The Strand Magazine/Volume 5/Issue 26/From Behind the Speaker's Chair
From Behind the Speaker's Chair.
II.
(VIEWED BY HENRY W. LUCY.)
OOKING round the House of Commons now gathered for its second Session, one is struck by the havoc death and other circumstances have made with the assembly that filled the same chamber twenty years ago, when I first looked on from behind the Speaker's Chair. Parliament, like the heathen goddess, devours its own children. But the rapidity with which the process is completed turns out on minute inquiry to be a little startling. Of the six hundred and seventy members who form the present House of Commons, how many does the Speaker suppose sat with him in the Session of 1873?
The Speaker.
Mr. Peel himself was then in the very prime of life, had already been eight years member for Warwick, by favour and of his father's old friend and once young disciple, held the office of Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade. Members, if they paid any attention to the unobtrusive personality seated at the remote end of the Treasury Bench, never thought the day would come when the member for Warwick would step into the Chair and rapidly establish a reputation as the best Speaker of modern times.
I have a recollection of seeing Mr. Peel stand at the table answering a question connected with his department; but I noticed him only because he was the youngest son of the great Sir Robert Peel, and was a striking contrast to his brother Robert, a flamboyant personage who at that time filled considerable space below the gangway.
Sir Robert Peel.
In addition to Mr. Peel there are in the present House of Commons exactly fifty-one members who sat in Parliament in the Session of 1873—fifty-two out of six hundred and fifty-eight as the House of that day was numbered. Ticking them off in alphabetical order, the first of the Old Guard, still hale and enjoying the respect and esteem of members on both sides of the House, is Sir Walter Barttelot. As Colonel Barttelot he was known to the Parliament of 1873. But since then, to quote a phrase he has emphatically reiterated in the ears of many Parliaments, he has "gone one step farther," and become a baronet.
Sir W. Barttelot.
This tendency to forward movement seems to have been hereditary; Sir Walter's father, long honourably known as Smyth, going "one step farther" and assuming the name of Barttelot. Colonel Barttelot did not loom large in the Parliament of 1868-74, though he was always ready to do sentry duty on nights when the House was in Committee on the Army Estimates. It was the Parliament of 1874-80, when the air was full of rumours of war, when Russia and Turkey clutched each other by the throat at Plevna, and when the House of Commons, meeting for ordinary business, was one night startled by news that the Russian Army was at the gates of Constantinople—it was then Colonel Barttelot's military experience (chiefly gained in discharge of his duties as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Battalion Sussex Rifle Volunteers) was lavishly placed at the disposal of the House and the country.
When Disraeli was going out of office he made the Colonel a baronet, a distinction the more honourable to both since Colonel Barttelot, though a loyal Conservative, was never a party hack.
Sir Michael Beach sat for East Gloucestershire in 1873, and had not climbed higher up the Ministerial ladder than the Under Secretaryship of the Home Department. Another Beach, then as now in the House, was the member for North Hants. William Wither Bramston Beach is his full style. Mr. Beach has been in Parliament thirty-six years, having through that period uninterruptedly represented his native county, Hampshire. That is a distinction he shares with few members to-day, and to it is added the privilege of being personally the obscurest man in the Commons. I do not suppose there are a hundred men in the House to-day who at a full muster could point out the member for Andover. A close attendance upon Parliament through twenty years necessarily gives me a pretty intimate knowledge of members. But I not only do not know Mr. Beach by sight, but never heard of his existence till, attracted by the study of relics of the Parliament elected in 1868, I went through the list.
Mr. W. W. B. Beach.
Mr. A. H. Brown.
Another old member still with us is Mr. Michael Biddulph, a partner in that highly-respectable firm, Cocks, Biddulph, and Co. Twenty years ago Mr. Biddulph sat as member for his native county of Hereford, ranked as a Liberal and a reformer, and voted for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church and other measures forming part of Mr. Gladstone's policy. But political events with him, as with some others, have moved too rapidly, and now he, sitting as member for the Ross Division of the county, votes with the Conservatives.
Mr. Campbell-Bannerman.
Mr. Jacob Bright is still left to us, representing a division of the city for which he was first elected in November, 1867. Mr. A. H. Brown represents to-day a Shropshire borough, as he did twenty years ago. I do not think he looks a day older than when he sat for Wenlock in 1873. But though then only twenty-nine, as the almanack reckons, he was a middle-aged young man with whom it was always difficult to connect associations of a cornetcy in the 5th Dragoon Guards, a post of danger which family tradition persistently assigns to him. Twenty years ago the House was still struggling with the necessity of recognising a Mr. Campbell-Bannerman. In 1868, one Mr. Henry Campbell had been elected member for the Stirling MR. Districts. Four years later, for reasons, it is understood, not unconnected with a legacy, he added the name of Bannerman to his patronymic. At that time, and till the dissolution, he sat on the Treasury Bench as Financial Secretary to the War Office.
Mr. Henry Chaplin.
