described restriction he gradually raised the fingers on one hand, then turned them spiral fashion until he had pointed the index finger to the roof—- as though he were describing the ascent of a funambulist to the top of spiral stairs. It was at once eloquent and grotesque, and the House cheered and cheered yet again without any distinction of party—the friends in admiration of the splendid eloquence of the gesture, the foes in hearty admiration of the great and perennial spirit of the great Old Man.

[Sidenote: Comedy.]

But on May 11th there was a new and a bolder departure. Most of my readers have seen that remarkable little lay written by Mr. Gilbert for Miss Anderson to display the range and variety of her powers—"Comedy and Tragedy." Mr. Gladstone gave proof of powers of equally wide versatility; and all at the expense of poor Joe. First for the Comedy. I must quote the passage of the speech to explain what I mean:—

"My right hon. friend has a bundle of quotations. He says he has fortified himself. (Laughter.) He said he had fortified himself against me when I said there could be no supremacy without the presence of Irish members in this House. I never asserted anything of the kind. (Cheers.) 'Oh,' he said, 'I have got the papers'—(laughter)—and the party opposite cheered at the expected triumph. (Laughter.)"

When Mr. Gladstone came to the words. "'Oh,' he said, 'I have got the papers,'" Mr. Gladstone began fumbling in his pockets, just as Mr. Chamberlain had done—with that air of distraction and coming despair which appears on everybody's face when he is anxiously seeking for an important but mislaid paper; and the resemblance, heightened by just the least imitation of Mr. Chamberlain's voice, was so striking, so startling, so melodramatic, that the whole House, Tories and all, joined in the wild delight of laughter and cheers—laughter at the comic power, delight at the splendid courage and exuberant spirit of the prancing old war-horse, delighted, exhilarated, and fortified by the joy of battle and by the richness of his own powers and courage. Even yet the comic vein was not exhausted. Mr. Chamberlain—as I have said—had made copious quotations from past Irish speeches, and asked that they should be retracted. "If the work of retraction were to begin, is my right hon. friend," asked Mr. Gladstone, with scorn in every tone, "willing to submit himself to the same process of examination? If the work of retraction were to begin he would have a lot to do." And then came the passage which has already passed into Parliamentary history. "If we are to stand in white sheets, my right hon. friend would have to wear that ornamental garment standing in a very conspicuous position."

[Sidenote: and Tragedy.]

And then came the other and the tragic note. Again I have to quote the exact words to convey the impression and explain the description:—

"If I were in the position of one of those gentlemen—if I had seen the wrongs and the sufferings of Ireland in former times, if the iron had entered into my soul as it had entered into theirs, it would have been impossible. I should not have been more temperate possibly than some of them under those circumstances of the language I used. (Cheers.)"

It was when he uttered the words, "if the iron had entered into my soul," that Mr. Gladstone ventured on the bold gesture of striking his hand against his breast—a simple gesture, and not an uncommon gesture in itself—but you should have heard the resonant and thrilling voice—you should have been under the entrancing and almost bewildering spell beneath which at this moment all the imagination and emotion of the House lay supine, helpless, and drugged—to have understood the shiver of feeling which passed through everybody. And so he went on—rising higher and higher—a deeper harmony in every note—a more splendid strength in every sentence—till you almost thought you were looking at some great bird—with the strength and splendour of the eagle, the full-hearted and passionate melody of the lark—as it soared on, on its even and well-poised wing, higher and higher to the dim and blue ether of the upper air.

[Sidenote: A strange scene.]

Right to the last word, there was the same unbroken, passionate strength and fervour, so that when it was all ended the House gave a start as though it had to rouse itself from some splendid vision. And then came that rude and quick awakening which, in the world of actualities, always bursts in upon the most solemn and moving hours. At about half-past eight every evening the Speaker or Chairman—whichever is in the chair—gets up and goes out to tea. Before doing so the presiding officer calls upon the next speaker, and when the speaker has been named, cries "Order, order!" and promptly disappears into the room where his meal is laid. Scarcely had Mr. Gladstone sat down when Mr. Mellor called upon Sir Richard Temple, then cried "Order, order!" and, almost within a couple of seconds after Mr. Gladstone had concluded, had vanished from the House. This was immediately followed by the stampede of the rest of the House—for by half-past eight everybody was famished with hunger—and the Chamber was left empty, silent, and dim, with a suddenness that was startling, disconcerting, and a little disillusioning. And then it was that the strongest proof was given of the effect of the speech.

[Sidenote: The outburst.]

