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FOUR YEARS IN PARLIAMENT
WITH HARD LABOUR.
2
FOUR YEARS IN PARLIAMENT
WITH HARD LABOUR.
BY
C: W. RADCLIFFE COOKE, M.P.
SECOND EDITION.
W. H. ALLEN &
LONDON:
CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE,
AND AT CALCUTTA.
1890.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
-
10 August 15 KAM.
INTRODUCTION.
It is not bodily exertion to a certainty, for of this
we have not enough, nor much mental effort either,
that makes the labours of Members of Parliament
hard, but rather the sedentary life we lead and the
long and late hours we keep. For the last two
years, it is true, we have kept earlier hours in the
House of Commons than we used to keep before our
new rules were passed, when it was customary to sit
until two and three o'clock in the morning. I well
remember in the course of my maiden speech, which
appropriately enough was on the Woman's Suffrage
Bill, hazarding the opinion that at the late hour we
had then reached-to wit, 1.30 A.M.—we were in
too jaded a condition to give due consideration
to a measure which involved a vast constitutional
change. The expression of this, as it turned out,
naïve sentiment raised a general titter. Eye-glasses
flashed and I was gazed at with good-humoured
curiosity flavoured with contempt, for was it not
220649
vi
Introduction.
clear on the face of it that I was a new Member, and
a simple one to boot! This was in 1886; but even
now, when we are supposed to close, so to speak,
automatically at midnight, we are as a fact often
kept longer in order to take the report of Supply, or
consider some other matters that are exempted from
the operation of the new rules. Besides, as the
Session draws to an end and the time at our disposal
becomes measurably less, the rules are frequently
suspended and we sit quite as late as ever we sat.
As a consequence, Members who attend closely to
their duties can never be in bed much before one
in the morning, and are often kept up an hour or
two later. Members who are on Committees-and
when the House is in full swing of business, what
with Grand Committees and Select Committees, a
large number are so occupied-may have to spend
from twelve to fourteen hours daily in continuous
attendance within the walls of the Palace of West-
minster. True, we rise early on Wednesdays, and
do not sit on Saturdays, except towards the end of
the Session; but look at the engagement-book of
any active Member and you would see how few of
these so-called free nights are unappropriated to
some function connected with his public position.
A great deal of our work, especially that which is
Introduction.
vii
done in the Committees, is highly interesting, and
unofficial Members may do as much or as little as
they like of it. But take any healthy man and set
him to work, mainly by night, in an ill-ventilated,
over-heated building at some sedentary pursuit for
twelve hours or so at a stretch, and at the end of six
months it is reasonable to suppose-even if he have
what it has been well said Members of Parliament
ought to possess, the strength of a lion and the
stomach of an ostrich-that he will not, either
physically or mentally, be the man he was at the
beginning of that period. These are in brief the
conditions of our Parliamentary life, and it is on this
account that I term ours hard labour.
The common run of Members, especially those
who sit on the Ministerial side of the House, have
during their hours of enforced attendance leisure for
observation. In Opposition, party discipline is less
strict than in office. The leaders of Her Majesty's
Opposition—if in these days there can be said to be
a body of men answering to that description-often,
it is true, deprecate obstruction and announce a
desire to further the progress of public business, but
they seldom succeed in inspiring their followers
with similar accommodating views. It is in Oppo-
sition that pushing politicians find the most frequent
viii
Introduction.
opportunities to distinguish themselves. Young
hounds must be blooded, and Opposition Leaders
who tried to keep the active spirits of their party
too tightly in hand would soon lose control of them
altogether. Besides, with office looming in a future
however distant, it is essential to test in Opposition
the capacity of the new recruits. So, many an
aspiring politician can cut a conspicuous figure as
an opponent of the Government who, were he a
supporter, would be doomed to sit mute and in-
glorious on a back,bench. Such a situation as the
last named has, however, as I have said, the merit
of favouring observation, especially to one not
unused to write for the press. Hence the following
pages, in which I have endeavoured to record some
impressions derived from a brief experience of life
in Parliament and of the political functions at
which Members of Parliament are expected to
assist.
In concluding these introductory remarks I have
to express my acknowledgments to the proprietors
of the Times, the National Review, and Time, by
whose permission the articles in this little book
have been revised and reproduced.
C. W. R. C.
CONTENTS.
SOME PARLIAMENTARY INCIDENTS
THE ORATORY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY DEMANDS ON MEMBERS
SOME OF OUR CORRESPONDENTS
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE.
CONSERVATISM IN THE COUNTIES
b
1
32
90
108
122
•
132
FOUR YEARS IN PARLIAMENT.
SOME PARLIAMENTARY INCIDENTS.
DURING the Session the Palace of Westminster
contains for the best part of every day and every
night when the House sits a large resident popu-
lation. It is for the time being their home or
their place of business, where anyone who desires
to communicate with them may be pretty sure of
finding them. This population, consisting of course
for the most part of Members of Parliament,
lunches, takes tea, dines, sups, and not infrequently
sleeps there. There they conduct a voluminous
correspondence, interview innumerable visitors,
and study in the Library the subjects in which they
may severally be interested. When a question is
raised as to the inconvenience of the arrangements
for the accommodation of this population, it is some-
times urged, as regards Members of Parliament,
9'x
B
2
Four Years in Parliament.
that their duty is to be in their places in the
House throughout the duration of its sitting, and
that consequently any outside accommodation is
both unnecessary and undesirable, as tending to
divert them from this primary duty. Apart from
the preliminary difficulty occasioned by the fact
that the Legislative Chamber could not hold, I
suppose, more than half of us unless we sat on each
other's knees, let me glance briefly at some of the
calls on our time and attention which daily interfere
with continuous attendance in the House itself. I
will take an evening's experience. On entering
the lobby shortly before the hour at which the
House sits, I make, as we all do, straight for the
post office in the opposite corner.
1
"Any letters?"
for a negative
Here they are,
I inquire, hoping against hope
response. No such luck, however.
quite a sheaf of them. Several contain requests for
orders of admission to the gallery. These must be
procured before a certain hour from the office of
the Speaker's Secretary and despatched to my
correspondents. One is an application for clerical
preferment which necessitates a letter to the Lord
Chancellor. One is an inquiry as to a post in a
Government office which may require an interview
with a Minister or the writing of a formal note to
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
3
him. Several relate to meetings, dinners, clubs,
&c., which I am invited to attend or patronize,
others to proceedings in and Bills before Parlia-
ment, while the rest are mostly prospectuses of
companies and advertisements from wine-merchants
and money-lenders. I should say, however, that
these are by no means the only letters one receives
in one's representative capacity. At my club, place
of business, and private house, I have packets
day by day of a similar character. A considerable
proportion of this correspondence can be thrust at
once in the waste-paper basket, but the rest must at
least be read, and, in most cases, be answered.
By the time that I have waded through and
sorted my letters, and procured and despatched the
orders for the gallery, the Private Business down
for the day's sitting has been transacted, and
Questions have begun. I have already glance l
through these as printed in the "Orders of the
Day," and see that out of some seventy only about
half a dozen relate to matters of public importance.
The answers to these will appear in to-morrow's
papers and I shall lose nothing by waiting so long
to learn them. To remain in the House for some-
thing like an hour and a half while grave answers
are given to questions on trivial subjects is at best
ཨ ཀཎྷཱ
B 2
4
Four Years in Parliament.
but to gratify a spirit of idle curiosity, and I feel
that I can employ the time to better advantage by
grappling with my correspondence. I sit down
therefore at a vacant corner of one of the writing-
tables in the division lobby, and have pretty well
mastered the more pressing part of it, when a pro-
longed burst of cheering in the House induces me
to ask a passing friend, "What's up now?" "The
O'Dashit has moved the adjournment of the House
on some Irish question," says he, "and has been
supported by the whole strength of the Opposition.
I suppose," he adds, "it will be a case of 3 o'clock in
the morning, for the Standing Orders are suspended
and the Government must get some votes to-night."
