Part 16

These are the amenities of electioneering; but a man who enters on a political campaign expecting fair treatment from his opponents is indeed walking in a vain shadow. The ordinary rules of fairplay and straightforward conduct are forgotten at an election. In a political contest people say and do a great many things of which in every-day life they would be heartily ashamed. An election-agent of the old school once said to me in the confidence of after-dinner claret, "For my own part, when I go into a fight, I go in to win, and I'm not particular to a shade or two." All this is the common form of electioneering, but in one respect I think my experience rather unusual. I have been all my life as keen a Churchman as I am a Liberal, and some of my closest friends are clergymen. I never found that the Nonconformists were the least unfriendly to me on this account. They had their own convictions, and they respected mine; and we could work together in perfect concord for the causes of Humanity and Freedom. But the most unscrupulous opponents whom I have ever encountered have been the parochial clergy of the Church to which I belong, and the bands of "workers" whom they direct. Tennyson once depicted a clergyman who--

"From a throne Mounted in heaven should shoot into the dark Arrows of lightnings,"

and graciously added that he "would stand and mark." But, when the Vicar from his pulpit-throne launches barbed sayings about "those who would convert our schools into seminaries of Atheism or Socialism, and would degrade this hallowed edifice into a Lecture-Hall--nay, a Music-Hall," then the Liberal candidate, constrained to "sit and mark" these bolts aimed at his cause, is tempted to a breach of charity. The Vicar's "workers" follow suit, but descend a little further into personalities. "You know that the Radical Candidate arrived drunk at one of his meetings? He had to be lifted out of the carriage, and kept in the Committee Room till he was sober. Shocking, isn't it? and then such shameful hypocrisy to talk about Local Option! But can you wonder? You know he's an atheist? Oh yes, I know he goes to Church, but that's all a blind. His one object is to do away with Religion. Yes, they do say he has been in the Divorce Court, but I should not like to say I know it, though I quite believe it. His great friend, Mr. Comus, certainly was, and Mr. Quickly only got off by paying an immense sum in hush-money. They're all tarred with the same brush, and it really is a religious duty to keep them out of Parliament."

Such I have observed to be the attitude of parochial clergy and church-workers towards Liberal candidates.

"They said their duty both to man and God Required such conduct--which seemed very odd."

I suppose they would have justified it by that zeal for Established Churches and Sectarian Schools which, if it does not actually "eat up" its votaries, certainly destroys their sense of proportion and perspective.

Though I have said so much about the pugnacity of the clergy, I would not have it supposed that the Tory laity were slack or backward in political activity. To verbal abuse one soon became case-hardened; but one had also to encounter physical violence. In those days, stones and cabbage-stalks and rotten eggs still played a considerable part in electioneering. Squires hid their gamekeepers in dark coppices with instructions to pelt one as one drove past after dark. The linch-pin was taken out of one's carriage while one was busy at a meeting; and it was thought seriously unsafe for the candidate to walk unescorted through the hostile parts of the borough.

But, after all, this animosity, theological, moral, physical, did no great harm. It quickened the zeal and strengthened the resolve of one's supporters; and it procured one the inestimable aid of young, active, and pugnacious friends, who formed themselves into a body-guard and a cycle-corps, protecting their candidate when the play was rough, and spreading the light all over the constituency.

Why did not Lord Beaconsfield dissolve Parliament in July, 1878, when he returned in a blaze of triumph from the Congress of Berlin? Probably because his nerve had failed him, and he chose to retain his supremacy unquestioned, rather than commit it to the chances of a General Election. Anyhow, he let the moment pass; and from that time on his Government began to lose ground. In 1879 Vanity Fair, a strongly Disraelitish organ, pronounced (under a cartoon) that Gladstone was the most popular man in England. In the autumn of that year, the "Mid-Lothian Campaign" raised him to the very summit of his great career; and, when Christmas came, most Liberals felt that it was all over except the shouting.

