[Sidenote: The hours of labour.]

On June 9th the Unionists were on another line. They professed to think that if the Irish Legislature were not compelled to do so they would not prevent overwork and long hours. This led to the proposal that all legislation on hours of labour should be taken out of the hands of the Irish Parliament. Mr. Chamberlain argued this with his tongue in his cheek—professing to dread the unequal competition in which poor England would be placed if wealthy Ireland were allowed to compete unfairly by longer hours. He urged this in a speech directed to every absurd prejudice and alarm which the ignorant or the timid could feel—altogether made a most unworthy contribution. John Burns—breezy, outspoken—not friendly to all things done by the Liberals in the past, but firm in his Home Rule faith—went for Mr. Chamberlain in good, honest, sledge-hammer, and workmanlike fashion. The member for Battersea even dared to blaspheme Birmingham—the Mecca of the industrial world—for its notoriously bad record in industrial matters—an attack which Joe seemed in no way to relish. And all the time the Old Man—with his hand to his ear, and sitting on the very end of the Treasury Bench, so as to be nearer the speaker—listened attentively, sympathetically, occasionally uttering that fine leonine cheer of his. It was on this amendment that the Ministerial majority fell, owing to various accidents, to 30, and the Tories cheered themselves into a happy condition of mind for a few minutes.

[Sidenote: The guillotine—but not yet.]

Towards the end of the sitting there was a certain feverishness of expectation. Dr. McGregor, a Scotch Highland member, had announced that at half-past six he would move the closure of the third clause—on which we had now been working for a fortnight. But Mr. Mellor refused to put such a drastic proposal on the suggestion of a private member. There was, however, a very plain intimation that if a Minister were to make such a proposal it might be considered differently; all of which meant that we were approaching—slowly, patiently, forbearingly—but still approaching the moment when drastic steps would be taken to accelerate progress.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE SEXTON INCIDENT.

[Sidenote: Mr. Sexton.]

The resignation of Mr. Sexton, early in June, seemed to point to one of those disastrous splits in the Irish ranks which have always come at the wrong moment to spoil the chances of the Irish cause. There were many whose memories were brought back by the event to that trying and strange time when Mr. Parnell fought his desperate battle for the continuance of his leadership. But then there were many modifications of the position, and the chief of these was the much greater tranquillity with which the affair was regarded; and the general faith that the Irish members would be wise enough to settle their differences satisfactorily. Still there were some very ugly moments.

[Sidenote: A Conservative opportunity.]

Nothing could be more galling, for instance, to those who had charge of the Home Rule Bill, than to look across at the Irish Benches and see a vast and aching void in the places where the representatives of the people mainly concerned are accustomed to sit. The Tories were not slow to utilise the moment; and if things had been different—if the Home Rule cause had not got so far—they would probably have been able to stop progress with the measure altogether. But fortunately the Home Rule Bill was in committee—and whether men like it or not, it is impossible for them to avoid something like business discussion when a Bill is in committee. There is the clause under discussion; there are the amendments to it, which stand on the paper; the clause and the amendments have to be spoken to; and it is impossible, within the limits of a discussion so defined, to introduce a subject so extraneous as a domestic difficulty in the Irish ranks. But, at the same time, the opportunity was too tempting to be altogether passed without notice. Sir John Lubbock has taken a prominent part at times in opposing the Home Rule Bill. Sir John is a most estimable man, has written some very entertaining books, and in the City has appropriate rank as both an erudite and a rich banker. But he does not shine in the House of Commons. His voice is thin and feeble, and his arguments, somehow or other, always appear wire-drawn. And then the House of Commons is a place, above all others, where physical qualities go largely towards making success or failure. A robustious voice and manner are the very first essentials of Parliamentary success; and no man who is not gifted with these things has really much right to try Parliamentary life. However, Sir John Lubbock was not strong enough to withstand the temptation of making capital out of Irish misfortunes; and he pointed to the Irish Benches, with their yawning emptiness, as a proof that the Irish members took no interest whatsoever in the Home Bale Bill.

[Sidenote: Irish objections to divorce.]

Meantime, in the House itself the Home Rule Bill was crawling slowly along. The Unionists were at their sinister work of delaying its progress by all kinds of absurd and irrelevant amendments. For instance, one Unionist wished to restrict the Irish Legislature as to the law of marriage and divorce. Mr. Gladstone has over and over again pointed out that, as the Irish have one way of looking at these things, and the English another, it would be absurd not to allow the Irish Legislature to settle such a matter in accordance with Irish feeling. Curiously enough, the Unionists did not receive much encouragement on this point from the Irish branch of the enemies of Home Rule. Mr. Macartney, an Irish Orangeman, proclaimed on the part of his co-religionists that the Irish Protestants had nearly as much objection to divorce as the Irish Catholics; and, so far as that part of the amendment was concerned, he had no desire to see it pressed. What he apprehended was a change in the law for the purpose of prejudicing mixed marriages—marriages between Catholics and Protestants. Mr. Gladstone, it is well known, on the question of divorce is a very sound and very strong Conservative. The sturdy fight he made against divorce still lives in Parliamentary history, and has often been brought up—sometimes in justification of equally stubborn fights—against him. It is one of the points on which he does not seem to have much modified his opinions, in spite of the advance of time, and all that has taken place in the long stretch of years between now and the day when an unbelieving and pagan minister like Lord Palmerston enabled men and women to get rid of adulterous spouses. But Mr. Gladstone declined to be drawn.

[Sidenote: Disestablishment.]

On June 18th, Mr. Bartley proposed an amendment to a restriction in the Bill with regard to the establishment and endowment of any church. By the Bill—as is pretty well known—the Irish Parliament are forbidden to confer on any church the privilege of State establishment and State endowment. To this restriction no Irish member has ever raised the least objection. It was reserved for Mr. Bartley—one of the most vehement opponents of Irish nationality and an Irish Parliament—to declare that such a restriction would make the Parliament unworthy of the acceptance of a nation of freemen, and to propose that accordingly it should be removed. The position, then, in which the Irish opponents of the Bill were placed, was this—that while denouncing the supremacy and encroachments of the Catholic Church as one of the main objections against the Bill, they proposed that the Irish Parliament should have the right to establish and endow that very Church. Mr. Balfour perceived—under the light thus borne in upon him—that this was not an amendment which the Tory party could safely support; and he accordingly advised Mr. Bartley to withdraw it. Mr. Gladstone made a few scornful observations; and, without a division, the proposal was huddled out of sight. It was almost a pity. It would have been such an instructive spectacle to see the whole Tory party voting that the Catholic Church in Ireland should have the right to be endowed and established; and some of the Irish members felt this so much, that they were very much inclined to force the Tories to a division. But they let the incident pass.

[Sidenote: The triumph of the tweed coat.]

It is one of the curious things about Parliamentary life in England, that the smallest detail of personal habit attracts the all-searching gaze of the entire world. Let a man change the shape of his hat, the colour of his clothes, the style even of his stockings, and the world knows it all before almost he is himself conscious of the change. And then, though the House of Commons consists for the most part of men well advanced in middle life—men who have made their pile in counting-house or shop, before devoting themselves to a Parliamentary career—it is also a House where wealth and fashion are very largely represented. It is often a very well-dressed body; and in this House of Commons, in particular, there is a very large proportion of well-tailored and well-groomed young men—especially, of course, on the Tory side. The consequence is, that you are able to trace the transformations of fashion, the processions of the seasons, the variety of appropriate garbs which social and other engagements impose, as accurately in the House of Commons as in Rotten Row.

[Sidenote: The old order.]

The ordinary tendency of the Parliamentary man is towards the sombre black, and the solemnity of the long-tailed frock-coat. There have been times when if a member of Parliament did venture to enter the House of Commons in a coat prematurely ending in the short tails of the morning coat, or in the tail-less sack-coat, he would have been called up to the Speaker's chair and as severely reprimanded as though he had committed the most atrocious offence—in those far-off days—of wearing a pot-hat. But in these democratic times one can do anything; and low-crowned hats, sack-coats, homespun Irish tweeds, affright and shock the old aristocratic Parliamentary eye. When summer approaches, the whole aspect of the House changes. The sombre black is almost entirely doffed; and you look on an assembly as different in its outward appearance from its antecedent state as the yellow-winged butterfly is from the grim grub. Indeed, members of Parliament seem to take a delight in anticipating the change of dress which the change of season imposes. There are members of the House of Commons who can claim to wear the very first white hat of the season. Sir Wilfrid Lawson has a sombre creed and a Bacchanalian spirit; and, accordingly, the very first time a mere stray gleam of sunshine streaks the wintry gloom Sir Wilfrid wears an audaciously white hat.

[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone's rejuvenescence.]