The House, I say, became empty—but not altogether. The Irish Benches, which had become crowded as the great apology for Ireland was being pronounced, remained still full—full, but silent. There was something strange, weird, startling in those benches, full and yet silent, amid all this emptiness and almost audible stillness; and some of the Liberal members, who had left the House in the mad rush to dinner, quietly stole back to see what was going to happen. The explanation of the mystery soon came. After he sat down, ghastly pale, almost painfully panting after this tremendous effort, Mr. Gladstone tarried a little to recover himself—to say a few words to Mr. John Morley—to scribble a note. At last he rose, and then came the moment for which those silent Irish Benches had been waiting. With one accord, with one quick and simultaneous spring, the Irish members were on their feet—hats and handkerchiefs were waved; there was the suggestion of tears under the swelling cheers. Nor were the Irish left alone. The Liberals who had slipped back joined in. The effectiveness of their cheers was heightened by the fact that they were not in their places, but standing on the floor. From out their cheering ranks stood the splendid figure—the broad shoulders, the massive head, the shaggy beard and hair, all the virility and sensitiveness that are found in the splendid form of Mr. Allen—manufacturer and workman, poet and Radical. The Old Man, splendidly composed, and yet profoundly moved, looked back, gave a courtly bow, and then went out. And here it was that a little scene took place of which the public prints have hitherto contained no mention. In her corner place in the gallery had sat throughout this dazzling speech that best of friends and truest of wives, who has been the guardian angel of Mr. Gladstone's life; and with outstretched hands and dim eyes, she received her triumphant husband in the corridor, where she had been waiting for him.

[Sidenote: Deeper and deeper.]

Friday, May 12th, I may dismiss in a few words. As the closure had been refused on Thursday night, the Obstructives started again on the first clause on Friday afternoon—Mr. T.W. Russell leading the van. He had nothing to say beyond what he had said a hundred times already, even in the course of the present Session; and his speech would have passed unnoticed had it not been for a brisk but odious and ignoble little storm which he and the Tories managed to raise between them. Mr. Russell declared that he heard the phrase across the floor, "What the devil are you saying?" and stopped as if the heavens and the earth must refuse to go round on their axes because of this introduction into Parliament of the negligences of private conversation. Mr. Gibbs—a very pestilent and very empty member of the young army of silly obstructives—moved that the words be taken down—an ancient formula not heard of for years till the present Session, when everything is turned to account for the purpose of occupying time and breaking down the House of Commons, and at the same time accused Mr. Swift McNeill of having used the words. Mr. McNeill indignantly denied the charge: then Mr. Macartney attributed them to Mr. Sexton—another and equally indignant denial; and then much uproar and contradictions and apologies—the lubberly and unmannerly interventions of Lord Cranborne as usual conspicuous—and, finally, the end of the storm in a teacup. Positively loathsome—the whole business methods of the Tories to grasp at everything to rouse a storm or provoke a scene; and altogether disheartening to those who don't wish to see the House of Commons reduced to the drivel and turbulence and anarchy of a French Convention. Finally, a little after six o'clock, the first clause of the Bill had passed, with a majority of 42. The House of Commons had decided that there shall be established in Ireland a Legislature of two Chambers. Then in a graceful, well-delivered, and pleasant little speech, Mr. Victor Cavendish opened the fight on the second clause. The evening was devoted to the Anti-vaccinationists—answered triumphantly in an admirable and unanswerable little speech by Sir Walter Foster—with as many as seventy men voting against vaccination. I had no idea previously that the proportion of lunatics in the Assembly was so large.



CHAPTER XII.

RENEWAL OF THE FIGHT.

[Sidenote: A fresh start.]

Nothing of memorable importance occurred during the week before the Whitsuntide holidays, but with Tuesday, May 30th, came the renewal of the great battle over Home Rule. The Old Man was first to be observed. He looked very fresh and sunny, but, at the same time, had that slightly deepened pallor which he always has on the first day of a Session—the result of the long day's journey which he has gone through in coming from his country house. Mr. Balfour was also in his place, looking as though the open rivalry of Lord Randolph Churchill had not much affected his spirits. Mr. Chamberlain nearly always looks the same. He has himself informed the world that he does not take exercise in any shape or form whatsoever, and there is never therefore, on his cheek that look of deep-drunk sunshine which marks the cheeks of more active men. But he was ready for the conflict, and as the night went on showed there was no decrease in either the venom or the vehemence with which he means to fight against the Home Rule Bill. On the Irish Benches nearly every man was in his place, and the Tories had so far benefited by their buffetings from the Times as to make a braver show than they usually do in the early days after vacation.

[Sidenote: Home Rule once more.]