On the 9th of March, 1880, Lord Beaconsfield announced that he had "advised the Queen to recur to the sense of her people." His opponents remarked that the nonsense of her people was likely to serve his turn a good deal better; and to the task of exposing and correcting that nonsense we vigorously applied ourselves during the remaining weeks of Lent. It is true that the same statesman had once declared himself "on the side of the Angels" in order to reassure the clergy, and had once dated a letter on "Maundy Thursday" in order to secure the High Church vote. Encouraged by these signs of grace, some of his followers mildly remonstrated against a Lenten dissolution and an Easter poll. But counsels which might have weighed with Mr. Disraeli, M.P. for Bucks (who had clerical constituents), were thrown away on Lord Beaconsfield, who had the Crown, Lords, and Commons on his side; and on the 24th of March the Parliament which he had dominated for six years was scattered to the winds.

Electioneering in rural districts was pure joy. It was a delicious spring, bright and yet soft, and the beech-forests of the Chilterns were in early leafage.

"There is a rapturous movement, a green growing, Among the hills and valleys once again, And silent rivers of delight are flowing Into the hearts of men.

"There is a purple weaving on the heather, Night drops down starry gold upon the furze; Wild rivers and wild birds sing songs together, Dead Nature breathes and stirs."

In the spring of 1880, Nature had no monopoly of seasonable life. Humanity was up and doing. Calm people were roused to passion, and lethargic people to activity. There was hurrying and rushing and plotting and planning, and all the fierce but fascinating bustle of a great campaign. One hurried across the Vale from a Farmers' Ordinary, where one had been exposing Lord Beaconsfield's nonsense about the "Three Profits" of agricultural land, to a turbulent meeting in a chapel or a barn (for the use of the schoolroom was denied to the Liberal candidate). As we drove through the primrose-studded lanes, or past the village green, the bell was ringing from the grey tower of the Parish Church, and summoning the villagers to the daily Evensong of Holy Week. The contrast was too violent to be ignored; and yet, for a citizen who took his citizenship seriously, the meeting was an even more imperative duty than the service. Hostilities were suspended for Good Friday, Easter Even, and Easter Day, but on Easter Monday they broke out again with redoubled vigour; and, before the week was over, the Paschal Alleluias were blending strangely with paeans of victory over conquered foes. When even so grave and spiritually-minded a man as Dean Church wrote to a triumphant Gladstonian, "I don't wonder at your remembering the Song of Miriam," it is manifest that political fervour had reached a very unusual point.

On the 2nd of April I was returned to Parliament, as colleague of Sir Nathaniel de Rothschild, in the representation of Aylesbury. We were the last Members for that ancient Borough, for, before the next General Election came round, it had been merged, by Redistribution, in Mid Bucks. The Liberal victory was overwhelming. Lord Beaconsfield, who had expected a very different result, resigned on the 18th of April, and Gladstone became Prime Minister for the second time. Truly his enemies had been made his footstool. On the 30th of April I took the oath and my seat in the House of Commons, and a fresh stage of life began.

FOOTNOTES:

I must except from this general indictment the Rev. A. T. Lloyd, Vicar of Aylesbury in 1880, and afterwards Bishop of Newcastle. A strong Conservative, but eminently a Christian gentleman.

Archbishop Alexander.

PARLIAMENT

"Still in the Senate, whatsoe'er we lack, It is not genius;--call old giants back, And men now living might as tall appear; Judged by our sons, not us--we stand too near. Ne'er of the living can the living judge-- Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge." BULWER-LYTTON, St. Stephen's.

"In old days it was the habit to think and say that the House of Commons was an essentially 'queer place,' which no one could understand until he was a Member of it. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether that somewhat mysterious quality still altogether attaches to that assembly. 'Our own Reporter' has invaded it in all its purlieus. No longer content with giving an account of the speeches of its members, he is not satisfied unless he describes their persons, their dress, and their characteristic mannerisms. He tells us how they dine, even the wines and dishes which they favour, and follows them into the very mysteries of their smoking-room. And yet there is perhaps a certain fine sense of the feelings, and opinions, and humours of this Assembly which cannot be acquired by hasty notions and necessarily superficial remarks, but must be the result of long and patient observation, and of that quick sympathy with human sentiment, in all its classes, which is involved in the possession of that inestimable quality styled tact.