I step into the House in order to judge of the
prospect for myself. The spectacle there presented
is a singular one. The apartment is virtually
empty. The members who so vociferously cheered
the uprising of the orator do not await his down-
sitting. He has announced his intention to lay the
deplorable condition to which the people of Ireland
have been reduced by the policy of the Chief
Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant before the House
as briefly as is compatible with the doing of full
justice to the subject, and experience has taught
me that Irish brevity on these occasions bears a
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
5
LO
strong resemblance to English prolixity. In short,
it is soon apparent that the whole business is a
mere hollow demonstration got up for the sole
purpose of killing time. I listen to the orator for
a few moments, as in impassioned accents he
expands his theme, but as I have heard him and
his associates express the same sentiments and use
the same arguments, or what pass for arguments,
on the same subject on many previous occasions, I
prefer to study in the library rather than loiter in
the House. Besides, to-morrow will be a private
members' night, and many measures of importance
are down for second reading on which I desire
enlightenment, and this unexpected interval will
afford me the opportunity I need. So to the
library I go and am soon deep in the mysteries of
the Early Rising Bill, the Bill for increasing the
Average Magnitude of Small Potatoes (a measure
designed to relieve the prevailing depression in
agriculture), the Bill for Keeping Sunday in the
Middle of the Week, the Domestic Explosives Bill (a
measure for regulating the propulsive force of ginger
beer), and other projects of legislation of a similar
character in whose composition so many private
members are usefully engaged. I am still hard at
work when a messenger brings me a card on which
6
Four Years in Parliament.
an influential constituent states that he desires to
see me on “urgent business." It will not do to
keep this gentleman waiting, so I at once make my
way to the central hall, and find that my friend's
"urgent business" is to obtain an admission order
to the gallery. I point to the printed placards
hanging on the wall which announce that all the
galleries are full; but it is not the first time this
gentleman has come on a similar errand, and he is
not to be put off. Will I do my best for him?
The Speaker's Office is closed, but the Sergeant-at-
Arms may have some supplemental orders to dis-
pose of, so of him I make inquiry. An ingenious
piece of mechanism has lately been placed beneath
the desk in front of his seat in the House which is
in electrical communication with the gallery, and
on this the vacancies in the various divisions of the
gallery are indicated as they occur by the attend-
ant there. Consulting this he finds that there are
seats unoccupied in the Speaker's gallery, for which
accordingly he gives me an order, and armed there-
with my visitor obtains his wish.
There are now signs of an approaching Division,
and presently I find myself an item in the crowd
which fills the "No" lobby. As only two members
in each lobby can pass the clerks who record the

Some Parliamentary Incidents.
7
votes at a time it is useless to hurry, and in divisions
where a large number vote members take it leisurely
in the lobbies, and sometimes linger so long that
towards the close the Whips have to remind them of
the flight of time by the shout of "Door, door!"
Here, too, the great men relax and speak affably to
the little men. In the division lobby one man's
vote is as good as another's, and this perhaps may
encourage that sense of equality which we feel there.
Moreover, of late the utter futility of many of the
divisions forced on the House for purely frivolous
or obstructive reasons makes the gravest of us
conscious of the ridiculous position in which the
action of a few reckless or foolish men puts us,
and being all, whether eminent or lowly, in a like
case, we have a fellow-feeling of sympathy for each
other which tends to equalize us. For instance,
in a division of this kind, I happen to find myself
hedged in, say, between a Privy Councillor (honoris
causâ, only this and nothing more) on the one side
and a Cabinet Minister on the other. In the
ordinary way I should be embarrassed in such
distinguished company, but a common fate induces
community of sentiment and places us on the same
low level of suffering humanity. I throw a shade
of disgust over my countenance in order to show
8
Four Years in Parliament.
that I, too, humble mortal though I be, feel equally
with them the degrading nature of the performance
we are compelled to go through, and my companions
are good enough to recognize in me a fellow-victim
of the demon of obstruction. 66
Weary work, this,
Mr. Blank," says the Privy Councillor, a thought
patronizingly perhaps, but that may be manner.
The Minister is all affability. "We shall deserve
our holiday when it comes, Mr. Blank, eh? Do
you go abroad this year, or down to your place in
the country?" I am somewhat taken aback by so
much condescension, but pull myself together and
contrive, with more or less of coherency, to reply
that I shall probably go down to my "little place,"
and the incident closes. These courtesies, these
unbendings of great minds, are wonderfully useful,
however, in cementing party ties. I talk quite big
in the country afterwards of my interview with the
Secretary of State, or the First Lord, as the case
may be, and feel all the better for it, and more
fixed in my political convictions. The division
over, the Speaker is moved out of the Chair. Mr.
Courtney, the Chairman of Committees, takes the
seat of the Clerk of the House at the table, and we
resolve ourselves into a Committee of Supply. It
is evident at the outset that it is to be a night of

Some Parliamentary Incidents.
9
obstruction; that if the Government are to get any
votes it will either be by the application of the
closure, or by patient endurance, which, towards the
small hours, may meet with its reward. The mot
d'ordre to us Conservatives is the usual one," Mum."
Do not give the obstructives a chance to allege that
by opening our mouths we conduce in the smallest
degree to the mere consumption of time on which
they themselves are bent. Let them talk themselves
out, if that be possible, and perhaps the votes may
pass without the application of the closure after all.
This is not a bold policy, but it is sometimes
effectual. Meanwhile time slips by, and dinner
suggests itself. I am in the midst of the juiciest
part of an excellent rump-steak when the division
bells ring. We guess it to be only a "Count," but
we must go to make a House all the same. We
arrive breathless to find, as we suspected, that a
Parnellite member has moved that the House be
counted, partly with the object of securing an
audience for a friend who finds talking to empty
benches dull work, and partly out of a mischievous
desire to annoy political opponents by disturbing
them at an inconvenient season. Smiles of satis-
faction illumine the countenances of this amiable
soul and his associates at the success of their
10
Four Years in Parliament.
manoeuvre. They regard it as quite a triumph of
Statecraft. The Chairman promptly announces a
quorum, "forty," and back we go to hurry and
grumble over a meal now tepid and tasteless.
I have now arrived at a period of the night's
labours when I must allow my pen to linger over
the most agreeable, and I might add most influential
of institutions, the smoking-room of the House of
Commons, whither I now repair in order to enjoy
an after-dinner whiff. In point of fact there are
two smoking-rooms, one on the basement, which
opens on to the Terrace, and one next the dining-
rooms, on a level with the House and its surround-
ings. It is of the latter alone that I shall speak.
The lower smoking-room is a bleak, comfortless
chamber, well enough in summer as a shelter from
a shower, should one happen to be on the Terrace,
and as strangers are admitted there and not to the
upper smoking-room, it is the only place in the
building to which one can take a friend, should the
weather or the season debar one from the Terrace.
But there its merits, such as they are, end. The
true smoking-room is the upper one, sacred to
members only. The apartment itself is not remark-
able. It is, I should suppose, some thirty feet or
so square, and lofty in proportion. On the walls
i
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
11
are three enormous cartoons, the subjects whereof
are matters on which the curious delight to speculate.
I incline myself to assign them to some date
anterior to history, regarding them as the chef
d'œuvres of some gifted artist who flourished in the
Wooden Age, and intended possibly to illustrate
the evolution of our race from less advanced
progenitors. At any rate the limbs of the strange
beings who figure on these canvases are not put on
in the same way as ours are now, nor do their bodies
present the same anatomical features as our own.
The smoke of countless pipes and cigars is gradually
lending to these productions a dim and distant
effect, for which, as good Pepys would say, "the
Lord be thanked."
The general appearance of the apartment is that
of a second-class waiting room at a railway station,
so there is none of the cosiness of the domestic
snuggery about it. Still, a creditable attempt is
made to meet the wants of the after-dinner lounger.
In order to accentuate a sense of ease, there should
ever be gradations of comfort, descending from
luxurious repose to mere stiff-backed unrest; and
here we have variety enough, from the arm-chair in
the chimney corner, which by a long course of in-
cubation is accommodated to the exuberances of
•
12
Four Years in Parliament.
7
the human frame, the abiding place of the oldest,
the wittiest, or the worthiest, down through a
sliding-scale to the clerkly cane-bottom, fit repository
for the humbler or hardier limbs of the young or
the unconsidered. One feature of the room should
not pass unnoticed. This is a rhomboidal space,
fenced off in one corner and flanked on the outer
side by cases of cigars. One is disappointed at
first not to see a wooden Highlander on guard out-
side, and, within, a young lady with towzled hair,
it looks so like a section of a tobacco shop. Inspec-
tion reveals the fact that, though there is no young
lady in the space in question, it is, nevertheless,
tenanted. For a while a mystery clung round the
spot which puzzled me. From a kind of recess or
cupboard noises, perpetually recurring, proceeded,
in part resembling the clashing of crockery; where-
upon, after an interval, a being in the garb of a
waiter, but with the mien and air of a conjuror or
medium, would produce, apparently from nowhere,
a cup of coffee, tasting appropriately enough of
nothing. In time I discovered that this magic
cave answered the purpose of a refreshment bar,
whence, by some occult process, the drinks that
smokers mostly affect could be supplied to them.
On one occasion I rashly asked for bread and butter
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
13
with my coffee. The presiding genius mentioned
above muttered words sounding so weird and in-
cantation-like that I fully looked for a spirit hand
to waft me from mid-air the object of my desire.