When the House separated, the subject under debate was an audacious proposal to postpone Clause 3. There was nothing whatever to be urged in favour of such a proposal; it was pure, unadulterated, shameless obstruction. But Sir Richard Temple is not gifted with a sense of humour, and on this amendment he wandered and maundered away for the better part of an hour. The House has yet no power to prevent a bore from consuming its time; but it is free to save itself from the yoke of attention. By a sort of general spontaneity, everybody left his seat; and though hapless Mr. Balfour was forced by the hard necessities of his official position to remain in his place, nobody else was compelled to do so; and Sir Richard addressed the general, void, encasing air. There was some more speech-making of the like kind—still to empty air—when suddenly and almost unexpectedly the debate was allowed to collapse. At first, this was unintelligible—for, senseless as was the amendment, it was no worse than scores of others which the Tories have made the pretext for endless debates.

[Sidenote: A tight division.]

However, the division revealed the secret. It is one of the peculiarities of this strangely interesting Session that nearly every division is a picturesque and portentous event. With a majority so small as forty, the turnover of a very few votes from one side to the other may mean the defeat of Home Rule, the downfall of Gladstone and his Government, and chaos come again. And these accidents are always possible. Death knocks at the door of the families of members of Parliament as of other people; and often, when one of the great divisions is pending, the Whips have to consider the grim and painful question whether they can allow a man to remain by the rack on which a wife lies tortured, or receive a loving mother's parting sigh. For some reason or other, Tuesday was a bad day for the Liberals, and there was a series of ugly and annoying little mishaps. Thus, in the first division, which was snatched quickly by the Tories, informed by their scouts of what was going on, the majority sank to thirty-three. This was a bad beginning, but worse, as will be seen, remained behind.

[Sidenote: Lord Wolmer.]

The Committee was now on Clause 3. This is the clause which contains the list of the subjects on which the Irish Legislature is not to have the right to legislate—such questions as the succession to the Crown, questions of peace and war, foreign treaties, coinage, copyright, trade, etc. The list is comprehensive enough, but it was not comprehensive enough for Lord Wolmer; for he had an amendment to the effect that the Irish Legislature should not be allowed to pass even resolutions on these subjects. But even his own amendment did not satisfy him. He amended the amendment by further proposing that the Irish Legislature should not be allowed even to "discuss" any of these questions. The speech in favour of these proposals started from the point of departure common to all the Unionists, namely, that the Irish people were hereditary and irreconcilable enemies, and that the moment they had a native Legislature, it would immediately proceed to make alliances with every Power in the world which was hostile to the British Empire. There was France; of course, the Irish Legislature would pass a resolution of sympathy with France in case there was a war between France and England. Then there was the United States; what was there to prevent the Irish Executive from sending an envoy to the United States? And so on, through all the possibilities and all the insanity and malignity of which an Irish Legislature could be held capable.

[Sidenote: Sweet and low.]

Mr. Gladstone on one or two points was able to overthrow the whole case so elaborately made up. The Irish Parliament could not send representatives to a foreign Power, because they could not vote the money for such a purpose under the Bill. "Ah, but"—interrupted the incautious Wolmer—"could they not send envoys who were unpaid?" "No," promptly responded the Old Man, "because they had no power under the Bill to 'accredit' envoys, and a foreign Power could not receive an envoy who was not accredited." All this argument—broad, acute, tranquil—was delivered in a voice that now and then was painfully low, and sometimes you had to strain your ears. But then it was worth your while to strain your ears, so that you might master all the supremacy of the art and skill and knowledge of the whole speech.

For instance, he puts the question to Lord Wolmer, if he seriously means that the Irish Legislature is not to have the right to petition? Lord Wolmer answers that the Irish members will be in the Imperial Parliament. "Ah! that's an argument, not an answer," says the Old Man; and then, with the spring of a tiger, he pounces on the hapless Wolmer with the question: "Is the right of petition, then, to be taken away in every case where there is representation?"—a question which, with petitions pouring in by the thousand to the House of Commons from the Ulstermen and others, a Unionist like Lord Wolmer finds it impossible to answer. And it is in connection with this point a little scene occurs which brings out many of the points in this remarkable speech, which I have been trying to make clear. Mr. Bryce disappears from the House; then he returns: Mr. Gladstone asks him a question; the answer is apparently not satisfactory, for the Old Man lifts his hands to heaven in playful exaggeration of surprise. The House, puzzled, does not know what it means; but the Old Man soon explains. He had sent Mr. Bryce to the Library to get a copy of the recent Life of Lord Sherbrooke—Robert Lowe, that was—and Mr. Bryce had brought back the discomforting intelligence that the book was not there. However, with such a memory as Mr. Gladstone's, this does not matter, for he is able to point out that an Australian Legislature had at one time passed a resolution, and agreed on a petition to the Imperial Parliament, in reference to the Corn Laws. Just fancy the keenness, the omnivorousness, the promptitude of that marvellous Old Man, who had read one of the most recently published works, and had promptly seized on a point bearing reference to a detail in his Bill.