Mr. Gladstone is a curious mixture of splendour and carelessness. He nearly always wears a small, narrow black tie, which brings into greater relief the Alpine heights and the measureless width of his big shirt-collars, and the broad expanse of his shirt-front. But this tie—though it marks a pleasant and becoming individuality of dress—loses half its effect by nearly always getting out of its place; when night is advanced, the knot is always about half across Mr. Gladstone's neck. On the other hand, he is nearly always very carefully dressed; his black frock-coat—a little ancient in make, and always of the smooth black, which has given way with younger men to the diagonals—is a well-known feature of every great debate, and adds grace to his appearance and delivery. When summer comes, however, he bursts into an almost dazzling glory of white waistcoats, grey cashmere coats, and hats of creamy-yellow whiteness, ethereal and almost aggressively summery. The younger men are not slow to follow so excellent an example—though generally there is the tendency to the dark grey, which is a compromise between the black of winter and the fiery white tweed which the man in the street is wont to wear. Sir Charles Russell—who, returning from Paris on the same day as Mr. Sexton, received a very warm welcome—is also a child of his age in his clothes. Time was when a great legal luminary—especially if he were on the bench—was supposed to be violating every canon of good taste if he did not wear garments which might be described as a cross between the garb of a bishop, an undertaker, and a hangman. The judge on the bench, in fact, was always supposed to be putting on the black cap figuratively, and, therefore, was obliged to bear with him the outward sign of his damnable trade. The late Lord Cairns was the first to break through this tradition, and affect the style of the prosperous stockbroker. Sir Charles Russell is different, for he dresses in thorough taste; but when one saw him in the House of Commons in a grey suit and a deep-cut waistcoat, one might have taken him for a gentleman squire with a taste for study, varied by an occasional visit to Newmarket.

[Sidenote: Mr. Morley's tweed suit.]

All these observations have been suggested by the portentous fact that on June 15th Mr. John Morley startled the world of Parliament by appearing in a very neat, a very well cut, and a very light tweed suit. If Mr. Morley figures in many Tory imaginations as a modern St. Just, longing for the music of the guillotine and the daily splash of Tory and orthodox blood, it is much more due to his clothes than to his writings; for ordinarily he is dressed after the fashion which one can well suppose reigned in the days when the men of the Terror were inaugurating a reign of universal love, brotherhood, and peace through the narrow opening between the upper and the lower knife of the guillotine. His coat is blue: so is his waistcoat; and his nether garments are of a severe drab brown. It is impossible to imagine that any man who assumes such garments could be otherwise than a severe and sanguinary doctrinaire, anxious for his neighbours' blood. The genial smile with which the House of Commons has become familiar has invalidated the Tory estimate of Mr. Morley, but it was that memorable Thursday that completed the transformation of judgment. No man could be a lover of the guillotine who could wear so airy, so gay, and, above all, so juvenile and well-cut a suit of clothes. Mr. Morley himself was overwhelmed with the amount of attention which his new suit attracted. He, poor man, did not see the portentous political significance of the transaction, and almost sank under the multitude and variety of congratulations which he received from watchful friends. He has done many great and successful things in the course of his brilliant career—but he never achieved a triumph so complete and so prompt as he did when he put on his light tweed suit, and steered under its illuminating rays the Home Rule Bill through the rocks and shoals, the eddies and the cross-currents of the House of Commons.

[Sidenote: A brilliant pas de deux.]

On the following afternoon there was another scene in which clothes had their share. At about three o'clock there entered the House together two slight, alert figures—in both cases a little above the middle height, and both clothed in a suit of clothes the exact counterpart of each other in make, shape, and colour. There was a dominant and almost monotonous grey in their appearance; but there was little of grey in their looks. When at once there burst from the Tory and Unionists Benches a loud, wild, prolonged huzzah, it was seen that this theatrical little entrance at one and the same time of Joe and Mr. Balfour, was their method of accentuating the Tory triumph in Linlithgow. The two gentlemen seen entering together separated as they walked up the floor—the Tory going to his place on the front Opposition Bench, the Unionist to his corner seat on the Liberal side. It was a very skilfully arranged bit of business, though there were critics who thought its histrionic element a little out of place in the sombre and solemn realities of public life, and a great national controversy. In the midst of it all I looked at Mr. Gladstone. It is in such moments that you are able to get a glimpse into all the great depths of this extraordinary nature. And I have written more than once in these columns that the greatest of all his characteristics is composure. This mighty, restless, fiery fighter against wrong—this stalwart and unconquerable wrestler for right, this Titan—I might even say this Don Quixote—who has gone out with spear and sword to assault the most strongly-entrenched citadels of human wrongs—who has faced a world in arms—this man has, after all, at the centre of his existence, and in the depths of his nature, a gospel which sustains him in the hours of defeat and gloom, and makes him one of the most restless of combatants, and the most tranquil.

[Sidenote: The grand old philosopher.]

Devotional, almost pietistic, introspective, accustomed, I have no doubt, from that early training of domestic piety and sacerdotal surroundings, to see all this gay, vast phantasmagoria of life the antechamber to a greater, more enduring, and better world beyond those voices, Mr. Gladstone—at least that is my reading of his character—looks at everything in human existence with the power of self-detachment from its garish moments and its transient interests. Behind this constant warfare, underneath all this public passion and sweeping resolves, there is a nether and unseen world of thought, emotion, hope, and in that world there is ever calm. It is a tabernacle in his soul where only holy thoughts may enter. Outside its impenetrable and echoless walls are left behind the shouts of faction, the noise of battle, the rise and fall of the good and ever-enduring fight between wrong and right. Within that tabernacle Mr. Gladstone has the power of withdrawing himself at will, just as in the Agora of Athens, and on the last great day when he discoursed on immortality, and drank the mortal hemlock, Socrates could withdraw himself, and listen to the inner whisper of his daemon. All this, I say, you could see in the abstracted, resigned and composed look of Mr. Gladstone at the moment when his triumphant enemies, in their summer garb, with their smiling faces, and strutting walk, entered the House of Commons. If you wanted to see at once the contrast, not only of the temper of the hour, but the still greater and more momentous contrast of temperaments, you had only to look from the face of Mr. Gladstone to that of Mr. Chamberlain. The contrast of their years—the deeper contrast of their natures—above all, the profounder contrast of their worlds of thought, training and environment—all were brought out. In that perky, retrousse-nosed, self-complacent, confidently smiling man you saw all the flippancy—so-called realism—the petty commercialism of the end of the middle of the nineteenth century. The mysticism, the poetry, the rich devotion, the lofty and large ideals of the beginning of the century—of the time that remembered Byron and produced Newman—all these things were to be seen in the rapt look of that noble, beautiful and refined face on the Treasury Bench. And yet there was something more. The brilliant light of the early days of our century has become dim and cold in those hearts and minds which have not had the power to grow and expand with their ages. But with that splendid sanity of body as well as mind which belongs to him, Mr. Gladstone is the creature of the ending of the nineteenth as of the beginning of the twentieth century. Like the man of Arctic climes, he stands almost at the same moment in the sunset of one great century and the heralding light of the sunrise of another.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE BURSTING OF THE STORM.

[Sidenote: An Indian summer.]

There is a striking description in one of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's stories of a night in an Indian city when the dog star rages. Luridly, but vigorously, the author brings home to you the odious discomfort, the awful suffering, and, finally, the morose anger and almost homicidal fury, which the sweltering light produces in the waking soldiers. This would have been something like the temper of the House of Commons on June 18th, if that assembly had not recently discovered methods of saving its temper and pleasantly spending its vacant hours. For the dog star—raging, merciless, sweltering—ruled everywhere within Westminster Palace. On the floor of the House itself, men sweltered and mopped their foreheads; in even the recesses of the still library they groaned aloud; then down on the Terrace, and with the river sweeping by, there was not a particle of air; and the heat of all the day had made even the stony floor of that beautiful walk almost like the tiles of a red-hot oven. In short, it was a day when one felt one's own poor tenement of clay a misery, a nuisance, and a burden; and the mind, morose, black, and despondent, had distracting visions of distant mirages by the seashore or under green trees. It was natural, under such circumstances, that everybody who could should desert the House of Commons. And this sudden desertion of the House will be always remembered as one of the many peculiarities of the Annus Mirabilis through which we are passing. It has not been unusual for some years for members to take a turn on the Terrace now and then. I have paced its floor at every hour of the night and the day—from the still midnight to the delightful moments before breaking day; and I still remember the beautiful summery morning when, after a hard night's fight, an Irish member rushed down to the Terrace to tell Mr. Sexton and myself that we were just being suspended—an operation not yet grown customary. But this Session the majority of the House of Commons is always on the Terrace; and woman—that sleuth-hound of every new pleasure—has discovered this great fact, and utilised it accordingly.

[Sidenote: Tea on the Terrace.]