It seems, however, that I had demanded something
which it was beyond even his art to procure. He
vanished, and after long absence reappeared, and,
with a contemptuous gesture, as of one who would
signify that a request for food in a smoking-room
where good liquor abounded wasfoolishness, proffered
me a currant bun of antique mould, stale and un-
palatable, a remanet from past Parliaments, which,
had it been a thing of life, would have babbled of
Peel and Palmerston, and demanded therefor a
fabulous price as for a curiosity in breadstuffs. As
I slowly and with difficulty disposed of this arid
morsel, visions of the past floated before my mind's
eye. In fancy I beheld the confectioner's shop in
the little country town to which, on holidays, a
respected aunt would hale me, a confiding youngster,
and treat me, not to the tarts, the puffs, and the
jellies for which the natural boy hankered, but to
what, in the estimation of the worthy soul, was good
for me. I heard again the voice of the young
person in ringlets putting the invariable query :
“And what will the young gentleman please to
14
Four Years in Parliament.
t
66
take, Ma'am?" And how invariable the reply!
Well," my relative would say, and as she spoke
she would, woman-like, raise delusive hopes by an
affectation of hesitancy, and would even allow her
glance to linger, as though appreciatively, on the
sticks of barley sugar in the tall glass bottles-I
could have done with one of them; "well"-I knew
my doom now" I think-yes, John," in a tone
that admitted of no question, "you will take a bun,
will you not?" I would signify a gloomy assent:
it was better than nothing. "And if you have a
stale one, Miss Perkins, I think my nephew would
prefer that." I felt again, as I crumbled the un-
relishing mouthful, the sensations of youth. There
was the same process, the dry process, of deglutition.
In boyhood's hour a glass of water lent, by gulps,
a grateful assistance, and on high, festive, and too
rare occasions, a bottle of ginger beer-not the
bright effervescing beverage containing ever so
many degrees of pure alcohol, beloved of the modern
teetotaller, but a flat, spiritless drink, with scarcely
go" enough to shoot its own cork, and which,
after a feeble fizz or two, sank despondingly to the
bottom of the very large glass into which the
young person used to empty the very small bottle,
As these reminiscences of the age of innocence were
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
15
borne in on me I was touched, and had the manly
tear presented itself I should, without shame, have
brushed it away.
But to proceed. I have described our room and
the skeleton in our cupboard at such length that I
have almost forgotten the smokers themselves. I
start then with the simple proposition that all
smokers are good men, good in every sense of the
word. Were the smoking-room the legislative
chamber, what laws we should pass, what reforms
we should effect, and how the people would rejoice
and sing! I take it indeed that the presence in
Parliament of members to whom the weed is not.
acceptable is at the bottom of much foolish law
making, and I have it in mind to establish this
view on a scientific basis, but for the moment must
be content to advance the theory in general terms.
I judge men not by their words. Perish "Han-
sard," but preserve our pipes. Let who will read
the speeches of our representatives provided I know
what pipes they smoke. I say pipes advisedly, for
although my fundamental proposition assumes the
virtue of all inhalers of tobacco, it does not exclude
degrees of goodness; worthiest the smokers of the
short pipe, least worthy the smokers of cigarettes.
Why this distinction? Compare the two processes;
·
16
Four Years in Parliament.
which should commend itself most to a practical
people; look and decide. Here the labourer takes
the familiar companion of his toil, tries, loads, and
lights it, smokes, methodically knocks out the
ashes, replaces it in its accustomed receptacle, and
resumes his work, if even he have intermitted it.
'Tis the relaxation of industry. There, the lounger,
with the dexterity begotten of use, envelopes a
tasteless pinch in a filmy covering, lights, consumes,
and in a brief space is plying his art again. 'Tis
the occupation of indolence. It is a cheery sign to
notice how largely the smoking of short pipes
prevails in the smoking-room of the House of
Commons. The cigar and cigarette smokers seem
to feel their isolation and the awkwardness of their
position. They would prefer a pipe, they will tell
you with an apologetic air, if only they could
smoke one. The will is good, they imply, but the
stomach weak. Speaking for myself, I should be
sorry not to have amongst us a few who, in the
slang of the day, are not able to live up to a short
pipe. Their presence enables the stronger brethren
to practice a charitable spirit of forbearance which
I believe to conduce in no small degree to the
promotion and maintenance of the harmony and
concord which reign so conspicuously in the
ན
F
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
17
smoking-room, and render that apartment so agree-
able and so complete a change from the highly-
charged atmosphere of the House itself; for one of
the chief attractions of the smoking-room is that
there we sink political differences. There the
Radical welcomes the Tory; the Unionist endures
the Separatist; and the Nationalist lies down with
the Metropolitan member. It is astonishing too
how much cleverer and better informed we are in
the smoking-room than in the House. If I remem-
bered one half that I heard there I ought to be
able to reconstruct the British navy on lines so
economical and yet so efficient that it would be "a
match, Sir, for the combined fleets of Europe"; to
remit taxes without reducing revenue; to pay
Peter without robbing Paul; in a word, to settle
the affairs of the nation on the soundest basis at
the shortest notice. But although opinions are
freely expressed and without any tinge of party
rancour on a vast variety of subjects, men with
mere fads—the peculiar people of the House—
seldom turn up in the smoking-room, or, if they do,
keep their views on their respective fads to them-
selves. Sour professors of extreme opinions, pro-
foundly impressed with the folly of all men,
themselves only excepted, and deeply convinced of
C
6
18
Four Years in Parliament.
.
the worthlessness of all institutions which they
themselves have not helped to form; men who
fancy that the best way to persuade the House of
Commons is to rate that assembly at inordinate
length and in good set terms are not, perhaps,
welcomed in the smoking-room with the cordiality
extended to less gifted beings. It could hardly be
expected of us that we should, metaphorically
speaking, open our arms and clasp to our bosoms
the pedagogues who treat us as if we were a set of
truant schoolboys, hardly worth whipping, but
whom a sense of duty compels them to castigate.
Of late I am bound to admit that a change, not
altogether satisfactory, has been wrought in the
social aspect of the smoking-room by the intro-
duction of the game of chess. Instead of the small
coteries of friends who used to while away the half
hour after dinner, or the interval from business
when the Speaker left the Chair, with anecdote and
repartee, you have some half dozen or so of chess-
players, each pair surrounded by a circle of on-
lookers, silent but critical. Two years ago, before
chess was thought of, we had the temporary use, as
an addition to the smoking-room, of a small com-
mittee-room of the House of Lords which opened
out of the latter apartment. The convenience
!
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
19
of the arrangement, which was appreciated then,
would be enhanced if we could obtain the room
again, since it would enable us to give to the chess-
players the accommodation they need, and at the
same time to restore some of the social geniality
of the smoking-room proper which the absorbing
attractions of the game have in a measure checked.
To-night my stay in the smoking-room must be
short, for, in company with two or three other
members, I have to meet a deputation from the
ginger-beer trade, who consider that their business
will be injuriously affected by the provisions of
the measure to which I have already incidentally
referred — the Domestic Explosives Bill.
interview takes place in the conference-room-a
cheerful apartment combining the heat of an oven
with the gloom of a railway tunnel-and lasts for
the best part of an hour.
Our
On my way back to the House a friend accosts
me and asks me to do him a favour. It seems that
he had arranged to meet an acquaintance from the
country at ten o'clock and show him and his wife
and some lady friends round the building, but that
another engagement of a more pressing character
has since intervened. He therefore begs me to act
as escort in his stead, adding that, presuming on
c 2
20
Four Years in Parliament.
my known amiability of disposition, he has already
written to the gentleman to say that I will under-
take the pleasing duty—a duty which, it is my
private opinion, my friend is anxious to shirk.
However, the heat and foul air of the conference-
room have so damped my spirits that I have not
enough energy left to refuse him, and presently
find myself in the Central Hall, where, on hearing
my name called out, a portly gentleman introduces
himself, and then in succession his wife, also portly,
and no less than six young ladies, of whom five are
presumably their daughters. The sixth is an-
nounced, with a bit of a flourish, as a fair American,
daughter of that renowned politician Romulus P.
Bang. I do not quite catch the name, but that is
what it sounds like. As I am not sure, and as
Bang, though it may be an acceptable cognomen
in the States, somewhat grates on English ears,
especially in connexion with an undeniably pretty
girl, I will call her "Miss B." The gentleman
meanly washes his hands, so to speak, of his whole
following the moment I have them well in tow.
He affects to have a soul above mere curiosity.
He loftily implies that perhaps some day, don't you
know, he may have the same right of entry that I
have. Besides, he has a large acquaintance with
>
!
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
21
members of Parliament, and can always get in if he
wants to, and so on.