[Sidenote: A pathetic scene.]

And then came the pathetic scene, in which again Mr. Bryce figured, and which once more brought out the marvellous grasp, the tenacious and inevitable memory of the splendid Old Man. The amendment of Lord Wolmer was, declared Mr. Gladstone, against "the law of Parliament," and, by way of emphasizing this point, he wanted to have a quotation made from Sir Erskine May's Book on Parliament. But the eyesight of age is weak, and there is in the House of Commons, until the gas is lit, something of the dim, religious light of a cathedral, and, accordingly, Mr. Gladstone had to rely on the younger eyes of Mr. Bryce. The scene which followed might be described as out of order, for there were two members standing at the same time. But the vast ascendancy of Mr. Gladstone over the assembly—the profound reverence in which all, save the meanest, bow before his genius, character, and age—enable him to do things not permitted to common men. In the rapt and serious face, in the attentive look, in the fingers beating the table as word followed word in confirmation of this view—in the curious, almost weird and unusual sight of two men standing side by side, Mr. Gladstone silent, Mr. Bryce speaking—there was a scene, the impressiveness, poetry, and pathos of which will never pass from the memory of those who saw it. And the House—so quick, with all its passion, and fractiousness, and meannesses, at grasping the significance of a great and solemn moment—marked its sense of the scene by a stillness that was almost audible—a hush that spoke aloud.

[Sidenote: And yet another.]

There was just one other incident in this marvellous little speech which must be noted. I have remarked the ofttimes the voice of Mr. Gladstone was so low, that it was with difficulty one could hear him. The reason is curious, and is revealed in a little gesture that has only come in recent years, and that has a melancholy interest. Often now, when he is speaking, Mr. Gladstone puts his hand to his right ear, as men do who are making a laborious effort to catch and concentrate sound. The cause of this is that Mr. Gladstone's hearing has become defective, and he has to adopt this little stratagem to make his own voice audible to himself. You should see the Old Man with his hand to his ear, with the look of gentle anxiety on his face, to understand all this little gesture conveys; and how it exalts your sense of the mighty courage of this great Old Man, who is able to rise thus superior to all obstacles, to all foes, to all weaknesses of the flesh, all devices of the enemy.

[Sidenote: Mr. Balfour.]

Mr. Balfour, I have said more than once, does not display his talents best in Opposition. In his desire to be effective, he strains a not very strong voice until, it sounds almost like a shriek. I do not wish to be unfair to Mr. Balfour. There is, as I have often said in these columns, a certain distinction in all he does. I often think he is wanting in that consideration and reverence for the mighty old gladiator whom it is his duty to oppose; but for all this I make allowance, as it is his duty to oppose Mr. Gladstone, and in doing that, he may sometimes appear unintentionally irreverent. But the fact is, Mr. Balfour is thin, narrow, and does not get at the reality of things. Many people say he is very inferior to Mr. Chamberlain; but most assuredly I do not in the least agree with this opinion. To me the difference between the two men is the difference between a scholar and a counter-jumper—I mean a counter-jumper of the Senate, and not of the shop. But though that is my opinion, I cannot refrain from saying that Mr. Balfour contrasts very unfavourably with Mr. Gladstone in this struggle of giants.

[Sidenote: An ugly moment.]

It was during the speech of Mr. Balfour that a little incident took place, the full significance of which would probably not be grasped by the non-Parliamentarian. Mr. Balfour was arguing that it was impossible to properly discuss the amendment of Lord Wolmer until the House knew whether or not the Irish members were going to be retained in the Imperial Parliament. I do not know whether it was because there was something provocative in the manner in which Mr. Balfour referred to this subject, but it had the effect of rousing the once vulnerable, but now admirably controlled temper, which has played such a part in Mr. Gladstone's career. Rising with a certain deepened pallor, and with that feverish rush in his voice which those who watch him know so well he said that the Ministry meant to stick by the ninth clause, and would do their very best to get it accepted by the House. Here was a most portentous announcement—the portentousness of which the careful observer could see at once, by the sudden stillness which fell upon the House. Whenever a Minister, or even a politician of small importance who is not a Minister, makes a statement full of portentous possibilities as to the future, the House suddenly becomes still and tense, and you can hear a pin drop. It is the prompt and sometimes almost irresistible expression of the feeling that Destiny is throwing the die, and that you have to watch the grim and fateful result.

[Sidenote: The Treasury Bench looks awkward.]