"When Endymion Ferrars first took his seat in the House of Commons, it still fully possessed its character of enigmatic tradition. For himself, Endymion entered the Chamber with a certain degree of awe, which, with use, diminished, but never entirely disappeared. The scene was one over which his boyhood even had long mused, and it was associated with all those traditions of genius, eloquence, and power that charm and inspire youth. His acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House was of great advantage to him, and restrained that excitement which dangerously accompanies us when we enter into a new life, and especially a life of such deep and thrilling interests and such large proportions."

I quote these words from a statesman who knew the House of Commons more thoroughly than anyone else has ever known it; and, though Lord Beaconsfield was describing the Parliament which assembled in August, 1841, his description would fit, with scarcely the alteration of a word, the Parliament in which I took my seat in April, 1880.

The "acquaintance with the forms and habits of the House," which Lord Beaconsfield attributes to his favourite Endymion, was also mine; from my earliest years I had been familiar with every nook and corner of the Palace of Westminster. My father's official residence in Speaker's Court communicated by a private door with the corridors of the Palace, and my father's privilege as Sergeant-at-Arms enabled him to place me in, or under, the Gallery whenever there was a debate or a scene of special interest. I was early initiated into all the forms and ceremonies of the House; the manoeuvres of the mace, the obeisances to the Chair, the rap of "Black Rod" on the locked door, the daily procession of Mr. Speaker and his attendants (which Sir Henry Irving pronounced the most theatrically effective thing of its kind in our public life).

The Sergeant-at-Arms has in his gift the appointment of all the doorkeepers, messengers, and attendants of the House; and, as my father was Sergeant from 1848 to 1875, the staff was almost exclusively composed of men who had been servants in our own or our friends' families. This circumstance was vividly brought home to me on the day on which I first entered the House. In the Members' Lobby I was greeted by a venerable-looking official who bowed, smiled, and said, when I shook hands with him, "Well, sir, I'm glad, indeed, to see you here; and, when I think that I helped to put both your grandfather and your grandmother into their coffins, it makes me feel quite at home with you."

The first duty of a new House of Commons is to elect a Speaker, and on the 7th of April, 1880, we re-elected Mr. Henry Brand (afterwards Lord Hampden), who had been Speaker since 1872. Mr. Brand was a short man, but particularly well set up, and in his wig and gown he carried himself with a dignity which fully made up for the lack of inches. His voice was mellow, and his utterance slightly pompous, so that the lightest word which fell from his lips conveyed a sense of urbane majesty. He looked what he was, and what the traditions of the House required--a country gentleman of the highest type. One of the most noticeable traits was his complexion, fresh and rosy as a boy's. I well remember one day, after a stormy "all-night sitting," saying to his train-bearer, "The Speaker has borne it wonderfully. He looks as fresh as paint." Whereupon the train-bearer, a man of a depressed spirit, made answer, "Ah! sir, it's the Speaker's 'igh colour that deceives you. 'E'll 'ave that same 'igh colour when 'e's laid out in 'is coffin."

The election of the Speaker having been duly accomplished, and the Members sworn in, the House adjourned till the 20th of May, then to meet for the despatch of business; and this may be a convenient point for a brief recapitulation of recent events.

Lord Hartington (afterwards eighth Duke of Devonshire) had been, ever since the beginning of 1875, the recognized leader of the Liberal Party. But, when Gladstone re-entered the field as the foremost assailant of Lord Beaconsfield's policy, Lord Hartington's authority over his party was sensibly diminished. Indeed, it is not too much to say that he was brushed on one side, and that all the fervour and fighting power of the Liberal Party were sworn to Gladstone's standard.