My suspicions are justified. My friend knew his
man. However, there is no help for it now, so on
we go, quite a girl's school, for whose good
behaviour I feel myself to be in part responsible.
At the entrance to the Inner Lobby of the House I
make a wild rush with the lot, so as to get the
business over quickly, but am promptly stopped by
the porters. "You can only take two in at a time,
Sir," says the senior, with a slight emphasis on the
numeral, just to let me know that he appreciates
the situation so far as I am concerned. I take
them in, therefore, two and two-more like a girls'
school than ever! As the House is sitting we
cannot enter the actual chamber, but if the ladies
will by turns mount a seat placed in a sort of niche
by the side of the door, they will obtain a fair view
of the interior through a glass panel about a foot
square. I know of old what each one will say.
"Oh, how small it is! And is this really the House
Commons? Is that Mr. Gladstone? "No," I
interpose; "Mr. Gladstone is not here to-night;
that is Mr. W. H. Smith, the Leader of the House."
"Oh, indeed! Where does Mr. Gladstone sit?
Thank you so much." Candour compels me to
""
22
Four Years in Parliament.
admit, much as I distrust this statesman, that
Mr. Gladstone is the only member of Parliament
invariably inquired after by every lady who peeps
through the glass panel I have described. I have
endeavoured to excite interest in other politicians,
with small success. “That tall man," I have said,
"is Mr. Raikes, the Postmaster-General " no
display of emotion. "That elderly gentleman
with white hair and beard," I have continued, "is
Mr. Childers"-no sign. "And that youngish
man in the corner seat, feeling for his moustache,”
I have sometimes added, "is Lord Randolph
Churchill ”—slight shiver. But when I have been
able to say, "There, that is Mr. Gladstone, that old
gentleman looking this way, with his hand to his
ear, listening so attentively to the member ad-
dressing the House, who is Mr. Timothy Healy, of
whom you may have heard," the beautiful being I
inform at once brightens up, and exclaims, "Is it
really! How nice! Thank you so much." Miss
B. says nothing, but her countenance is expressive,
and I can tell what she thinks. "If this is the
Britisher's Congress, no wonder the Britisher is
played out." From the House we proceed in the
direction of the Library, into which we may be
permitted to glance, although by a recent regulation
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
23
strangers are forbidden to pass through it during
the sitting of the House. As we pass along the
corridor it strikes me as never looking so narrow
and mean as it does now. I cannot help fancying
that Miss B. is curling her lip, so to excuse its
paltry appearance I say, "These lockers on each
side were added comparatively lately. They fill
up the space very much, but we find them useful.
Most of us have one." Here a girl, who has
hitherto preserved an awed silence, is roused to
interest. "Why, we had lockers at school-don't
you remember, Maria? And have you a locker,
Mr. Blank?" "Yes," I reply. "And what do
you put in it?" "Oh," I say, with dignity,
"Blue Books, statutes, and other documents of
importance." "How nice. I should so like to see
one." "Well," I reply, assuming the air of cheerful
amusement with which a middle-aged-no, a man
in the prime of life-condescends to the fancies of
youth, “so you shall. We pass mine directly."
When we come to it I unlock and throw open the
door. I hear a titter from one of the giglets, a
minx who ought to be in bed at this time of night
if her parents had any regard for her health, and
looking in behold, Oh, horrors! a box of cigars and
a bottle of my tonic precisely the colour of pale
24
Four Years in Parliament.
brandy; only placed there yesterday, too! The
mother comes to my rescue. It is desirable to
close both the incident and the locker. She has to
think of the morals of her young people. As for
herself she reads me, she thinks, like a book. She
knows men and their failings. They are all alike,
but have to be put up with unfortunately. "Thank
you, Mr. Blank. That is the Library opposite, is it
not? Come, girls, we are taking up Mr. Blank's
valuable time." Much crestfallen I lead them the
usual round back to the Commons lobby and out
by the members' entrance. At the foot of the last
flight of stairs, and in a cupboard-like room on the
right, Miss B.'s attention is arrested. "Why, isn't
that a telephone?" she asks. "Yes," I reply,
pleased that at length I have something to point
out to the hitherto little interested stranger which
will show her how proudly the old country still
marches in the van of scientific discovery and
progress, and so on. Oh, yes; we are in tele-
phonic communication with the Central Exchange,
and most useful we find it, I assure you. You
know how it works, I suppose," I say, turning to
the English girls and their mother. "No, indeed."
"Never saw one before." "Should so like to."
Oh, delightful; so should I," break forth naïvely,
66
3
-
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
25
in a sort of chorus from the girls who, English-like,
it is our one good failing, are not a bit ashamed of
betraying their ignorance even in the presence of
this evidently superior young American. It oppor-
tunely occurs to me that Mrs. Blank and I propose
to stay at Brighton from Saturday to Monday, and
that I was to have wired for rooms; but have
forgotten to do so. Happy thought-telephone
instead. So I say: "Well, I wanted to send a
message. I may as well do so now, then you will
see what a wonderful invention this is." I look
round for the attendant, but fail to find him. A
friendly assistant in the cloak-room opposite per-
ceives my perplexity. "I saw the young man, Sir,
half an hour ago. I fancy he is only just gone
round the corner." I glance uneasily at Miss B.
There is the "played-out Britisher" expression on
her countenance again. "We do business in a
different style from this in the States," she seems
to say. It is very annoying, the more so as my
knowledge of the instrument is theoretical rather
than practical, and as a matter of fact I do not
know how to put myself in communication with the
Central Exchange. The cloak-room assistant still
wonders where the young man can be. "Saw him
here," he repeats with quite the freshness of a new
•
26
Four Years in Parliament.
idea, "half an hour ago." Presently he adds, as if
you in
There,
a singular notion had just struck him, "But if
you want to send a message I can put
communication. You touch this here, so.
now there's a bell a-ringing in the office. Then
they'll ring a bell here, and you takes their bell off,
and then they knows as you are a-waitin'." "Thank
you,” I say; “I quite understand—much obliged,”
as if to imply complete familiarity with the process.
My bell rings violently. I apply a tube to each
ear.
Now, how shall I begin? "Are you ready?"
No; smacks of the race-course. "Are you there?"
No; that won't do. "Who are you?" Worse.
The bell tinkles again. I plunge into the subject.
"Put me in communication with Simpkinson's
Hotel, Brighton." "What? Please repeat." I do
repeat. "Wait a few minutes." I wait, tubes at
ear-a ridiculous attitude to be kept in, especially
before a lot of girls. A friend passing by, attracted
by the spectacle, looks in at the door. He is one
of those well-informed and well-intentioned persons
who ever hanker to set others right. "Ah, Blank!"
says he, "that's not the way. You should speak
through one and listen through the other. I always
do." I am sure he is wrong, but cannot argue the
"
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
27
point, as just then the bell rings again, and a voice,
evidently a female's, says impatiently: "Now,
then, we are waiting for you. What do you want?"
"Will you put me in communication, please, with
Simpkinson's Hotel, Brighton ?" "Yes, directly;
but—” (here something quite undistinguishable).
"What?" I say. (Another incoherent answer.)
"I cannot understand a word you say." "Oh,
come; that's funny; I can hear you quite plainly."
This in a cheerful tone of light badinage which
suggests that the speaker is used to banter. Can
it be that the younger members of the House spend
their spare time in the flavourless pursuit of flirting
by telephone? I repeat my original message in a
tone of business-like rebuke and receive the accus-
tomed reply: "Wait a few minutes." I wait again
tubes at ear. Plenty of communications reach me
What can be going on at the office? They
must be having a game of romps with the gentlemen
clerks. That was a kiss, a good sounding smack, if
ever I gave one, and the squeal, too, just like life.
Now, all the fat must be in the fire somewhere, to
judge from the frizzling; and what is this I hear?
Surely a Volunteer band or the Salvation Army!
No; it is a school-treat. How the children are
hallooing!
now.
28
Four Years in Parliament.
Whilst all this Babel of sounds is piercing my
brain, my audience are becoming a trifled bored.
"I am afraid, Mr. Blank," says the matron, “ we
are putting you to great inconvenience. Probably
they are engaged at the office." Just then the
bell rings again, and I hear a voice: "Now, then,
we are waiting for you. What do you want?"
"I want," I say resolutely, "to be put in com-
munication with Simpkinson's Hotel, Brighton."
“What name?” Simpkinson." "Spell it, if you
please." "S, i, m, Sim, p, i, n, pin—no, I mean
S, i, m, p, Simp, k, i, n, kin, s, o, n, son, Simpkinson."
The girls behind are in full titter now, and even
Miss B. relaxes. Back comes the answer, plainly
enough at last: "Communication with Simpkinson's
has been cut off for a month."