And if you looked on the Treasury Bench, you could see that the feeling was not altogether comfortable. It was no secret that the ninth clause was the one which offered to the Government the one perilous fence they had still to take—that is to say, so far as their own followers were concerned. Hitherto the attitude of the Government was quite unknown; and, indeed, it was quite probable that the Government themselves had not finally decided what their attitude should be. But when Mr. Gladstone—pale, excited, and angry—jumped in with this outburst, it seemed all at once as if the fateful and final word of Destiny had been spoken, and as if the whole fate of Ireland, of Mr. Gladstone, of this great Ministry, and of this mighty Bill, had been definitely pledged to one throw of the dice. Imagine one of those contests which you find in the pages of Turgenieff or Tolstoi, which perchance you may have seen at Monte Carlo, which in the last few days may have been observed at Epsom Downs—in which life or death, ruin or halcyon fortune, depended on one throw—and you can have some sense of all that passed through the imagination of the House and that made it almost audibly shiver when Mr. Gladstone made this slight and terse interruption. Mr. Morley's face—serious, often sombre—cast in a mould and reflective of a soul inclined to the darker rather than the more cheerful view of life's tangled and unsatisfactory workings—grew black and troubled; the other Ministers who were present looked—not so eloquently, but still perceptibly—uncomfortable; Mr. Asquith—who had been a close observer—could not keep his keen anxiety from breaking through the mask of easy equanimity with which he is able to clothe his readiness to meet fortune in all her moods; in short, it was for Ministerialists one of those uncomfortable quarters of an hour in which life seems to concentrate all its bitterness, sorrow, and anxieties within a terribly brief space of time. And if you wanted to know further what was the full significance of what had taken place, you saw it in the open and almost indecent joy of Mr. Chamberlain's face; in the more subdued but a still unctuous look of Mr. Courtney; and you could hear it in the shriller pitch of Mr. Balfour's voice.

[Sidenote: A false alarm.]

But all the same, it was a false alarm. For if the Old Man had tripped, he was able to recover himself very soon. Mr. Balfour was foolish enough to try and dot the "I's," and to put into Mr. Gladstone's mouth that which his enemies hoped he had said. For Mr. Balfour, remarking that Mr. Gladstone had made a more explicit declaration than any which had yet come from his lips—this was all right, and was quite true—went on to the further statement that the Old Man had now committed himself to standing or falling by the ninth clause "in its present shape." This, you will see, was the whole crux of the situation. If Mr. Gladstone had said this, then, indeed, it might go hard with him by-and-bye, for whether the Liberal party would accept the ninth clause in its present shape was one of the questions yet to be decided. The Old Man, however his words might have been open to this construction, had not in reality said anything of the kind. And, at once, he was prompt to see how necessary it was to correct this error, for he immediately rose to his feet to say that he had never said anything of the sort. What he had said was that the Government intended to stand by the principle that the Irish members were to have a place in the Imperial Parliament, which, it will be seen, leaves open the perilous and perplexing question: what form that representation in the Imperial Parliament is to take. At once there was a heavy sigh of relief, and most of all on the Irish Benches. Among the Irishry, the declaration of Mr. Gladstone had produced a moment of something like panic; the only exhibition of which was a certain impatience with the attempt of Mr. Balfour to pin the Old Man down to the most literal interpretation of his words. The panic soon passed away. It was all, I say, a false alarm. Vulnerable though his temper—though there was in him still enough of the hot onrush of battle and of resistance under all the snow of advancing years—the great old tactician had not forgotten his cunning. He at once seized the opportunity of saying he was not finally committed to the ninth clause in its present shape, and so we once more breathed freely.

[Sidenote: Joe comes back from dinner.]

This was the end of the important part of the debate before the dinner hour. It is one of the peculiarities of Mr. Chamberlain that no stress of a Parliamentary situation induces him to seriously interfere with his habits. When the clock points to ten minutes to eight any evening of the week, he may be seen to rise from his place with the inevitableness of fate, and to disappear for a couple of hours. I have seen him do this even when the fortune of a most important amendment seemed to lie trembling in the balance—the one occasion on which I have known him to break through that rigid rule was when his son was about to make that maiden speech which started that promising young fellow on his Parliamentary career. Coming back like a giant refreshed about ten o'clock, Mr. Chamberlain contrived to once more set aflame the embers of dying passion; and he threw himself into the fight over Lord Wolmer's amendment at the moment when all life seemed to have gone out of it. His speech was full of cleverness—of what the Americans call smartness, and it had all that point, personal and party, which sets your friends in a roar. The Tories cheered him vociferously, and point after point of brilliant and effective invective pleased the House—always anxious with its jaded appetite for a sensation. But when you had time to compare, it with that little speech delivered by Mr. Gladstone earlier in the evening—when you contrasted its fitful and gaudy brilliancy with the sober and broad wisdom of Mr. Gladstone's utterance—then, indeed, you were able to see what a gulf there is between the smart debater and the genuine statesman.