The afternoon tea—the strawberries and cream which make a coolness and delight in the midst of the raging day—has been erected by woman into one of London's daily social events; and though the novelist has not discovered the fact up to this moment—Mr. McCarthy has made a very pretty love scene on the Terrace, but it is at the witching hour of night—though this discovery has yet to come, the respite is brief, and in a short time we shall have the hero and the heroine passing through all the agonies of three-volume suffering, to the accompaniment of the division bell and the small tea-table of the Terrace. But though woman has many slaves she has her watchful enemies. The great order of curmudgeon is wide and vigilant and crusty, and the curmudgeon has found that the vast crowds of ladies who have invaded the Terrace have at last begun to interfere with that daily constitutional along its stretching length, which is the only exercise most members of Parliament are able to take in these fierce days. Accordingly, there appeared an ominous notice-board with the words, "For members only," at a particular point in the Terrace. Within the space, before which this notice stood as a fiery sword, woman was not allowed to intrude; and from out its sacred enclosure—guarded by nothing but the line of the notice and the Speaker's wrath—the confirmed bachelor, the married cynic, smoked his cigarette, and looked lazily through at the chattering, tea-drinking, bright-coloured crowd immediately beyond.

[Sidenote: Demos and dinner.]

I regret to say that the great Demos had an opportunity of seeing the legislator at work and play, and that the remarks of that extremely irreverent person were not complimentary. Reading, doubtless, in the papers something of the fatiguing labours—of the stern attention to business—of the long and dreary hours which the patriots of the House of Commons were devoting to the work of the country, Demos was shocked and scandalised to behold this giddy, fashionable, and modish crowd. Demos, sweltering on the passing steamboat—able to see, and, at the same time, free from interference on his watery kingdom—jeered aloud as he passed close to the Terrace, and mocked with loud laughter that betokened not only the vacant but the insulting mind. The skippers of the steamboats—hardened Cockneys with an eye to business—knew what a delight this baiting of the august assembly would be to the most democratic and most sarcastic crowd in Europe; and accordingly it became the "mot d'ordre" with the steamboat skipper, when the tide was full, to bring his vessel almost to the very walls of the Terrace, and thus to give the tripper the opportunity of gazing from very near at the lions at food and play. If Demos could have come and seen as plainly at night in those days as during the afternoon, his shocked feelings would have been even more poignant and his language more irreverent. Tea is, after all, a simple drink that makes the whole world akin; and even strawberries in this great year were within reach of the most modest purse. But at night, entertainment is more costly. Along the Terrace there is now, as everybody knows, a series of small dining-rooms; and here every night you might have listened to the pleasant music of woman's laughter, punctuated by the pop of the champagne bottle. Time was—I remember it well—when a member of Parliament who knew that there was any place where a lady could get something to eat was pointed to as a Parliamentary marvel, who knew his way about in an uncanny fashion; when the room in which a lady could dine had been seen by but few eyes and, indeed, was little better than a coalhole, low-roofed, dimly lit, buried in dark and deep recesses of an underworld of the House of Commons, as little known to the general member as the sewage catacombs of London to the ordinary citizen. But all this has been changed; and now the dinner to ladies at the House of Commons has become, like the afternoon tea, one of the best recognized of London's social festivities. And so great is the run on these dinners that it takes a week's—or even two weeks'—notice to secure a table. Mr. Cobbe—a stern and unbending Radical, with a hot temper and unsparing tongue—might have been seen one of those June days with a menacing frown upon his rugged Radical forehead, and by-and-bye in serious converse with the Speaker. And the cause of his anger was that he had found all the dining-tables ordered for two weeks ahead.

[Sidenote: A wild scene.]

Speaking on the Freemasons, on June 22nd, Mr. Gladstone related the interesting autobiographical fact that he himself was not a Freemason, and never had been; and, indeed, having been fully occupied otherwise—this delicate allusion to that vast life of never-ending work—of gigantic enterprises—of solemn and sublime responsibilities, was much relished—he never had had sufficient curiosity to make any particular inquiries as to what Freemasonry really was. I don't know what came over Mr. Balfour—some people thought it was because he expected to detach some Freemason votes from the Liberal side; but he was guilty of what I admit is an unusual thing with him—an intentional, a gross, an almost shameful misrepresentation of Mr. Gladstone's words. Making the same interesting personal statement as Mr. Gladstone, that he was not himself a Freemason, he went on to suggest that Mr. Gladstone had made a comparison between a fraudulent Liberator Society and the Freemasons. At this thrust there was a terrible hubbub in the House, and that fanaticism with which the Mason holds to his institution was aroused; indeed, for a little while, the scene was Bedlam-like in its passion and anarchy. In the midst of it all, facing the violent howls of the excited Tories, pale, disturbed, hotly angry underneath all the composure of language and tone, Mr. Gladstone exposed the shameful and entirely groundless misrepresentation. Mr. Balfour's better angel intervened; he got ashamed of himself, and at once apologized. But the hurricane of passion which had been let loose was not to be so easily appeased; and when, presently, Mr. John Morley put an end to the ridiculous and irrelevant discussion which threatened to land the House of Commons into the consideration of the arcana of a Freemason's Lodge, there burst from the Tory benches one of the fiercest little storms of remonstrance I have ever heard. When the closure is proposed, there is but one way of expressing emotion. Under the rules of the House, the motion must be put without debate. So when the word of doom is pronounced by the Minister, all that remains is for the Speaker or Chairman to refuse or accept the motion; and if he accept the motion, he simply rises, and, uttering the fateful words, "The question is that the motion be now put," guillotines all further speech. But then he has to put the question, and in the answering words of "Aye" or "No," there can be put an immense fund of passion. So it was that night. The answering "Noes" reached the proportions of a cyclone; you could see men shrieking out the word again and again, almost beside themselves with rage, and with faces positively distorted by the intensity of their feelings. And the tempest did not end in a moment; again and again the Tories shouted their hoarse and tempestuous, and angry "No, no!"—the word sometimes repeated like a volley: "No, no-o-o, no-o-o-o-o!"—this was the noise that rose on the Parliamentary air, and that gave vent to all the passion which had been excited. And then came the division and a restoration of calm.

[Sidenote: Charwomen and ratcatchers.]

The Whip is a cunning dog, especially if he be the Whip of the party in power; and you have to be a long time in Parliament before you know all his wiles, and fully appreciate their meaning. For instance, few innocent outsiders would understand why it is that the Whip always puts down Estimates for a day immediately after the end of a vacation. The reasons are two. First, because Estimates give more time and opportunity for the mere bore and obstructive than any other part of Parliamentary business. On the Estimates, as I have often explained, every single penny spent in the public service has to be entered. Whether that sum be large or small makes no difference. For instance, there is a charwoman at the Foreign Office; the charwoman's salary appears in the accounts just as bold and just as plain as the five thousand a year which the country has to pay for Lord Rosebery—who is cheap at the money, I must say, lest I be misunderstood. There is associated with Buckingham Palace a most worthy and useful individual called the ratcatcher. Everybody can see why in such a vast and generally untenanted barrack, there should be a ratcatcher. Well, Master Ratcatcher appears on the Estimates for Buckingham Palace just as regularly, as plainly, in as much detail, as my Lord High Chamberlain, Lord Carrington. There is no reason whatever why a whole evening should not be spent in the discussion of the ratcatcher's salary. Perhaps the reader may have heard that, in common with many sobered and middle-aged gentlemen, I have had a pre-historic period when I was accused—of course, unjustly—of interfering with the progress of public business. In that period, I remember very well, the ratcatcher of Buckingham Palace loomed largely, as well as many other strange and portentous figures now vanished into the void and the immensities. I don't know whether we were able to keep the Ministry going for a whole night on the subject or not; but still we managed to get some excellent change out of the business.

[Sidenote: The wistful Whip.]

This brief explanation will make the reader understand what it is you can do on the Estimates, and therefore bring home to your mind the wile of the Ministerial Whip. For his second reason for putting down the Estimates until after vacation is, that he knows there will be a very small attendance of members, and that thus he will be able to sneak through his Estimates more quickly than usual. When, therefore, you hear of a vacation in the House of Commons, you will always find that the members ask with peculiar anxiety what is to be the first business on the day on which the vacation concludes; and you will hear the audible sigh of relief which will rise from hundreds of oppressed bosoms when the Leader of the House for the time being announces that it will be Estimates. Members then know that they need be in no violent hurry to get back, and that things will go right, even though they should tarry that additional day, or even two days, longer by the sad sea waves or amid the tall grass.

[Sidenote: To thy orisons.]