66
I put as good a face on the failure as I can.
"Wonderful invention, though, isn't it?" I say to
Miss B. "You are familiar with the telephone in
your country, I suppose?" "Yes," she replies,
simply; "we have one at home in the back parlour.
We generally speak Europe two or three times à
day." I call cabs for them.
So much obliged to you.
Where to? Metropole.
They will not forget
their visit to Westminster; nor shall I
The hours roll by, the debate still drags on, and
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
29
About one
as yet no vote and no sign of one.
o'clock in the morning it strikes some of us that we
are spending valuable time to no purpose, and that
something ought to be done. The bolder and less
broken spirits address a remonstrance to the Whips,
and want to know what course the Government
intend to pursue. It is part of the functions of
Ministerial Whips on occasion to be frankly ignorant.
They are so now. They cannot say what will
happen. They take, however, a cheerful view of
the situation, but specially counsel prudence. Let
no irritated mortal be rash enough to intervene in
the debate. Our cue, they tell us, is to endure in
silence lest worse evils befall us. Perchance, if we
are very good and very quiet, and say nothing to
annoy the obstructives, they may, presently, in their
gracious pleasure, or from sheer weariness, cease
from troubling. And so we are kept from hour to
hour in a sort of rusticus expectans attitude, waiting
for the clouds of verbiage to roll by and the flood
of twaddle to run dry. Meanwhile we sleep. Each
easy chair has long since found an occupant. It is
scarcely an exaggeration to say that one can hardly
thread one's way through the division lobbies for
the prostrate forms of slumbering senators lit-
tered along them. I met a junior member of the

30
・Four Years in Parliament.
Administration about two o'clock one morning carry-
ing a couple of heavy quarto volumes of Statutes of
the Realm. "What, busy as ever?" I said to him,
pleasantly. "No," he replied, wearily and shortly,
"Pillow." Unenlightened, but yet interested, I
watched him. He raised one end of a cushioned
seat, placed the books beneath, made himself a
pillow, and straightway reposed thereon. Two
hours later I passed him by. He was still sleeping
sweetly on the 4th and 5th of Geo. III.
To-night we are evidently in for a long sitting
of the good old-fashioned sort. The small hours
become bigger hours. The grey dawn shows ghastly
at the windows of the House. "Night's candles are
burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the
misty chimney tops." Presently there is a stir.
Sleepers, awake! the time of your deliverance is at
hand. The Whips range through the lobbies with
a jubilant " I-told-you-so," air. Dishevelled mortals
eagerly interview them. 'Oh, yes, it's all right
now. They are going to let us have a vote." So
we get the vote at last after hours of profitless talk,
and not merely one vote, but other votes besides,
without any discussion on them whatever, although
on some of them questions of real interest and
importance might be raised. We have virtually
Some Parliamentary Incidents.
31
debated nothing all this while, and then when
something worthy of consideration comes before us,
from weariness we pass it unnoticed. However,
we have got the votes at last, and are so thankful
for any mercies now that we feel quite triumphant.
"Something like business this, eh!" we say to
each other as we walk home in the broad daylight.
NOTE.-A third smoking-room, a little slip of a place
opening on to the Terrace, for members only, has been provided
since the above was written, but as yet its merits remain
undiscovered, and it clearly makes no pretension to vie with
the smoking-room proper above stairs.
32
Four Years in Parliament.
THE ORATORY OF THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS.
THE occasion of my first speech was the anniversary
or Feast of the Village Friendly Society, the
subject of it the health of an absent relative for
which I, a mere stripling, was called on to respond.
That this task would fall to my lot had loomed
largely before me for days, and for days had
embittered my existence. A commendable regula-
tion of the Club required that its members on the
Feast day and prior to the banquet should attend
Divine Service, walking to the parish church in
procession equipped with long green staves each
surmounted by a ball and spike. It had at such
times been the custom of us youngsters to relieve
the tedium of the parade by some dexterous handling
of our staves, and I had known the day when to
prod a fat farmer (farmers were fatter then than
they are now) in the small of the back when that
region could be discovered, with the spike end was
The Oratory of the House.
33
regarded as an apt jest, which even the recipient
of the attention accepted in the friendly spirit in
which it was offered. But on this memorable
occasion, although a tempting subject marched in
front of me, my staff rested unemployed in my
listless hand. During the service I was distraught,
for I was giving the last polish to my periods; and
when we settled down for the sermon I in thought
rehearsed my speech for the twentieth time. At
length the dread moment arrived. My relative's
virtues were recounted, his cordial appreciation
of the benevolent fraud (for we were a bankrupt
body although we did not know it), was dwelt on in
becoming terms, and his absence feelingly deplored.
My name was coupled with the toast, and I rose
to respond. Much to my surprise I retained my
consciousness, and although I forgot my exordium,
and omitted my peroration, I must have acquitted
myself tolerably well, for the proposer of some
subsequent toast was obliging enough to mention
my speech in the language of compliment, and to
augur from it that I should one day become the
Speaker of the House of Commons. I knew that
the view of the functions of our Presiding Genius
implied in the reference of my friendly critic was
founded on a misconception of them, but his drift
D
34
Four Years in Parliament.
was clear. Simple rustic though he was, he, in
common with the bulk of his countrymen, educated
or illiterate, looked to one place and one place
alone for his standard of oratorical excellence.
Reputation oftentimes survives when the virtue on
which it was raised is lost. We still think of the
House of Commons as the place in which the
greatest of our orators are seen and heard at their
best. It is indeed the fittest arena for them to
contend in, for there they are directly pitted against
each other; but except on rare occasions it is no
longer the place in which they rise to the highest
flights, and deliver themselves of their noblest
conceptions. These they reserve for the platform—
and for good reasons. Owing to the increase in
the number of speakers in the House and in the
business of the House, the opportunities for the
making of set speeches there are fewer than they
used to be, while the conductors of newspapers
fall in with the popular indisposition to wade
through columns of debates, and all but one shorten
their reports to the merest summary of undressed
arguments. But should a statesman of the first
rank deliver a platform address, he is pretty sure of
a full report in the newspapers of the following
day. Politicians can thus answer each other from
The Oratory of the House.
35
opposing platforms almost as quickly as they could
in the House, and with more effect and more
freedom. In a set debate lasting over two or three
nights, the great guns seldom, except just at the
finish, reply to each other in the same sitting. If
Mr. Gladstone, for example, speak in the debate on
a Monday, he will be answered by Lord Hartington
on the Tuesday. The same thing happens in
platform oratory. The fixtures for the public
addresses of prominent statesmen are arranged
many weeks beforehand, and where, as is the case
just now, there is a good supply of chief speakers
on both sides of both Houses, it is always possible
by chance or design for one party man to answer
another either the next day or within a period
sufficiently short to render the reply effective.
Political leaders have in all times largely availed
themselves of the platform for the purpose of
announcing or denouncing a policy, and on certain
recurring occasions, as the Lord Mayor's Banquet,
a ministerial statement has come to be looked for
almost as a matter of right, but it is new, I think,
for public men to depend so much as they do now
on platform speeches for the purpose of controversy.
The result at any rate is to change the conditions
under which opposing leaders contend. Instead of
D 2
36
Four Years in Parliament.
.
fighting in an arena crowded with adherents of both
combatants, each cock crows on his own dunghill
to an applauding audience of staunch supporters.
The effect of this change on the oratory of the
House of Commons is, I will not say ruinous, but
damaging beyond question. The best men reserve
their best efforts and their happiest thoughts for
the platform, and are satisfied if in the House they
can maintain a level of efficiency high enough to
sustain their reputation there. The style of speak-
ing, too, that suits the platform is for the most part
unsuited to the House. New members feel this at
once, and it may take a man who on the platform
is a past master in the art of tickling the ears of
the groundlings, some sessions to acquire the plain
argumentative style most acceptable to our legis-
lators. Yet platform orators gravitate as though
by the operation of some natural law to the House
of Commons, partly because, seeing the increased use
made of the platform by their political leaders, they
are tempted to exaggerate the value of their own
reputation and are ambitious to test their capacity
in a higher sphere, and partly because experience
has long since taught them that a speaker who has
a right to append the letters M.P. to his name
stands a better chance of being well reported than
The Oratory of the House.
37
a speaker, however eloquent, who has no such right.
Once in the House, the man who has made his
mark outside speaks at first at some disadvantage.
Lord Holland, in his Memoirs of the Whig Party,
says apropos to the favourable impression that
Grattan created on his first appearance in the
Parliament of the United Kingdom, that this was
the more to his credit because the House of
Commons" has at all times been remarkable for
great reluctance in confirming reputations for
oratory elsewhere obtained," a disposition which
continues to this day. It is a common saying that
no matter how violent, how extreme, or how ob-
jectionable in any obtrusive way a man may be
who aspires to enter Parliament, no sooner does he
come within its walls than he "finds his level."