Mr. Henry Chaplin is another member, happily still left to us, who has, over a long space of years, represented his native county. It was as member for Mid-Lincolnshire he entered the House of Commons at the memorable general election of 1868, the fate of the large majority of his colleagues impressing upon him at the epoch a deeply rooted dislike of Mr. Gladstone and all his works.
Mr. Jeremiah James Colman, still member for Norwich, has sat for that borough since February, 1871, and has preserved, unto this last, the sturdy Liberalism imbued with which he embarked on political life. When he entered the House he made the solemn record that J. J. C. "does not consider the recent Reform Bill as the end at which we should rest." The Liberal Party has marched far since then, and the great Norwich manufacturer has always mustered in the van.
In the Session of 1873, Sir Charles Dilke had but lately crossed the threshold of manhood, bearing his days before him, and possibly viewing the brilliant career through which for a time he strongly strode. Just thirty, married a year, home from his trip round the world, with Greater Britain still running through successive editions, the young member for Chelsea had the ball at his feet. He had lately kicked it with audacious eccentricity. Two years earlier he had made his speech in Committee of Supply on the Civil List. If such an address were delivered in the coming Session it would barely attract notice any more than does a journey to America in one of the White Star Liners. It was different in the case of Columbus, and in degree Sir Charles Dilke was the Columbus of attack on the extravagance in connection with the Court.
Sir Charles Dilke.
What he said then is said now every Session, with sharper point, and even more uncompromising directness, by Mr. Labouchere, Mr. Storey, and others. It was new to the House of Commons twenty-two years ago, and when Mr. Auberon Herbert (to-day a sedate gentleman, who writes good Tory letters to the Times) seconded the motion in a speech of almost hysterical vehemence, there followed a scene that stands memorable even in the long series that succeeded it in the following Parliament. Mr. James Lowther was profoundly moved; whilst as for Mr. Cavendish Bentinck, his feelings of loyalty to the Throne were so overwrought that, as was recorded at the time, he went out behind the Speaker's chair, and crowed thrice. Amid the uproar, someone, anticipating the action of Mr. Joseph Gillis Biggar on another historic occasion, "spied strangers." The galleries were cleared, and for an hour there raged throughout the House a wild scene. When the doors were opened and the public readmitted, the Committee was found placidly agreeing to the vote Sir Charles Dilke had challenged.
Mr. George Dixon.
Mr. George Dixon is one of the members for Birmingham, as he was twenty years ago, but he wears his party rue with a difference. In 1873 he caused himself to be entered in "Dod" as "an advanced Liberal, opposed to the ratepaying clause of the Reform Act, and in favour of an amendment of those laws which tend to accumulate landed property." Now Mr. Dixon has joined "the gentlemen of England," whose tendency to accumulate landed property shocks him no more.
Sir W. Hart Dyke.
Sir William Dyke was plain Hart Dyke in '73; then, as now, one of the members for Kent, and not yet whip of the Liberal Party, much less Minister of Education. Mr. G. H. Finch also then, as now, was member for Rutland, running Mr. Beach close for the prize of modest obscurity.
In the Session of 1873 Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister, sixty-four years of age, and wearied to death. I well remember him seated on the Treasury Bench in those days, with eager face and restless body. Sometimes, as morning broke on the long, turbulent sitting, he let his head fall back on the bench, closing his eyes and seeming to sleep; the worn face the while taking on ten years of added age. In the last two Sessions of the Salisbury Parliament he often looked younger than he had done eighteen or nineteen years earlier. Then, as has happened to him since, his enemies were those of his own household. This Session—of 1873—saw the birth of the Irish University Bill, which broke the power of the strongest Ministry that had ruled in England since the Reform Bill.
Mr. Gladstone introduced the Bill himself, and though it was singularly intricate, he within the space of three hours not only made it clear from preamble to schedule, but had talked over a predeterminedly hostile House into believing it would do well to accept it. Mr. Horsman, not an emotional person, went home after listening to the speech, and wrote a glowing letter to the Times, in which he hailed Mr. Gladstone and the Irish University Bill as the most notable of the recent dispensations of a beneficent Providence. Later, when the Tea-room teemed with cabal, and revolt rapidly spread through the Liberal host, presaging the defeat of the Government, Mr. Horsman, in his most solemn manner, explained away this letter to a crowded and hilarious House. The only difference between him and seven-eighths of Mr. Gladstone's audience was that he had committed the indiscretion of putting pen to paper whilst he was yet under the spell of the orator, the others going home to bed to think it over.
Mr. Gladstone.