It is one of the peculiarities of the House of Commons that the men who are most in want of spiritual assistance and providential guidance, never seek the assistance of prayer. However terrible the crisis, however crowded every other inch of space in the House of Commons may be, though the ungodliest member may be in his place listening to the rich resonance of Archdeacon Farrar's voice, the Treasury Bench is always empty. To an outsider the explanation may be here revealed; which is, that if you attend prayers you are entitled to a seat for the remainder of the evening, whereas if you are absent, you are liable at any moment to be turned out by your more pious brother. But Ministers are exempt from this general law, for their places are fixed for them on the Treasury Bench, whatever may happen, and, accordingly, they invariably—I had almost said religiously—keep away from prayers. Lest I should appear to do injustice, I may say that the leaders of the Opposition are just as ungodly, and for precisely the same reason; their seats also are secured to them by standing order; and, accordingly, they also never enter the House until its devotions for the day are over. There was just one exception to this. For some reason best known to himself, Sir John Gorst (he is usually at variance with his friends) had come down early on June 28th, and was in his place with edifying aspect to listen to the solemn exhortation and the soft responses.

[Sidenote: The shout of battle.]

At twenty minutes past twelve there is a roar in the House; the Old Man has arrived; and there ascends that bracing cheer with which in our still barbarous times we welcome our champions on the eve of a big fight. The Old Man has hurried, for he is out of breath; and the deadly pallor of his cheek is almost affrighting to see. But he soon recovers himself, though when he rises to speak the breathlessness is still very apparent, and he has to gasp almost now and then for more voice. Fortunately on this occasion we have not long to wait for the big announcement which everybody is so anxiously expecting. It is usually the fate of the House of Commons, whenever something very momentous is under weigh, to have a thousand trivialities in its path before it gets on to the real business. I have heard something like a hundred questions asked, most of them very trivial, on more than one night, when the whole of the civilized world was waiting for the Minister to develop some great plan of Governmental policy. The bore, the faddist, the empty self-advertiser, is as inevitable on such occasions as the reportorial dog that always rushes along the Derby course at that dread moment when you can hear the beating of the gamblers' hearts.

[Sidenote: To business.]

But on this fateful Wednesday there is no such ridiculous intervention. There are only two questions altogether on the paper; and both of those refer to the great issue of how obstruction is to be put down. Mr. Gladstone answers the questions very briefly; but there is hidden and fateful meaning in every syllable he utters; and the House of Commons, looking on, shows itself in one of those moments which bring out all its picturesqueness—its latent passions—its very human characteristics. There is the eager strain of curiosity. Every face is turned to that of the single pale white solitary figure that stands out from the Treasury Bench, dressed, I may add, in the sober but light grey suit of the summer season, in spite of his being a messenger of such doom to Tory obstruction. There is a hush, but a hush never lasts long in the House of Commons when a great party blow is going to be struck. The nerves of the House, raised to expectancy—tension, almost hysteria, by the joy of the one side, the anger and dread of the other, have a preternatural readiness in catching points, in producing outbursts of feeling. And so it is to-day. The Prime Minister has scarcely uttered the words which reveal the determination of the Government to resort to the most extreme measures, when there burst simultaneously from the Irish and the Tory Benches cheers and counter cheers—the cheer of pride, joy, and delirium almost, in the one case; the answering cheer and counter cheer of haughty and angered defiance in the other.

[Sidenote: Balfour the unready.]

The Old Man bears himself splendidly amidst all this. He is very excited and very resolute—you can see that by the very deadliness of tranquillity which he seeks to put in his voice, by the gentleness of his tone, by the almost deprecatory smile. All the same, the prevalent note of his voice and manner is composure. For the moment, either from surprise, relief, the joy they can badly conceal—whatever the reason, the Tories seem to be nonplussed. The audacious ally who is always ready to rush rashly into the breach on such occasions is away in Birmingham; and with all his excellent qualities, Mr. Balfour is not remarkable for readiness. Accordingly there is an awkward pause, and no one rises from the Opposition Benches. This is serious, for first blood tells in Parliamentary as in other prize fights. The Old Man, however, is all alive. He passes on from this mighty announcement as though he had said nothing in particular, and taking a bundle of notes—put together with characteristic care and neatness even in the very centre of all this storm—he proceeds to tell Mr. Goschen something about the currency question, and the state of the silver market in India. The currency—who cares about the currency now? Even the hardiest bimetallist cannot be got to think of his hobby in the face of the dread news just heard. By the time Mr. Gladstone has given his answers, Mr. Balfour has managed to slightly recover himself, and has framed a question to the Old Man.

[Sidenote: The precedent of 1887.]

When at last the question does come, it is of a very innocent character. The Old Man has declared that he had not the terms of the resolution ready, but that they would be announced to the House before its rising in the evening. All Mr. Balfour wishes to know is, what time it will be when these terms are given. Such is the simple question; but the reply is of a very different character. It was delivered in studiously moderate terms; the voice of Mr. Gladstone never rises above a sweet coo; but there is fire, defiance, inflexible determination in every syllable, and the first blow is struck when the wily Old Man announces—as though it were the merest business affair—that the closure resolution which the Government will introduce, is founded upon the principle of the resolution of 1887. He can go no further for several seconds. The Irish, with their ready wits—their fierce and keen memories—have caught the point at once; and they burst into a cheer—loud, fierce, and prolonged. What it means is this: In 1887, the Tories had carried a closure resolution for the purpose of forcing through the Coercion Bill of that year; and it was under the working of that closure resolution that the Bill had finally passed the House of Commons, with several of its clauses undebated. What, then, this fierce Irish cheer meant was that the chickens were coming home to roost; and that the Tories were now reaping the harvest of their own sowing. With grave face the Old Man waited until the storm had spent itself, and then he went on to make a little slip, which for the moment gave his enemies an excellent opening.

[Sidenote: Revolution or resolution.]

He spoke not of the resolution, but of the revolution. He corrected the slip with great rapidity, but he was not quick enough for his watchful enemies, and loudly—discordantly—triumphantly—they repeated the word after him—Revolution—Revolution. However, Mr. Gladstone, after his Socratic fashion, lowered his eyes for a moment and went off into one of those abstract reveries whither he always allows his fancy to wend its way whenever his opponents are particularly rancorous. Then he described the resolution—not the revolution—as in the interest of the convenience and liberty of the House. But he immediately added—with the sweetest smile—that Mr. Balfour would doubtless form his own judgment on that point; and then, still calm, sweet, with the tendency to the reverie of the good man grossly misjudged by sinful opponents, he sat him down.

[Sidenote: An awkward moment.]

In the midst of the exultation which the announcement of the Government had produced in the Liberal ranks, there came a difficulty and a humiliation. An amendment had been proposed, Mr. Gladstone had twice opposed it, everything pointed to its ignominious rejection, and, in view of the coming closure, everybody seemed to want rapid despatch. And thus a division was immediately called. The House was cleared; members rushed in, and, indeed, had already begun to pass through the lobby; when suddenly there was a complete change of tactics; Mr. Marjoribanks, rushing to the Treasury Bench, called upon the Government to capitulate. The fact got out; the Government were in a minority—their forces had not come in time, and the Tories would have beaten us if they had been allowed to go to a division. It was one of the narrowest shaves—one of the most uncomfortable quarters of a minute—we have had in the House of Commons for many a long day.

[Sidenote: The fateful moment.]

But half-past five comes at last; then the discussion on the Home Rule Bill has to come to an end, and the Speaker takes the chair. Members think there is a look of unusual excitement on his face, that its air is angry; and the Unionists take comfort from the idea that this step is against his judgment. But, then, it is a matter for the House itself and not for the decision of the chair, and so we go ahead. Mr. Morley is put up by Mr. Gladstone to read the words of the resolution. The Old Man himself is composedly writing that letter to the Queen which it is still his duty daily to indite. Mr. Morley's face betrays under all its studied calm, the excitement of the hour, and he reads every separate announcement with a certain dramatic emphasis that brings out all the hidden meaning; and the document is one, the reading of which lends itself to dramatic effect and to dramatic manifestations. For each clause winds up with the same words, at "ten of the clock," until these words come to sound something like the burden of a song—the refrain of a lament—the iteration of an Athanasian curse against sinners and heretics. The House sees all this; and each side manifests emotion according to its fashion. The Irish cheer themselves hoarse in triumph; the Tories answer back as defiantly and loudly; and so we enter, with clang of battle, with shouts and cheers, and hoarse cries of joy or of rage, into the second great pitched battle on Home Rule.



CHAPTER XV.

MR. DILLON'S FORGETFULNESS.

[Sidenote: Mr. Dillon.]