The meaning ordinarily attached to this phrase is,
that the House of Commons is an assembly which
has some special power of putting down by its
inherent virtue, so to speak, pushing, boisterous
persons who, by making noise enough, have acquired
an outside notoriety. The House possesses, it
seems to be thought, some magic spell whereby
it is enabled to tame the wildest beast. The re-
sult I admit. The beast is tamed, but by no
occult process. Most ordinary are the causes that
38
Four Years in Parliament.
reduce the great platform orator-the applauded
of thousands-into an insignificant and often in-
effective speaker in the House. I take mere
material and physical causes first. The platform
speaker, especially if he be of some consequence,
looks to have his convenience and comfort con-
sidered. He is fetched and carried. He dines
wisely, but not too well, at the board of some genial
host, with a pleasant company specially invited to
do him honour. In the Hall he is placed in a
position whence he can command his audience.
He has a table at hand on which to arrange his
notes, and on the first symptom of huskiness or
hesitation the chairman pours him out a glass of
water which he sips amid the sympathetic murmurs
of his hearers. How differently situated does he
find himself in the House! His meals there are
much mixed, and possibly the latest that may have
passed his lips may have consisted of a cup of tea
and a round of toast. From the seat whence he
rises he cannot even see a great part of those whom
he addresses, and he speaks with his back to many
of them. Instead of the unrestricted freedom of
the platform, he finds himself, unless the occupant
of a front bench, cramped between the seat of his
own bench and the back of the bench before him.
The Oratory of the House.
39
The only receptacle provided for his memoranda is
a sort of wooden gutter some eighteen inches long
by three wide, affixed to the back of the bench in
front of him. This being a perfectly vain thing of
itself, some habitué teaches him how to utilize it by
suspending his hat on it by the brim. This feat
accomplished—and it is a pretty little example of
applied mechanics-he puts his notes in his hat,
only to find, when he would consult them, that by
some impassioned gesture he has dashed hat and
notes in admired confusion to the ground. These are
some of the awkward physical features of the situa-
tion. There are others of a less material character
but not less embarrassing. He has to catch the
Speaker's eye as it circles in its orbit. This to a
grave and dignified orator accustomed to be intro-
duced in rotund phrases by a noble chairman, to
rise leisurely from his seat and placidly survey his
audience until the cheers that greet him subside, is
no simple task. Half a dozen members are on their
legs, all but one down again, and he named and
well on in his speech, before the platform orator has
realized the position. Ultimately he finds that,
except in an empty House, his only chance is to
lean well forward, clutch the back of the seat in
front of him with both hands, keep his knees bent
40.
Four Years in Parliament.
:
and his heels raised, and as the last word dies on
the lips of the member he would follow, spring by
the combined action of all his muscles into a
vertical attitude with the velocity of a Jack-in-the-
box, and exclaim in stentorian tones," Mr. Speaker,
Sir." His troubles do not end here. No cheer
invigorates him. He is stared at in stony silence,
broken only by the whispers of " Who is he?" and
the rustle of the leaves of the little book which
every one takes out of his pocket and consults in
order to find the new member's constituency. I
am in my way a thought reader. "O, this is the
great platform orator; come, let us snub him," is
the mental ejaculation of each member. The plat-
form orator misses his accustomed exordium, "My
lord, ladies and gentlemen. When I find myself in
the presence of so large, so influential, and so
representative an assembly of citizens of this great
centre of industry and intelligence, I feel," &c., &c.
He has prepared quite an effective address, with all
his points arranged in due sequence, but the debate
has taken a different turn from that which he
expected; many of his points have been antici-
pated, and his most telling quotations appropriated
by previous speakers. Driven to his wits' end he
has reduced his voluminous notes to a few pencil
The Oratory of the House.
41
scratches on the blank leaf of the " Orders of the
Day." He finds his fluency forsaking him, and
when by a natural mischance he says "Gentlemen "
instead of "Sir," the cries of "Order" confuse him.
He grows husky, but there is not a glass of water in
the House-even the greatest of living orators has
to bring his tonic with him and sip it out of a two
ounce phial. Presently he warms to his work, and
out come some well worn platform platitudes that
have never failed to rouse the ringing British cheer.
How flat they fall! Was ever such an unsym-
pathetic audience! Our orator is, as he terms it,
always good for forty minutes, but he has sense
enough to perceive that a far shorter time will
satisfy the House of his quality, and at the end of a
quarter of an hour he resumes his seat, uncomfort-
ably conscious that he has "found his level." It
by no means follows, however, that this very same
man will in the long run fail to gain the ear of the
House, though he may have difficulties to contend
against that a less well known man would not meet
with. He is probably past his first youth; if not,
he has many a chance yet, for the House but reflects
human nature in its tenderness to the young. He
has to overcome, as I have said, an instinctive dislike
of outside reputation; he has to learn a new style
42
Four Years in Parliament.
of speaking, and he has to make head against a
variety of prejudices of great antiquity and highly
cherished. If he be no longer young he is pro-
nounced too old to accommodate himself to the
House of Commons. If he belong to the legal
profession he is damned offhand. Lawyers, except
as law officers, never, it is said, succeed in the
House. Besides, "we have too many of them
already, sir. We could spare one half and do
without the rest." Still, in the end success as a
speaker depends very much on the man himself, for,
when all is said and done, the House quickly
recognizes capacity and appreciates it.
But if the oratory of the House of Commons be
deteriorating, as some think, perhaps the members
are not so much to blame as their constituents and
the general public, who demand without ceasing
such a succession of speeches from them. Say you
aspire to public life. Unless you are a very rich
man, and can, so to speak, buy your position by
your profusion, you must first make your mark.
In order to effect this object you must show that
you can express your ideas on the questions of the
day more effectively than your contemporaries.
Nothing but thought and study can enable you to
do this. In the early stage of your career, therefore,
The Oratory of the House.
43
however able you may fancy yourself to be, you take
pains with your speeches. You are not probably
called on then to make many, so that you have time
to devote to their preparation. Some of the best
speeches I have listened to have been made by
local men to whom the taking of some part in the
organization of the political party to which they
belong has given them the sought-for opportunity
of distinguishing themselves. It is quite likely
that at this stage you may be incapable of making
an impromptu speech-so much the better as a rule
for the quality of your speeches-but as you progress
you find readiness to be an essential. In time you
become a candidate for the suffrages of some
constituency and ultimately fight and win the seat.
In the course of the struggle you abandon the
attempt to prepare your speeches. You have to
speak so often and so unexpectedly that neither
time for study nor opportunity is afforded
you. You
gain something, it is true-Fluency. If I were a
novelist intending to base a work of fiction on the
luckless career of a disappointed politician, I should
choose for the name of my book one of those double
or alternative titles dear to our forefathers. I
should call my novel "Frank's Failure, or Fatal
Fluency." Fluency, if I may misapply my
44
Four Years in Parliament.
metaphors, is the rock on which many a promising
politician founders. In the case I am assuming
you know quite well that in proportion as speaking
becomes easier and easier to you so do your speeches
go off in quality. When a man feels sufficiently
sure of himself to be satisfied that he need never
come to a dead stop on a platform, he must be very
strong-minded, or possessed with a burning desire
to display himself to the best advantage, if he take
much trouble in preparation, for there is no task
that human nature so revolts against as the com-
position of a studied speech. "To make a speech
in a public Assembly," says Johnson, in his sweeping
way, " is a knack," as if to imply that the performance
is in the nature of a trick which a speaker can be
put up to and by practice can master, and for which
one man may display more aptitude than another,
just as one man, though no better taught than
another, may turn out the cleverer conjuror of the
two. There is something to be said for this view,
though of course it is a narrow view. Practice not
merely gives fluency but tact in dealing with your
audience. Excellent speeches fall flat because they
are inappropriate to the occasion. I once heard a
young man from whom much was expected make
an admirable speech of its kind, which nevertheless
The Oratory of the House.
45
bored everyone. The language was choice, the
composition studied, the subject only was at fault.