[Sidenote: A narrow shave.]

At last the debate was over; and then came what was, perhaps, the most exciting and most momentous incident of the evening. I have already spoken of the interest with which every division is regarded. The interest in this particular division was fully justified when the numbers were told; for the Government majority had fallen to twenty-one. At once there was a wild outburst of cheering from the Tory Benches. Some wits ventured on the cry, "Resign! Resign!"—altogether, the Tories had the best quarter of an hour they have enjoyed since that hideous afternoon before the Easter vacation, when, after a prolonged fight, the Old Man had to announce that he could not propose the second reading of the Bill until after Easter. It was all more or less of an accident; there were plenty of things to account for it—a reception at the House of a prominent Liberal lady, and many other explanations: but, all the same, it was a very ugly little incident; and though Mr. Gladstone carried it off with that indomitable courage of his, which doesn't know what a confession of defeat means, one could see that he did not like it; and for the rest of the evening there was a visible gloom in the Liberal ranks.

[Sidenote: Happy again.]

But May 31st brought the Derby, and with the Derby there came upon the Tory Benches one of those moments of temptation which the natural man is utterly unable to resist. The amendments followed each other in rapid succession; division came on top of division; and in them all the Liberals jumped back to their old superiority of numbers. In the earlier part of the day, when the fortunes of Isinglass were still undetermined, the majorities were enormous; and though there was a certain falling off when sporting gentlemen began to get back from the dusty Downs, the average was well kept up; and it was with a distinct rise in the temperature of Liberal hopes and confidence that this stage was reached. On the following day the lowness of the voice in the Old Man was a little more perceptible, and when it got to midnight, he seemed painfully fagged and exhausted. It was, perhaps, because he was in that mood that he made some concessions to the Unionists, which have been somewhat resented. But as these concessions, according to Mr. Gladstone himself, only carried out what the Government had intended from the first, these things may be passed. They had reference chiefly to prohibition of raising in Ireland anything like a military force—even in the shape of a militia or volunteer force. On June 2nd, there was one of those transformations in which the Old Man is constantly surprising friends and foes. He was alert, vigorous, watchful of everything that went on, and the voice rose to its old strength and resonance. It was during that afternoon that there was a slight indication for the first time throughout the progress of the whole Bill of any dissatisfaction on the part of the Irish members. Mr. Byrne—one of the Unionist gang of lawyers—proposed a ridiculous amendment, the effect of which would have been that the Irish Legislature would not have had the right to give a license for a fowling-piece, or to arm their police to meet a rising of the Orangemen.

[Sidenote: Mr. Sexton intervenes.]

It was then that Mr. Sexton intervened with a word of warning against such a restriction. In burning though carefully restrained language, Mr. Sexton replied to a taunt of Mr. Chamberlain at the silence of the Irish members. Their silence, said Mr. Sexton, was due to their knowledge that Mr. Chamberlain and his confederates had entered into a conspiracy to destroy the power of the House of Commons, and to defeat the mandate of the nation by obstructing a Bill they could not otherwise defeat. Spoken with great fire—with splendid choice of language—with biting sarcasm, of which he is a master—the speech was an event. Mr. Gladstone promptly recognized its spirit; thanked the Irish members for their consideration; and then declared, amid a great sniff from Joe's upturned nose, that if the Irish members desired to express their opinions on any amendment, he and his colleagues would wait before expressing their own views. There seemed to be a slight hope among the Tories and the ever-venomous Joe that this meant a rift in the lute between the Irish members and the Government; but they were woefully disappointed—especially when the amendment was indignantly rejected by the House.

[Sidenote: The "Daily News."]

It is the outspoken, rather than the loudly uttered, that is often the important thing in a House of Commons discussion. This was the case with the curious little debate which Mr. Chamberlain initiated on June 6th. The Daily News had published a little article describing the manner in which the Tories had shouted at—hooted—interrupted—Mr. Gladstone on the Thursday night previous. It may at once be asked why Mr. Chamberlain should have thought it necessary to notice the article. He boasted that he was not in the habit of noticing what appeared against him in the newspapers—which is not true to a certain extent, or at least is not generally so thought, for it is understood that no man reads more carefully the extracts sent to him by those press-cutting agencies which have added either a new luxury or a new terror to public life. But Mr. Chamberlain's action had many roots. First, like many others, very free in their comments and attacks, he is almost childishly sensitive. Watch him in the House of Commons when an attack is being made upon him which he does not like, and the fierce and domineering temper reveals itself in the fidgety movement, the darkened brow, the deeper pallor on the white-complexioned face. When he was a Cabinet Minister he could never, or rarely, be got to remain in the House of Commons during the whole of the evening; and one of the chief reasons, I have heard, he gave for thus absenting himself was that he could not stand the talk from the opposite side—it made him so angry.