Everybody who has ever met Mr. Dillon knows that he has a singularly even and equable temper, except at the moments when he has been stung to passion by the sight of some bitter and intolerable wrong. When, therefore, Mr. Chamberlain made him the subject of a fierce attack on account of a past utterance, he was dealing with a man who was as little influenced by such attacks as anybody could well be. For days Mr. Chamberlain had been trying to bait Mr. Dillon into speech; and for days Mr. Dillon had positively refused to be drawn. At last it seemed to some friends of Mr. Dillon that if he did not speak his attitude might be misunderstood, and that he would be supposed to entertain, as part of a settled policy, what he had really uttered on the spur of the moment and under the influence of intolerable wrong and provocation. But when in the last days of June Mr. Chamberlain made his attack, and Mr. Dillon had listened to it and asked for dates, Mr. Dillon thought that the matter would not be worth further attending to, and relapsed into his old attitude of easy contempt.

[Sidenote: The outbreak.]

This will account for what would otherwise be inexplicable; namely, that, having had a week to prepare his defence, Mr. Dillon should on July 3rd have fallen into a dreadful, and, for the moment, disastrous blunder. The truth was, Mr. Dillon had never thought of the subject for more than a few moments between the date of the challenge and Mr. Chamberlain's renewal of the attack, and, if he had been left free to exercise his own judgment, would have allowed the whole thing to lapse into the nothingness into which every such charge finally falls. On this Monday night Mr. Chamberlain was in his most venomous mood. He had come down to the House with the set determination to get up a row somehow or other. There was evil in his eye; there was rancour in his voice; there was the hoarse rage which always shows in him whenever he feels that he has been beaten. His judgment is so shallow—his temper so rash and violent—that some people think he actually counted that the Government would never have dared to interfere with his obstructive plan of campaign, and that he would have been permitted to bury the Bill under the vast hedge of amendments. To him, then, the strong and drastic action of the preceding week had come as a painful and most exasperating surprise.

[Sidenote: Joe's weakness.]

It is one of the many bad turns that Joe's temper does him to always lead him into overdoing his part. The wild outbursts of his venom—the ferocity which he puts into his personal attacks—these things have the effect of producing a certain amount of reaction; and thus his blows often suffer from the very violence with which they are dealt. A real master of Parliamentary craft, like Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Sexton, has learned the lesson—the lesson which all orators of all ages have learned—that there is nothing so deadly as moderation; that he destroys the effectiveness of a passion by tearing it to pieces, and that you are really effective when you have complete control of your temper, your voice and your language.

[Sidenote: Mitchelstown.]

Mr. Dillon, rising—pale, high-strung, and nervous—was a sympathetic sight, and the House was ready to listen to him with the greatest attention. The Old Man was specially interested. Whenever nowadays, when his hearing has become somewhat defective, he wants particularly to hear a speech, he has to change his place; usually, as everybody knows, he sits exactly opposite the box on the Speaker's table. This evening he went to the last seat on the Treasury Bench—the seat nearest to the spot from which Mr. Dillon was about to speak, and with his hand to his ear he prepared himself to catch every word that Mr. Dillon was about to utter, and the speech of Mr. Dillon was—in spite of the halting tones which excitement, unpreparedness, the sense of his responsibility produced—singularly effective. The passionate and transparent sincerity of the man—the sense of all the years of suffering through which he passed—the recollection of all the risks he has run in the great contemporary Irish Revolution—all these things spoke in his favour. Especially was he effective when he described the circumstances under which he had delivered the speech, a passage from which had been incriminated by Mr. Chamberlain. He had been told just half-an-hour before he rose to speak, of how a poor mother had been torn from her babe; how the two had been taken over a long journey together, and had both been finally lodged in the same cell. And he asked with a passionate thrill in his voice, that carried away the House with him, whether anybody else under the same circumstances would not have protested in language of violence and vehemence against the cruelty and official brutality which allowed such things to be. Would not anybody have protested that the officials who were guilty of these things had not to look to reward or promotion from a popular Irish Government.

[Sidenote: The fatal mistake.]

So far, Mr. Dillon had the House completely with him. He also scored for a second or two. He went on to remark that he had been under the influence of the massacre at Mitchelstown; but scarcely had these words proceeded from his lips than a look of dismay passed over the faces of his Irish colleagues. Close beside him were several men who, like himself, had stood on the platform of the historic square when the police descended upon the meeting, and which ended in the death of three innocent men. They at once perceived that Mr. Dillon, by some break of memory, had made a mistake in his dates. The incriminating speech had been delivered in December, 1886, and the Mitchelstown massacre took place in September, 1887. If the Irish members had not perceived this blunder immediately they would soon have been brought to a sense of coming disaster by the movements on the opposite side.

[Sidenote: Chamberlain on the spring.]

Mr. T.W. Russell is always at the service of Mr. Chamberlain at such a moment. A platform speaker by training and by years of professional work, accustomed to make most of his case against Home Rule depend on the characters, the words, the acts of the Irish members, he has, of course, at his fingers' ends, all the useful extracts of the last thirteen years. At once he was seen to rush excitedly from the House. Every Irishman knew at once that he was going to the library to reinforce his memory with regard to the date of Mitchelstown. A murmur arose on the Irish Benches; slips of paper were passed up to Mr. Dillon to recall to him the facts of the case; but, either in the hurry and excitement, or because he did not appreciate the situation immediately, Mr. Dillon went on with his speech—unconscious of the abyss that opened up before him. Meantime, Mr. Chamberlain—pale, excited, his face torn with the workings of gratified hatred and coming triumph—sat forward in his seat, his eyeglass shining from afar, eagerness in every look, pose, movement.

[Sidenote: Chamberlain pounces.]

At last Mr. Russell was back in his place; it did not require much second sight to see that his quest had been successful, and that he had brought to Mr. Chamberlain the ammunition he required in order to slay John Dillon. The moment Mr. Dillon sat down, Mr. Chamberlain was on his feet. He worked up to the situation with some skill; but, after all, with that overdone passion which, as I have already said, spoils some of his greatest effects—he did not expose the mistake in his first few sentences. He worked up the agony, so to speak. First he recalled to the Liberals—whose hatred to him he feels and returns with interest—the fact that they had cheered Mr. Dillon's allusion to the effect Mitchelstown had had on him in provoking the violence of his speech. And then when he had created his situation, he pounced down on the House with the climax—the speech had been delivered in 1886, the Mitchelstown tragedy had taken place in the following year. It would be idle to deny that Mr. Chamberlain had then one of the most triumphant moments of his life. It was a small point, after all, and, as everybody soon knew, it was all the result of a natural and a perfectly honest mistake. But the House of Commons is not particular in weighing things in judicial scales at moments of intense political passion. There rose from the Tory and the Unionist Benches one of the longest, fiercest, most triumphant shouts that was ever heard in the House of Commons. But then, as I again must say, and as will soon be seen, the passion was overdone, and a swift retribution came by-and-bye. For the moment, however, it was giddily, dazzlingly triumphant, and Joe had one of the few moments of his life which were unrelieved by disaster.

[Sidenote: A diversion.]

It was at this moment—and, curiously enough, his victory was very soon dashed to the ground—that Mr. Harrington, one of the Parnellites, struck in with a blow. In Parliamentary, as in other tactics, one of the wisest expedients—especially if things are going rather wrong with yourself—is to carry the war into the enemies' country. And this is exactly what Mr. Harrington did. He turned upon Joe and denounced him for seeking at one time to obtain the alliance of these very Irish members whom now he was denouncing. He accused him of sending ambassadors to them when they were in prison, and, in short, brought Joe face to face with an almost forgotten period of his history. Then he was almost a Home Ruler in profession, and looked to the Irish members as a portion of the force he would by-and-bye marshal in his own army.

[Sidenote: A quid pro quo.]

Joe grew pale. It is a curious fact that, whenever any allusion is made to this special period of his life, Mr. Chamberlain becomes particularly disturbed; possibly, it is that he is conscious of the rash things he has said at this period; possibly, it is that it can be proved to the world that he was at this period in favour of the principles and the men he now so loudly denounces. Whatever the reason, it is perfectly certain, if you want to put Mr. Chamberlain into a rage, and what sailors call a funk, allude to the period of Parnell's imprisonment in Kilmainham, and Mr. Duignan's letter on the Irish question. The transformation from the exalted look a few moments before to the pale, cowed aspect which Mr. Chamberlain wore was one of the most sudden transformations I have ever seen in the House of Commons. He could scarcely sit in his seat while Mr. Harrington was speaking; again and again he rose to interrupt him altogether, and gave signs of unusual excitement and disturbance. But Mr. Harrington is a deft and tenacious combatant. In spite of all attempts to stop him, in spite of the tremendous uproar raised by the Unionists and Tories, he managed to get out what he had to say. He brought Mr. Chamberlain face to face with this spectre of his dead past.

[Sidenote: Mr. Balfour does not score.]