A little more familiarity with the platform than he
possessed would have taught the young man that a
philosophical disquisition on party government,
certain of a favourable reception at the Oxford or
Cambridge Union Debating Society, would be quite
out of place at a grand open air Demonstration of
the Primrose League. Some time since I was
present at a considerable gathering of a political
association where after dinner we discussed the
subject of Fair Trade. About half past ten a
young member of our body rose. The secretary
whispered to me, "This is a clever chap. I told
him I hoped he would speak. We want to give
him a chance." We listened to this gentleman
with attention for ten minutes, with distraction
for ten minutes more, and endured him with im-
patience for the remainder of the three-quarters of
an hour for which he detained us, yet there seemed
to practised speakers to be many parts of his dis-
course which admitted of an effective finish, and
some of us were rash enough at these points to cheer
in a valedictory style with the object of hinting to
the orator the wishes of his audience. Unfortunately
he mistook these demonstrations for marks of
M
46
Four Years in Parliament.
approval and pursued his subject with renewed
zest. Some of us called up the secretary. "This is
really too bad of your friend. Do tell him to stop,"
we said reproachfully. "I have told him already,"
replied this functionary, "but he is wound up.'
When the speaker ultimately ran down there were
few of us--and certainly none of us who had missed
our trains—who had not formed a poor opinion of
his capacity. In both these instances the speakers
lacked judgment, and possibly ability to alter on
the spur of the moment a studied address so as to
suit the exigencies of the occasion, and in con-
sequence neither did justice to himself. At the
same time in both cases the speeches, considered as
rhetorical compositions, were probably better than
the impromptu substitutes which more practised
speakers would have delivered in view of the con-
ditions of time and place in which they found
themselves. When, therefore, you have acquired
the art-or knack if you will-of addressing a public
assembly with little or no previous preparation, you
may speak effectively without speaking really well.
For an impromptu effort you must pull yourself
together a bit and collect your wits, a process
necessarily of a bracing character, which tells on
your speech; your points must be few, and as you

The Oratory of the House.
47
have not thought about them enough to labour
them, your treatment of them will be short and
simple, which is what people like. Probably, too,
the speeches of previous speakers will furnish you
with some topics of a genial or perhaps humourous
kind which, neatly handled, will put you in touch
with your audience. You sit down amid rounds
of applause. "Fine speaker, sir." "Magnificent."
The local magnates congratulate you, and with
sincerity, for you have helped their meeting to "go"
well. Yet you yourself, although you naturally
enjoy your triumph, are by no means satisfied at
heart. You rather pride yourself on the "right use
of your oracular tongue and a nice derangement of
epitaphs," but you know that in the speech just
delivered the right words would not come when
they were wanted, and that consequently your
Vocabulary was scanty and commonplace; that
your transitions were effected awkwardly and by
the help of a superabundance of conjunctives;
that your thoughts were crude; and that in order
to catch a cheer you condescended to the use of ad
captandam arguments; in short, that while you
gave your hearers plenty to shout about you left
them little to reflect on.
After your election you hope that you will not be
48
Four Years in Parliament.
..
obliged to speak so often and so unexpectedly as
when you were a candidate and were compelled to
keep yourself before the public as much as possible.
You fancy that you will be able to pay attention to
the composition of your speeches, and perhaps as a
listener derive some valuable hints from the great
orators in the House. You will be disappointed of
your hope. Invitations will shower down on you to
preside at smoking concerts, open bazaars, attend
meetings of political associations, support resolu-
tions at conferences, and so forth, many of which
you must accept. On all these occasions you will
be expected to say at least "a few words," often on
the spur of the moment. These demands on you
will give you, what indeed you scarcely want,
readiness in speaking impromptu, but will not tend
to that improvement in your style for which you
sadly admit there is much room. At length an
opportunity arrives which you intend to benefit by.
A distinguished leader of your party is about to
deliver an important address in a great commercial
The distinguished leader is an orator of the
first rank. A carefully-prepared speech from him
will be the best of lessons for you. You have a
capital seat on the platform close to the dis-
tinguished leader. He stumbles a little at first
centre.
The Oratory of the House.
49
66
-they all do-but presently gets into his swing.
He is just approaching a ticklish question, and you
are on the close watch to notice how he will deal
with it, when you feel a smart tap on your shoulder.
'Tis your friend Busy, M.P.
Blank, you are
wanted. Overflow meeting in the Drill Hall next
door. Two thousand at least. They are hard up
for speakers to keep the ball rolling till his lordship
can come. The chairman said I was to fetch you
at once. There is no time to be lost." You stifle
your annoyance. It is as well to be prompt on such
occasions: who knows but what the Party may one
day mark your devotion to the cause! On your
way you meet a friend returning.
He has just
spoken, and puts you in spirits as he passes by
remarking that they were "deeply depressed" when
he left. You arrive to find Perpetual Drop, M.P.
on his legs, an orator remarkable for an easy flow of
nothing. This gentleman holds the field with
indifferent success for half an hour and then
succumbs only to repeated intimations conveyed
through the medium of his coat tails. Fuming
with irritation to think how vilely you have been
defrauded, you rise to address a wearied audience
who regard you in the light of another stop-gap.
The result is not doubtful. At the end of twenty
E

50
Four Years in Parliament.
minutes you sit down with the clear conviction that
you never spoke worse in your life.
These experiences would damp the ardour of a less
zealous politician, but your spirits are elastic, and
you are not yet daunted. You determine now, we
will say, to be an attentive listener from your place
in the House, and to profit by a careful study of the
various oratorical models you will hear there. Per-
haps, of all reputations, a reputation for wisdom is the
most desired. If this be what you aim at you have
an example to follow in Sir Oracle. This honour-
able member is gifted with a goodly presence, a
grave aspect, and a deep voice. It is these qualifi-
cations, in the main, I suspect, which have suggested
to him the notion that he would make an admirable
Speaker.
When to such natural advantages are
added a double eye-glass, a measured delivery, and
a solemn I-come-to-bury-Cæsar style, the effect is
in the highest degree impressive. Sir Oracle is not
one of those orators who charm with the unexpected.
He never, I suppose, had an original idea in his
life, but it must be allowed that he makes the most
of those that are current in the world. No one
pronounces two and two to be four with a greater air
of conviction. You may remember that scene in
Great Expectations, where Mr. Wopsle, the parish
clerk, over-estimating his powers of rendering the
The Oratory of the House.
51
dramatic works of Shakespeare, essays the part of
Hamlet at a transpontine theatre. Pip and his
friend attend on the occasion and when asked to
criticise the actor's conception of the character
declare it to be "grand and massive." These are
the epithets I should apply to the lucubrations of
Sir Oracle when he is at his best. As here and there
in a remote country district may still be found some
ancient dame with a reputation for knowledge and
sagacity, entitling her to the appellation of the Wise
Woman, so do we in the House of Commons rejoice
in the possession of a Wise Man. Should you despair
of attaining such excellence as that which I own I
have not done justice to in the foregoing description,
you can aim a trifle lower. On the other side of the
House sits an honourable member-dread Prince of
Platitudes—who will teach you how to combine the
warmest love of virtue in the abstract with the
bitterest hatred of political adversaries in the con-
crete. You will recognize him best if I give you a
sample of his style. "Mr Speaker, the speech to
which we have just listened from the honourable
member opposite is remarkable for the lack of
sympathy it displays with the requirements, and, I
may add, wants, of the masses of the people. Sir, I
am not surprised that this should be so, for it has
E 2
52
Four Years in Parliament.
ever been the role of the Tory Party, of which party
the honourable member is a conspicuous supporter,
on the one hand to oppose measures intended to
ameliorate the condition of the working men and
working women of this country, and on the other
to perpetuate those social inequalities, relics of
the dark days of feudalism, whereby the rich and
the so-called noble have sought to tread under foot
the legitimate aspirations of the poor but honest
toiler, and despoil him of the hardly-earned fruits of
his labour. Such, Sir, I thank God, was not the
school in which I learned my first lessons in political
wisdom. I, Sir, was always taught, and I have
never forgotten the instruction, that no policy could
be advantageous to the State which was not founded
on justice, that no law was likely to be beneficial to
the country at large which was not based on the
broad principle of equality, and that no statesman
was worthy of the confidence of his fellow men who
was blind to the dictates of truth and honour. (Hear,
hear.) Holding these views, Sir, I feel that I should
be wanting in the duty I owe to the constituency
which has returned me to Parliament, were I to fail
to raise my voice, humble though it be, in deter-
mined protest against the policy enunciated by
honourable gentlemen opposite. Sir, I do not deny
•
The Oratory of the House.