[Sidenote: Joe's motives.]

But there were other and more immediate reasons for his anger with the Daily News. Joe was conscious of the growth of two feelings—either of which was very perilous to him. First, he began uneasily to feel that the country—watching the struggle between him and the Old Man—was getting a little disgusted at the business; and saw in it a want of that chivalry and fair play which it desires to see even in the fiercest political controversy. This was not a pleasant sentiment to have growing up against one; and Joe felt that it has serious perils to his future political position. And, secondly, he was conscious that the majority of the House of Commons was growing very restive under the desperate obstruction of which he had made himself the champion, and that this feeling might soon become strong enough to carry Mr. Gladstone and the Ministers off their feet, and compel drastic measures which had hitherto been steadily refrained from. This would not suit the book of Joe at all, whose object it was to keep the struggle going as long as he possibly could manage it, careless of the traditions of Parliament, of the dignity and decency of the House of Commons, of the life and strength of Mr. Gladstone, of everything except his own greedy desire for personal revenge and triumph.

[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone's gentleness.]

This was what lay behind the plausible and honeyed words in which Mr. Chamberlain attacked the article in the Daily News. And here a curious difficulty arose which rather helped Joe, and almost enabled him to score a great triumph. Everybody knows that between the temper of Mr. Gladstone and that of his friends and supporters there is an impassable gulf. That mastery of a vulnerable temper, which accounted for many of the troubles of his earlier political career, which he himself has acknowledged in many a pathetic passage in his correspondence—that mastery of the vulnerable temper is now so complete that the Old Man glides through scenes of insult and passes over what the humblest member of the House would often find it hard to endure. There is something indeed strange, wistful, almost uncanny, in the unbreakable gentleness of that white figure, with the ivory complexion, the scant white hair, the large white collar and broad white shirt-front—there is something which becomes almost an obsession to the observer in watching the figure with its strangely tranquil and gentle expression in the heat and centre of all this fierce Parliamentary battle.

[Sidenote: And eagerness.]

And what makes it all the more peculiar is that this strange gentleness does not go side by side with want of interest in the struggle. On the contrary, all those around him and near him declare that never has Mr. Gladstone been more keen of any subject than he has been on this Home Rule Bill. He thinks of nothing else; he enjoys it all. I saw a curious instance of this intensity of his interest about that time. Having a word to say to one of the Ministers, I was seated for a moment on the Treasury Bench just beside the Chairman—Mr. Mellor. Mr. Gladstone had gone out for a few minutes. Sir William Harcourt was in charge of the Bill, and he was replying to some argument of the Unionists opposite. Sir William Harcourt has an excellent method of dealing with futile and dishonest amendments. He declines to argue them in detail. With that rich humour of which the public know less than his friends and intimates, Sir William airily dismisses the whole business, and with a laugh brings down shivering to the ground a whole fabric of laboriously constructed nonsense. Well, Sir William was in the middle of a sentence in which he was speaking of the absurd suspicion of the Irish people which was entertained by the Tories—and Mr. Gladstone, entering from behind the Speaker's chair at that very moment, just caught that one phrase. It was impossible for him to hear more than that one word "suspicion"; but at that word he pricked up his ears, and while he was still walking to his place—before he had seated himself—"Hear, hear," he cried. His eagerness would not let him wait till he had taken his seat. His absolute absorption in the Bill before the House was so complete that, as he walked to his seat, you could see the rapt and concentrated look, which showed that, even during the few minutes he had been away, the brain had never left for one second its absorbing theme.

[Sidenote: The consolations of old age.]

But—as I have indicated—this complete subjugation of temper which Mr. Gladstone has achieved, has its disadvantages when such a conflict is provoked as that with Mr. Chamberlain on the article in the Daily News. Mr. Gladstone himself spoke of the consolations of old age; there is one consolation he did not mention. His absorption in the Bill and the slight deafness in one of his ears do not allow him to perceive so plainly the rude noises and interruptions by which he is often assailed from the Tory Benches. Moreover, the native chivalry of his disposition, the curious simplicity which has remained his central characteristic, in spite of all the experiences of the baser side of human nature which must have been crowded into all that half a century of official and Parliamentary life—that unwillingness to see anything but deplorable error in his most rancorous, meanest, and most malignant opponent—all these things make it difficult for him to understand the ugly realities whose serpent heads show themselves plainly to almost every other eye but his.