Meantime, Mr. Balfour made a great mistake. He had listened to the speech of Mr. Chamberlain, and had been one of those who had joined in the cheers at the exposure of Mr. Dillon's accidental mistake. There he should have left it, but, carried away by the hope of driving the point home against a political enemy, he needs must add something to what Mr. Chamberlain had said. Now Mr. Balfour is in many points very superior to Joe. He should leave personal vituperation to him: he is more active, defter, and more willing to do such dirty work. Moreover, it is in the recollection of the members that, in the Coercionist struggle, Mr. Balfour seemed to have towards Mr. Dillon an unusual amount of personal animosity. Speaking with want of grace and personal courtesy, which are things, I am bound to say, uncommon with him, he accused Mr. Dillon of deliberate and conscious hypocrisy. This also was a tactical blunder, and will largely account for the transformation following, to which I am going to refer.

[Sidenote: The transformation.]

The House on the following day, July 4th, was very still when Mr. Dillon rose—evidently to refer to the incident of the previous night. His address was quiet, brief, and graceful. With charming modesty, he acknowledged the mistake he had made, and explained how, in running over in memory the hundreds of speeches he had delivered, he had confounded one speech with another. He was unable to understand how his memory, which never before had played him false, had done him this ill turn, and he appealed to the House generally, and declared that there was not even amongst his bitter political foes one who would think him capable of trying to palm off on the House a speech which could be so palpably and so readily exposed. In these few sentences, Mr. Dillon brought before the House his strange, picturesque, and chequered career. His oratory was such that the explanation was considered the best ever given in the House of Commons.

[Sidenote: Joe is absent.]

This was a recovery of some ground lost on the previous night. But there was even better to come. Mr. Harrington's accuracy and veracity as to Mr. Chamberlain's dealings with the Irish members had been challenged, as I have said, by Mr. Chamberlain, and he now rose to read the historic letter of Mr. Duignan, which, he claimed, justified his account. Several attempts were made to stop Mr. Harrington, and the Tories during this were decidedly annoyed and embarrassed because Mr. Chamberlain happened not to be in his place. But doggedly and persistently Mr. Harrington held to his ground, and at last the Speaker allowed him to read the letter. The reading of the letter led to various scenes, because it was one of those balanced utterances in which Mr. Chamberlain used to try to hold one foot in the Unionist and to place the other in the Home Rule camp. There were speeches about the County Councils, and there had been Unionist and Tory cheers in relief; but when immediately afterwards there were allusions to Home Rule, very little different in scope or character from that proposed by Mr. Gladstone, there was a triumphant rejoinder from the Liberal and Home Rule Benches. Austen Chamberlain, excited, nervous, angered, flitted to and fro in the attempt to gather forces to defend his absent parent. At last Mr. Courtney took up his case. There was not very much in what he said, and while he was speaking Mr. Chamberlain entered the House. He was pale, excited, and unnerved. He endeavoured to carry the whole thing by a jauntiness which was too easy to see through. Mr. Courtney had been waving furiously a telegram towards the Speaker, and asked that he might have the privilege of reading it. Austen Chamberlain snatched the telegram from Mr. Courtney, and gave it to his father just as he had taken his seat. Mr. Chamberlain had not a moment to spare; he had just time to glance at the contents of the telegram when he rose to speak, and all he did was to read the telegram, which was a confirmation by Mr. Duignan of the general accuracy of the previous evening. This was a score for Joe, and his friends were delighted to recover something of their lost spirit.

[Mr. Conybeare and the Speaker.]

Mr. Conybeare had written a letter to the Chronicle denouncing the Speaker. Mr. Tritton, a Tory member, insisted the letter should be read, and this gave the Speaker one of those few opportunities which his position allows him. In disclaiming this charge he showed his great powers of oratory and the splendid and thrilling notes of his fine voice. He defended himself at once from the charge of undue partiality with strong passion and deep emotion, which lie hidden beneath his deep reserve. With a face ghastly almost in its greyness, in its deepening glows and manifest passion, he repudiated the charge of unfairness; he vehemently struck his hand on the order paper which he held, and as he neared to the end of his little speech there was a ring in his voice dangerously near a sob or a tear. It is on such occasions that Mr. Gladstone's sonorous and splendid diction and delivery come most to the front; beginning a little awkwardly, hesitatingly, he warmed as he went along, and there came to him the strange power of collecting his thoughts and measuring his language which long years of Parliamentary training has made a second nature. The House listened—rapt, hushed, spellbound. And then there was no more to be said beyond a few perfunctory observations from Mr. Balfour and the dismissal of the whole subject.

[Sidenote: Another scene.]

And now we were once more in the thick of a fierce and passionate encounter. Mr. Arnold Forster had an amendment, the effect of which was to remove the exercise of the prerogative of mercy from the hands of the Irish members to those of the English Secretary of State. Into this innocent amendment he sought to drag discussion of the doings of the Land League twelve years ago, and concentrated on Mr. Sexton a violent attack. He was not allowed to proceed to the end of his chapter. The charge was heinous, vile, and such as has rarely been introduced in the House in such a fashion, and soon the temper rose to a fever heat. Mr. Sexton is a dangerous man to tackle in this guise.

In justifiable rage, quivering with wrath, he yet managed to preserve that cold and even tenour of language so perfect to his heart and his words. Again and again the Tory and Unionist party cheer for Mr. Balfour, Mr. Courtney, and Mr. Chamberlain, but Mr. Sexton is not a man to suffer such a statement to go unchallenged, and he succeeded in grasping the whole thing and stamped the charge with the terms, base and infamous. This led to other scenes, men rising and talking together.

Mr. Chamberlain turned fierce in fore front. Again and again Mr. Gladstone arose to try and end the scene, and again and again he was prevented by Mr. T.W. Russell at one point, Mr. Chamberlain at another, and Mr. Balfour at a third, to seek to bring the struggle back to the fierce temper it was about to leave. But the Old Man at last got up, and in measured language and tones which betrayed profound emotion, he scathingly denounced the attack of Mr. Forster as wanton and mischievous. Here again there was another uproar. The Old Man pursued his way, but Mr. Chamberlain again tried to get Mr. Sexton called to order, but the charge had been too coarse, and Mr. Mellor declined to interfere.



CHAPTER XVI.

REDUCED MAJORITIES.

[Sidenote: The week before.]

On Friday, July 7th, we just entered on the fringe of the ninth clause. The ninth clause had all along been held to be, perhaps, the very gravest rock ahead of the Government. This is the clause which regulates the position of the Irish members at Westminster after Home Rule has been passed. There were as many plans for settling this question as there were members of the House of Commons, and all plans were alike in being illogical, unsymmetrical, and, therefore, liable to attack from a dozen different quarters. Already within a few days of each other, there had been two divisions, on which everybody felt it to be quite possible that the Government would go down, and that we should once more go back face to face with the country and probably with a new and a stronger Tory Government than ever. The first occasion was the clause dealing with a Second Chamber. Then a certain number of irreconcilable Radicals, in their hatred of all Second Chambers, voted against the Government and reduced their majority to 15. This was a very tight squeeze; but, after all, everybody had been prepared for it, and when the hour came, we all knew pretty well where we should be. There might be one or two men more or less in the Tory lobby, but we had sized them up carefully. When, however, July 19th, and the ninth clause came we were face to face with a very different state of affairs. Then we had to face absolute uncertainty—and uncertainty not in one, but almost every part of the House. And the curious thing about it all was, that this uncertainty was aggravated by a little fact which had entered into nobody's calculations, and this was the highly technical rule with regard to the manner in which questions are put when the House is in committee.

[Sidenote: Technicalities.]

I despair of ever being able to make this matter clear to an outsider; and, indeed, to be quite honest, I am not always sure that I understand the affair myself. It will probably be sufficient for my purpose if I say that the chairman has to put an amendment in such a way that sometimes you find you are really precluded from voting on the direct question which you wish to challenge. You are within the ring-fence of a technical rule, which compels you to fight your issue there and not one inch outside of it. This often means that questions are raised in the most indirect way—that you seem to be voting for one thing while you really mean another, and that if you do not vote that way, you cannot vote any other. So it happened on this occasion. And we drifted about for the best way of raising the question of the presence of the Irish members, and the Government were for a while in a state of absolute and painful uncertainty. Then came one of those desultory conversations on points of order, in which so large a body as the House of Commons cannot shine—one man suggesting one method, one man another; half-a-dozen different methods proposed in as many minutes by half-a-dozen different members.

[Sidenote: 103 v. 80.]

At last Mr. Redmond seemed to hit off the situation by a proposal to omit a couple of sub-sections in the ninth clause. But Mr. Redmond had scarcely spoken when the House found itself in an extraordinary and most embarrassing dilemma. The object of Mr. Redmond was plain enough; what he desired to do was to retain the Irish members in the Imperial Parliament in their present, that is to say, in their full, strength—103 they are now, 103 he wanted them to remain. The position of the Government was equally clear. With emphatic language—with a superabundance of argument—Mr. Gladstone stated his conviction that the Irish members should not remain in such large numbers and that the number should be 80. This was all clear enough; but what about the position of all the other parties in the House?