On the eve of a new departure, once more Premier, idol of the populace, and captain of a majority in the House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone's thoughts may peradventure turn to those weary days twenty years dead. He would not forget one Wednesday afternoon when the University Education Bill was in Committee, and Mr. Charles Miall was speaking from the middle of the third bench below the gangway. The Nonconformist conscience then, as now, was a ticklish thing. It had been pricked by too generous provision made for an alien Church, and Mr. Miall was solemnly, and with indubitable honest regret, explaining how it would be impossible for him to support the Government. Mr. Gladstone listened with lowering brow and face growing ashy pale with anger. When plain, commonplace Mr. Miall resumed his seat, Mr. Gladstone leaped to his feet with torpedoic action and energy. With voice stinging with angry scorn, and with magnificent gesture of the hand, designed for the cluster of malcontents below the gangway, he besought the honourable gentleman "in Heaven's name" to take his support elsewhere. The injunction was obeyed. The Bill was thrown out by a majority of three, and though, Mr. Disraeli wisely declining to take office, Mr. Gladstone remained on the Treasury Bench, his power was shattered, and he and the Liberal party went out into the wilderness to tarry there for six long years.
To this catastrophe gentlemen at that time respectively known as Mr. Vernon Harcourt and Mr. Henry James appreciably contributed. They worried Mr. Gladstone into dividing between them the law offices of the Crown. But this turn of affairs came too late to be of advantage to the nation. The only reminders of that episode in their political career are the title of knighthood and a six months' salary earned in the recess preceding the general election of 1874.
Mr. Disraeli's keen sight recognised the game being played on the Front Bench below the gangway, where the two then inseparable friends sat shoulder to shoulder. "I do not know," he slyly said, one night when the Ministerial crisis was impending, "whether the House is yet to regard the observations of the hon. member for Oxford (Vernon Harcourt) as carrying the authority of a Solicitor-General!"
"Member for Dungarvan."
Of members holding official or ex-official positions who will gather in the House of Commons this month, and who were in Parliament in 1873, are Mr. Goschen, then First Lord of the Admiralty, and Liberal member for the City of London; Lord George Hamilton, member for Middlesex, and not yet a Minister; Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, member for Reading, and Secretary to the Admiralty; Mr. J. Lowther, not yet advanced beyond the Secretaryship of the Poor Law Board, and that held only for a few months pending the Tory rout in 1868; Mr. Henry Matthews, then sitting as Liberal member for Dungarvan, proud of having voted for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church in 1869; Mr. Osborne Morgan, not yet on the Treasury Bench; Mr. Mundella, inseparable from Sheffield, then sitting below the gangway, serving a useful apprenticeship for the high office been which he has since called; George Otto Trevelyan, now Sir George, then his highest title to fame being the Competition Wallah; Mr. David Plunket, member for Dublin University, a private member seated on a back bench; Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth, just married, interested in the "First Principles of Modern Chemistry"; and Mr. Stansfeld, President of the Local Government Board, the still rising hope of the Radical party.
Sir George Trevelyan.
Sir W. Lawson.
Sir J. Mowbray.
Colonel Saunderson.
Members of the Parliament of 1868 in the House to-day, seated on back benches above or below the gangway, are Colonel Gourley, inconsolable at the expenditure on Royal yachts; Mr. Hanbury, as youthful-looking as his contemporary, ex-Cornet Brown, is aged; Mr. Staveley Hill, who is reported to possess an appreciable area of the American Continent; Mr. Illingworth, who approaches the term of a quarter of a century's unobtrusive but useful Parliamentary service; Mr. Johnston, still of Ballykilbeg, but no longer a Liberal, as he ranked twenty years ago; Sir John Kennaway, still towering over his leaders from a back bench above the gangway; Sir Wilfrid Lawson, increasingly wise, and not less gay than of yore; Mr. Lea, who has gone over to the enemy he faced in 1873; Sir John Lubbock, who, though no sluggard, still from time to time goes to the ants; Mr. Peter M'Lagan, who has succeeded Sir Charles Forster as Chairman of the Committee on Petitions; Sir John Mowbray, still, as in 1873, "in favour of sober, rational, safe, and temperate progress," and meanwhile voting against all Liberal measures; Sir Richard Paget, model of the old-fashioned Parliament man; Sir John Pender, who, after long exile, has returned to the Wick Burghs; Mr. T. B. Potter, still member for Rochdale, as he has been these twenty-seven years; Mr. F. S. Powell, now Sir Francis; Mr. William Rathbone, still, as in times of yore, "a decided Liberal"; Sir Matthew White Ridley, not yet Speaker; Sir Bernard Samuelson, back again to Banbury Cross; Mr. J. C. Stevenson, all these years member for South Shields; Mr. C. P. Villiers, grown out of Liberalism into the Fatherhood of the House; Mr. Hussey Vivian, now Sir Hussey; Mr. Whitbread, supremely sententious, courageously commonplace; and Colonel Saunderson.
But here there seems a mistake. There was Edward James Saunderson in the Session of 1873 as there is one in the Session of 1893. But Edward James of twenty years ago sat for Cavan, ranked as a Liberal, and voted with Mr. Gladstone, which the Colonel Saunderson of to-day certainly does not. Yet, oddly enough, both date their election addresses from Saunderson, Belturbet, Co. Cavan.