There is a dispute among the authorities as to the incidents of that Thursday night—some, even among those friendly to the Prime Minister, declaring that there was nothing unusual in the interruptions of that night. My own recollection is clear that there was a great deal of noise, and that it was so bad that Mr. Chamberlain tried to explain it away, and was careful to absolve himself and his friends from all responsibility for it. In the general body of the Liberal party there is no doubt whatsoever about that business. Liberal after Liberal came up to me afterwards, in allusion to a few remarks I felt it my duty to make, to declare their entire agreement with the view I had put forward—that the description of the Daily News, though consciously and obviously written in the vein of parody, was a fair and just description of what had taken place. Sir Henry Roscoe is not an excitable politician, though no man holds to the Liberal faith more firmly. He was met on the following Sunday by a friend, and when asked how he viewed the situation, declared that he was rather "low!" Why? he was asked. Because his heart was saddened and enraged by the treatment of the splendid Old Man by Mr. Chamberlain and the Tories. To a leading Liberal Minister, two Tories privately declared that their pain and shame and disgust with the conduct of their own side to Mr. Gladstone was so profound, that they had to get up and leave the House to control their feelings.

[Sidenote: A complex situation.]

When, therefore, Mr. Chamberlain came forward with his audacious complaint, this was the curious situation: that the bulk of the Liberal party, and many even of their opponents, were convinced that the comments of the Daily News were more than justified. The frantic cheers with which each successive sentence of the scathing attack in the description was punctuated by the Liberal and Irish Benches, as Joe, with affected horror, read them out, sufficiently indicated what they thought. And, on the other hand, the man in whose defence this reply to his assailants was made was just as convinced that his enemies had been unjustly assailed, and that he himself had been well and courteously treated. In such a situation it was just possible that Mr. Chamberlain would escape from his position with flying colours; would have the Daily News censured for falsehood by a House of Commons that believed in its truth; and have himself declared chivalrous by a Parliament that knows him to be malignant, unscrupulous, and merciless. To prevent such a catastrophe it was a painful but necessary duty to bring out the realities of the case; and not only a painful but also a thankless duty in face of what everybody knew would be the attitude of Mr. Gladstone himself.

[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone shakes his head.]

For Mr. Gladstone did not delay long in indicating to the House what his attitude would be. When I was speaking and denouncing the rude interruptions of the eventful Thursday night, he shook his head ominously and in contradiction—though manifestations which came from Liberal and Irish Benches showed that he stood alone in his view of the events of that night. And it was no surprise to the House, therefore, when he stood up and said that he entirely disclaimed any feeling of resentment for anything that had been done to him, and that he confessed he had not perceived the interruptions to which the report of the Daily News had called attention. After this, there seemed no more to be said; but the battle was not yet over. The Tories had been charged both by the Daily News and by a speech in the House with want of courtesy to Mr. Gladstone. Nobody knew better than Mr. Balfour how much ground there was for such a charge; for often in the course of the present Session—with a dark frown on his face, with an almost violent gesture—he has called on his unruly followers behind him to conduct themselves. The effect of what had taken place was to extort from Mr. Balfour a tribute to the universal respect in which the Prime Minister was held—a tribute which the splendid Old Man acknowledged by a low bow; and, in short, the Tories had to bind themselves over to keep the peace by their professions of a chivalrous desire to respect the person and the feelings of the great Prime Minister. And thus it was that it ended for the moment in a drawn battle—Mr. Chamberlain having to withdraw his motion, and I my amendment.

[Sidenote: Slow progress.]

But in the meantime the progress with the Bill was terribly slow. We were now on the second week with the third clause. Amendments were disposed of one night only to find that the next day the number of amendments, instead of being diminished, had been increased. It would be a sheer waste of time and space to go into detail about these amendments. The third clause is the clause which deals with the questions that are to be excluded from the Irish Parliament. The list is sufficiently long—peace and war—the Crown—the Lord-Lieutenancy—trade and commerce—the coinage and the currency—copyright and navigation—treason and treason felony. But even this list was not sufficiently long for the Unionists. They propose to increase this list of exemptions until, if they succeeded, the Irish Legislature would have to shut up shop for want of business to attend to. One man gravely proposed that the Irish executive—being made responsible for the peace, order, and good Government of Ireland—should not have the right to settle the procedure in the Irish criminal courts. Another gentleman proposed that all cases referring to criminal conspiracy should be left to the Imperial Government and Parliament. The meaning of all this was that the Unionists wanted to draw a ring fence around the Orangemen of Ulster, who had been threatening rebellion. First, by one set of amendments the Irish Government was not to have a police able to put them down, and then the Irish courts were not to be able to convict them when they broke the law.