[Sidenote: Tot homines, tot sententiae.]

At first sight, it would appear that this ought to be very clear. The Tories and the Unionists had several amendments on the paper. One wanted the Irish members reduced to 48, one wanted to have them reduced to 40, and several of them desired that they should be reduced still further—in fact, should reach the irreducible minimum of none at all. It was assumed, of course, that gentlemen who had thus indicated their desire for the reduction of the Irish members, or for their disappearance altogether, would vote against a proposition which asked that they should remain in full force. If this course were adopted, Mr. Redmond would be crushed under a combination of the Liberals, who wanted the numbers to be 80, and the Tories who wanted the Irish members to disappear altogether; but in these days, and with such an Opposition as we have now in the House of Commons, it is not possible to make any calculations on what course we would adopt. To the amazement of the House—above all things to the amazement of Mr. Gladstone—who has not yet entirely got over the traditions of the past, and, therefore, over-sanguine expectations as to the scruples of his opponents—Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour both announced that they were ready to go into the same lobby as Mr. Redmond. And so those who wanted all the Irish members, and those who wanted none, were both going to vote exactly the same way.

[Sidenote: A bolt from the blue.]

For a moment everybody was staggered by this declaration; and it produced a combination which anybody could forecast, and for which nobody was prepared. There came accordingly something like a panic over the House. Here we were face to face with a Ministerial crisis, with doom and the abyss and the end of all things. Unexpectedly, in a moment, without a second's warning, this state of things led to a phenomenon which belongs to the House of Commons alone. Councils of war are usually held in the silence and secrecy and beneath the impenetrable walls of the council chamber. But sudden councils of war, called for by unexpected events, have to be held in the open in the House of Commons. The world—the world of strangers, of ambassadors, of peers, of ladies, of the constituents, and, above all, the world of watchful, scornful, vindictive enemies—can look on as though the leaders of the parties were bees working in a glass hive. And it is impossible for even the best trained men to keep their air and manners in such dread circumstances from betraying the seriousness and excitement and awe which the gravity of the events are exciting in them.

[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone's attitude.]

On the Treasury Bench there was a good deal of excitement, but it was pretty well repressed: and in the midst of it all is the face of Mr. Gladstone, over-pale, with a strange glitter in the eyes that made them look unnaturally large, two jets of lambent and almost dazzling flame, but otherwise very composed, deadly calm. On the Irish Benches the excitement was more tense, for their course was even more difficult than that of the Government. The Government had stated their decision that they wanted only eighty members. But there was an Irish member, a leader of a party which seeks to claim Irish support as a better Irish party than the other, proposing that Ireland should have her full total of members. The Irish members naturally would be inclined to support their countrymen, if not to seek to keep the Irish representation as high as it could possibly be.

[Sidenote: A splendid gambler.]

On the other hand, if all the Irish members went the same way it was all up with the Government. Some fifty to seventy British Liberals adopt the same policy as the Irish members with regard to the Irish question and the Home Rule Bill, and if the Irish members only give the word, they also would vote with Mr. Redmond, and the Government would be "snowed under," to use an expressive Americanism, a majority of upwards of two hundred against them. Mr. Gladstone had evidently made up his mind that this was the situation he would have to face, and played his last, his supreme, his desperate card. You could see that he himself felt that this was the kind of card he was playing from his look as he played it. There was outward calmness in the face, there was the same evenness of tone in the voice; he built up his case with the same unbroken command of his language and ideas as is his usual characteristic. His statement of his position was admirable in its lucidity, its temper, and its courage. But he was excited. Just as he rose up, Sir William Harcourt jumped up, and in a state of impatience and excitement that was palpable, asked for something. It was a glass of water for Mr. Gladstone. The glass of water was brought in; it was put in front of Mr. Gladstone; he sipped it just as he was about to start on his perilous oratorical voyage, and then, clearing his throat, he made the fateful announcement which possibly was to wreck his measure and himself. And the statement came to this: If the Government were defeated, it would be by a combination of different parties, but they would all agree in supporting 103 as against 80 Irish members; and if they did that, why the House was master. This was ambiguous, and yet it was pretty plain. The Government declined to accept as a vote of want of confidence in them a majority which was obtained by so dishonest and treacherous a combination as men voting together who were at such opposite poles of thought; and the Government would just checkmate the little game by accepting the 103 members as what the House preferred to the Government plan of 80.

[Sidenote: The fall of the flag.]

There was a gleam of almost sardonic triumph in the Old Man's eye as he sat down, having shot this bolt; and he looked as if he had thoroughly discomfited his enemies. But his enemies were not so easily discomfited. Treacherous, base, unscrupulous, call it what he liked, they were not going to miss the opportunity of baiting him: and Mr. Chamberlain's pale face wore a deadlier pallor. There was even a colder and fiercer ring than usual in his clear, cruel voice; his always saturnine look deepened as he seemed to grasp beforehand his great and long delayed hour of vengeance. Mr. Balfour adopted the same tactics. In favour of 103 members? Not at all—the vote would mean nothing of that kind—it would simply mean that they were opposed to the plan of the Government; in short, there was the issue quite plain. The Tories and the Unionists would vote black was white, wrong was right. This way one moment, the other way the next—they would do anything, provided only they could turn the Government out, defeat the Bill, and humiliate the Old Man. And so the situation grew more difficult every moment.

For it was now plain that the Government were most certain to be beaten, and that if they were beaten, there must be an end of Home Rule. It might be good Parliamentary tactics to say that the Government would accept the decision of the House, but everybody knows what moral authority, what reality of strength, there is in a Government which has been "snowed under" by a majority of 200.

[Sidenote: Mr. Sexton makes the running.]

It will now be understood what tremendous issues rested on the speech which Mr. Sexton rose to deliver. In moments of stress and difficulty he is the man always selected by his colleagues to state the Irish case. Never in his chequered and stormy early career did that wonderful Parliamentarian have a task more difficult than that by which he was now confronted. In front of him was the Government in the very panic of impending ruin. He had only to look across the floor of the House, and he could see the pallid face of that mighty statesman who lives so high in the hearts and affections of the people whom Mr. Sexton represents, and who at that moment was in his hour of agony, if not of final and irretrievable ruin. Behind the Prime Minister were other men—equally eager to hear what he had to say—that sturdy band of Radicals, mostly from Scotland, who only wanted the word to desert their own leader and follow the guidance of the Irish members. And behind Mr. Sexton was the grimmest enemy of all—the men from his own country, who were resolved, on this occasion, to push the demand of Ireland to the extreme point, and who held that he would betray the Irish cause if he backed, not them, but Mr. Gladstone and the British Government.

[Sidenote: And takes the lead.]

It required all the dexterity, all the coolness, all the splendid equanimity and courage of the man of genius at such a fateful hour to keep his head. Mr. Sexton was equal to the occasion. He spoke slowly, and there was a hush in the House to catch his every syllable, for his words were the harbingers of fate. As he spoke so would be decided one of the most momentous and indeed tragical of human issues. He spoke, I say, slowly—but at the same time it was evident that he had his mind well fixed on the end which he wished to reach. Nothing adds so much to the effectiveness of oratory as the sense that the man who is addressing you, is thinking at the very moment he is speaking. You have the sense of watching the visible working of his inner mind; and you are far more deeply impressed than by the glib facility which does not pause, does not stumble, does not hesitate, because he does not stop to think. Many people, reading so much about Mr. Sexton's oratory, will be under the impression that he is a very rapid and fluent speaker. He is nothing of the kind. He speaks with a great slowness, grave deliberation, and there are often long and sometimes even trying pauses between his sentences. He could not conceal on this great occasion the anxiety and the seriousness of the situation; but the mind was splendidly clear, the language as well chosen as though he were sitting in a room and holding discourse to a few admiring friends; and what Mr. Sexton had to say was, that he would not go into the same lobby with Chamberlain and Balfour in order to defeat the Government; in short, that he was going to vote with Mr. Gladstone. A long-drawn sigh of relief. The Government is saved.

[Sidenote: The field unsteady.]

But hush—not yet. There are still some of the hard Radicals from Scotland who have never wavered in the idea that the Irish members ought to remain at their full total. They have been partially relieved by what Mr. Sexton had said. But then Scotchmen are proverbially tenacious of opinion; and not even his appeal—joined to the appeal of their leader—will altogether change the purpose of those rugged sons of bonnie Scotland. And so, Mr. Shaw, the member for Galashiels, gets up to ask a question. He plainly declares that according to the answer given to this question, his vote would be given for or against the Government. So we are still in all the agonies of possible delay, for we know that seven Parnellites will go against the Government—that counts fourteen on a division; and if only seven or ten more go the same way, there is a majority against Mr. Gladstone, and we are lost. Mr. Mellor has to answer this fateful question, and everybody cries "Order, order," which is the House of Commons way of saying that people are very anxious to hear what is about to be said. Mr. Mellor gives an answer that satisfies Mr. Shaw. Mr. Dalziel—another sturdy Scotch Radical—is also satisfied; and so we have all the Liberal vote, with the single exception of Labby—who quickly—furtively—almost shamefacedly—rushes off into the Tory lobby.

[Sidenote: Hoisting the numbers.]

And now the division takes place. There have been several speeches—usually of a minute each—before the final hour comes; but we are all so anxious to know what fate is in store for us, that we cannot stand the strain any longer. The division—the division—let us know the worst. Be it good, or be it ill—let it come at once. The Whips from the two lobbies enter almost simultaneously—this shows plainly enough that it has been a very near thing; then a dreadful hush as the numbers are announced; we have won—aye, but we have by only fourteen! There is a burst of cheers from the Irish Benches; Sir William Harcourt laughs aloud in his triumph; the composure of the Old Man's face remains unchanged; you see he has gone through a great many things like this; and that great heart and sane mind are prepared for any fate. Mr. Chamberlain says nothing; but looking into the recesses of his amendment paper, attempts to hide the choking rage of disappointment that has come over him at this final defeat of his brightest hopes of trampling his former friend and his former chief in the dust.

[Sidenote: A squabble.]

And now comes the squalid sequel to all this glorious and splendid fight—the disorderly—the chaotic—the anarchic scene of the 11th of July. The whole thing began simply enough. Mr. Brodrick, the son of an Irish landlord—a very light, though very serious young man—managed in the course of his speech to speak of the people from whom he springs as "impecunious and garrulous." At first nobody took any notice of what was probably a mere mauvaise plaisanterie; and the incident would have passed altogether had not Mr. Brodrick immediately afterwards made a more direct appeal to the Irish Members. This elicited from Mr. Sexton the retort that he need not make any appeal to the Irish Benches after the "grossly rude" allusion he had made to the Irish people. On this there was a mild hubbub on the Tory Benches. The House was very thin and very listless, and really not in the mood to take anything very tragically. But Mr. Sexton resolutely refused to withdraw unless Mr. Brodrick gave the example. Mr. Mellor then—acting somewhat precipitately—ruled that Mr. Sexton was out of order, and should withdraw his words.

[Sidenote: Mr. Sexton defies the chair.]

This created a new situation. Mr. Sexton had now to fight, not Mr. Brodrick, not even Mr. Balfour—but the chair; and to fight the chair is to enter into a contest with the Grand Llama of the House of Commons. Meantime the House had filled; and every nook and cranny was occupied; a large number of members were standing up; and there was that intense thrill of excitement which always forecasts a great outburst, and the outburst came when Mr. Sexton—resolute and composed—gave it plainly to be understood that he would not obey the ruling of the chair; and that he must first get an apology from Mr. Brodrick, as the original offender, before Mr. Brodrick got any apology from him. Then was the cyclone let loose; and there began a series of the wildest, most violent, most angry, and disorderly scenes I have ever witnessed. Scores of members were on their legs at the same time; men hitherto quiet, composed, and good-natured, began to raise cries hoarse with rage, and finally four or five hundred voices were united in producing the deafening and discordant din of angry and contradictory voices. Nor was this all. In some parts of the House men began directly to assail each other—to exchange language of taunt, and insult, and defiance; and, in more than one corner, there were the signs of impending physical conflict. The one relief of the situation was that some men kept their heads and looked on in sadness, while others, seeing only the comic side of the situation, smiled upon it all.

[Sidenote: Gladstone to the rescue.]

Mr. Gladstone, who had been away to dinner, had meantime entered, and a look of pain and solicitude crossed his white face. There is so much of innate gentleness—of inexhaustible kindliness, and of high-bred and scholastic spirit beneath all the vehemence of his political temper and the frenzied energy of his political life—that for such scenes he has never any stomach; and they always bring to his face that same look of shock and pain and humiliation. And he it was who finally saved the situation. Several times Mr. Brodrick would have been willing to withdraw, but Mr. Balfour was resolved to get Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Sexton into a difficulty, to convict Mr. Sexton of disobeying the chair, to compel Mr. Gladstone to take action against his most useful friend and most powerful ally. Over and over again, then, he refused to allow Mr. Brodrick to get rid of the whole situation by withdrawing his language, and so enabling Mr. Sexton to follow the example. Meantime, Mr. Mellor had ruled that Mr. Sexton had been guilty of gross disorder, and had called upon him to leave the House. Mr. Sexton had steadily refused, basing his refusal on the demand that there had been no vote of the House. The point was this: There are two rules for dealing with disorder. Under the one a member is named, and then a division takes place, in which the House may refuse or consent to the suspension of a member. Under the other rule, the presiding officer has the right to suspend on his own motion, and without any appeal to the House. The latter rule was that under which Mr. Mellor acted. Mr. Sexton demanded that he should be treated under the other rule, believing that if a division had taken place the majority of the House, or at least a very big minority, would have refused to sanction the action of the Chairman. This would have meant that Mr. Mellor would have been censured, and thereby compelled to resign the Chairmanship.

Mr. Gladstone, I say, saved the situation. In language of touching delicacy and grace, he appealed to Mr. Sexton to obey the chair. Mr. Sexton at first would not yield; but when the appeal was renewed—when it was backed by all the resources of that thrilling and vibratory voice of Mr. Gladstone, his stubborn resolve gave way. He rose from his seat—several Liberal members got up and waved their hats; the Irishmen followed their example. And then Mr. Brodrick was able to make his tardy apology, and the matter for the moment was ended.

[Sidenote: The interfering Milman.]

There had been one little scene fiercer almost than any of the others. When Mr. Mellor proceeded to call Mr. Sexton to order, Mr. Milman, the clerk at the table, handed to him, with some appearance of ostentation and of eagerness, the rule which allowed him to compel Mr. Sexton's withdrawal without an appeal to the House. This provoked some now fiercely excited Irishmen to an outburst of blind rage. They shouted at Mr. Milman fiercely, desperately—called upon him to leave the Chairman alone, to take the chair himself; and Mr. Sexton made a bitter little speech to the effect that it was Mr. Milman's malignant interference which had produced his suspension. It was thought that on Wednesday this matter would be again raised; and even as early as noon there was a big array of members, expecting another outburst. But Mr. Balfour held his peace. Mr. Sexton asked a formal question, and gave notice of a motion of censure on the Chairman. Mr. Mellor took the chair amid a wild outburst of Tory cheers; and we got back to the tranquil consideration of clause nine, and to a delightful, good-humoured historical speech by Mr. Swift McNeill on the representation of Trinity College, Dublin.

[Sidenote: Divisions.]

The old story came back to our minds on July 13th of the historic scene at Tyburn when all the traitors were hanged in succession. When the first head was held up there was an awful shudder; the shudder was less vivid when the second head was held up; and when the executioner accidentally dropped the third there was a loud and mocking shout of "Butter-fingers." So it was in the House that night until the dinner hour came; but as ten o'clock approached, the House filled and there was a rise in the excitement. The scene, however, bore no comparison to the frenzied excitement of the preceding Thursday—it was evident we were going to have an anti-climax, and the whole arrangement of the Opposition broke down in an important and essential point. On the previous occasion Mr. Balfour, by preconcerted plan, was speaking at the moment when the guillotine fell—with the idea, of course, of bringing into greater relief the wickedness of the Government. Mr. Goschen was marked out to perform the same task this Thursday, but who should get up but Atherley Jones. The delighted Liberals cheered him to the echo. Mr. Goschen had to sit down, and so the whole denouement collapsed, and the curtain fell not on the lofty and eminent form of a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, but on the less imposing figure of the disgruntled Liberal, who is always anxious to strike his party a blow.

Then comes the division. There is some excitement, though we know we have won. And then we cheer, as we hear that we have won by 27! Clause 9 is now put as a whole. Our majority rises to 29—we cheer even more loudly.

[Sidenote: Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.]

We go through the lobbies in eight more successive divisions. It is the dreariest performance. "That Clause so-and-so stand part of the Bill," says the Chairman. A shout of "Ayes!" followed by a shout of "Noes!"—then a cry of "Division!"—then the same thing over again—and again—and again. We stand at 85 majority in nearly every division. But we don't cheer, for it is too monotonous; and as for the poor Tories—where be the wild shouts of "Gag, gag!" with which they rent the general air—their hoarse cries of "Shame, shame"—their open and foul taunts in the face of the G.O.M.? Silent—sombre—dogged—we go through the dreary round. Tout casse—tout passe—tout lasse.