53
to honourable gentlemen opposite the merit of con-
sistency, for the history of this country abounds
with examples which prove beyond all question that
the Tory Party have ever been the foes of freedom
and progress. Now, Sir, I am of opinion that free-
dom, united with order, is a guarantee of liberty,
and that progress, combined with security, is
essential to prosperity. (Hear, hear.) This being
so, I ask how is it possible for honourable members
on this side of the House to associate themselves
with politicians-I will not call them statesmen-
whose established principle of government is to
distrust the people. Sir, you cannot expect the
people to trust you unless you trust them. (Hear,
hear.) Honourable gentlemen opposite may put
their faith in coercion, and rely on force as their
only remedy, but let it be our task to pursue a
course more consistent with our common Chris-
tianity, and by repairing the errors of the past, and
redressing the evils of the present, ensure to the
unhappy victims of British misrule a prosperous
future," and so on ad. lib. Should you be unable on
first hearing to follow the drift of this orator's
observations, and apprehend the deep thoughts
embedded in his ponderous periods, I advise you to
make his acquaintance and beg the loan of the

54
Four Years in Parliament.
manuscript of which in the delivery of his addresses
he makes such abundant use before he sends it for
publication to his local paper. Others there are of
less note from whom you may gain useful hints.
For example, suppose you entertain the notion of
going in, as they call it, for patriotism-rather a
losing game though, by the way-then attend the
debates on the Army and Navy Estimates. The
subjects discussed are highly technical, and, as no
one understands them, the few who can talk the
jargon of their craft have most of the fun to
themselves. This is the time for you to pick up a
boisterous sentiment or two from the blood and
thunder, shiver your timbers, Rule Britannia
speakers, best described in the language of the
dockyard as of the "Admiral Class," sentiments
warranted at any time to elicit the loud plaudits of
the gallery. Another class there is of a totally
different kind, not numerous yet, but, I am sorry
to say, increasing; the class of prigs, professors,
philosophers, and pedants, whose dreary, dogmatic,
and didactic deliverances it will be your ill fate at
times to listen to. These gentry are not beloved in
any quarter of the House. They are fond of postur-
ing on moral and mental mole-hills of their own
raising, whence they look down in pitying scorn on

The Oratory of the House.
55
a less virtuous world. The situation is picturesque
and impressive, but calculated to irritate the residue
of the human race. You have nothing to learn
from such orators as these. Stay, I am wrong.
You can learn from them what to avoid.
At this point I feel that you may well reproach
me for calling your attention to orators of note
indeed, but not in the first rank either as politicians
or as speakers. You would say, and naturally
enough, that if you were without a guide you should
look to profit by the speeches of the leading mem-
bers of the various political parties of whom the
House is composed. I am not sure that in point
of oratory there are not less conspicuous members
from whom you might learn more than you could
from the occupants of the front benches; but I can
understand that, since I am on the subject of the
oratory of the House of Commons, to be silent as
to the leaders would be regarded, to say the least,
as an omission; so I will make a few remarks about
Mr. Gladstone. I select Mr. Gladstone because of
his reputation. When I first heard him I was
immensely impressed by his powers of speech, but
the oftener I hear him the less impressive does he
seem. The reason of this I take to be that he has
never, since I entered Parliament, had, in a great


56
Four Years in Parliament.
speech, a good case to argue. The quality in
Mr. Gladstone as an orator which has most struck
me, is his mastery of the art, and the consequent
ease and confidence with which he speaks. The
ordinary hindrances to continued progression which
impede less experienced and less gifted orators-
mental chaos after the first twenty minutes, ex-
haustion of subject, deficiency of ideas, or want of
suitable words wherewith to express them-do not
stand in his way. When once started, it seems to
cost him no more effort to talk for three hours than
for one. In most speakers you can detect after a
time, which varies in duration according to the
capacity of the individual, some failure of power,
but you might listen long to Mr. Gladstone before
you would discover signs of any such mental weak-
ness. It is true that his speeches are not all
equally good. One speech differs from another in
excellence. For example, when Mr. Gladstone
returned from a tour in Bohemia, in the Autumn
Session of 1886, in order to take part in the debate
on the second reading of Mr. Parnell's Tenants'
Relief Bill, he sank, in the speech which he then
delivered, very much below his normal level, and
consequently laid himself open to an effective reply
from Mr. Matthews, the newly-appointed Home
The Oratory of the House.
57
Secretary. But what was observable on this
occasion was not a failure of power during the
course of the speech, but simply a sustained
poverty from beginning to end of it. Mr. Glad-
stone is specially interesting as a speaker from the
fact that he has two styles, allied in their nature,
yet distinct, the improvisatory style, and the re-
flective. As it was said of Swift, by Stella, I
think, that there was no subject on which he could
not write beautifully, so it may be said of Mr.
Gladstone, that there is no subject on which he
could not instantly make a speech worth listening
to, if not for the matter of it, at least for its
language and composition. Occasionally Mr.
Gladstone improvises or thinks aloud in the
House of Commons, and he is then a curious and
instructive study. You may know when he im-
provises partly by a singular gesture and partly
by the recurrence and expression of certain state-
ments and fixed ideas. See him now, casting about
as it were for a thought or a word. He raises his
right arm above his head, appears to clutch at an
invisible object which eludes him, and concludes
the strange process by tracing an imaginary line
from the frontal to the occipital region with his
reverted thumb. After much meditation thereon,
58
Four Years in Parliament.
I have come to the conclusion that this action, or
combination of actions, is neither more nor less than
the persistency of a habit inherited from a less
highly developed progenitor, to wit, arboreal man.
Arboreal man, of course, roosted. To be "up a
tree" would in his day signify a position of safety,
whereas now, by a remarkable but not unprecedented
perversion, the phrase indicates an opposite con-
dition. Arboreal man desiring to save himself
from falling would naturally raise his arm and
grasp the branch above him. Man, in the highest
development to which the race has yet attained, to
wit, Mr. Gladstone, desiring to save himself from
partial failure or complete breakdown by the
finding of some thought or some word essential to
the continued expression of logical argument, ac-
companies the mental effort with a reminiscence
of the action necessary to his progenitor when in
a position not of mental but of physical difficulty.
Of the fixed statements or notions, two are specially
observable, one, that during fifty years' experience
in the House of Commons he never witnessed
conduct so unwise, and so contrary to every
principle of justice, honour, and virtue, as the
conduct of his political opponents at that moment;
the other, that had some distinguished statesman,
The Oratory of the House.
59
long since dead-by preference Sir Robert Peel-
been then alive, he would have unhesitatingly
condemned such conduct and supported the view
entertained by Mr. Gladstone himself. When
Mr. Gladstone improvises, he speaks virtually
without notes, a scratch or two on a sheet of paper,
hastily scribbled in the course of the debate,
scarcely rising to the dignity of a note. But when
Mr. Gladstone speaks reflectively, and obviously
after some previous consideration of the subject
with a view to speaking on it, his notes are
voluminous. He is not singular in this respect.
You will be surprised to find how much even the
best speakers and most practised debaters depend
on their notes. This habit was disapproved by the
famous Parliamentary orators of the past. Lord
Holland relates how on one occasion he had to
undergo the severe trial of speaking in the House
of Lords in the hearing of his uncle, Charles James
Fox, and how the latter laughed at his hurry and
his notes, and bade him be less scrupulous in
rounding his sentences and correcting his English.
The habit has grown on speakers in the present
day, I think, principally because they have less
time for preparation than their predecessors had,
so that instead of mastering a subject, and speaking
60
Four Years in Parliament.
on it with the fulness of knowledge which comes
from reflection, they start with some general know-
ledge of it of a superficial kind, and pick up
further information as the debate proceeds, which
they jot down at the moment and make the best
use of they can when it comes to their turn to take
up the ball. Partly also the necessity of notes is
occasioned by the form in which debates are carried
on in the House. I think it was Johnson again
who defined oratory as the power of beating down
your adversaries' arguments and putting better in
their place. He was accustomed to single combats
between masters of logic and fence not likely to
advance any but the best arguments on their
respective sides; but in the House of Commons,
where the speakers are many, and differ in know-
ledge and capacity, numerous false points are made
in a debate which are not worth answering, but
which are noted all the same, because an easy and
effective exposure of them brings to the refuter
some momentary credit, and elicits the encouraging
cheer from his own party. The sound arguments
in support of, or in opposition to, a question, are
always few, and Johnson's definition applies to them
when they are dealt with in a closely reasoned
speech, such as one is accustomed to hear from
The Oratory of the House.
61
Lord Hartington, who, as a rule, passes over the
minor points, the smart handling of which shows
off the orator, but furnishes no solid contribution to
the debate, and fixes his attention on the main
issues. But even Lord Hartington-who doubtless
might dispense with notes-thinks it safe, I suppose,
to have a sheaf of them, though I have often
noticed that he will speak for several minutes
without consulting them, and, on his next reference
to them, will lay on one side several pages the
substance of which he has sufficiently borne in
mind to deliver without needing their assistance.
It is clear that many members of the House
learn their set speeches nearly, if not quite, by heart.
Any one accustomed to speak himself, or to listen
to others, can have little difficulty in telling which
passages of a speech have been written down, or
thought out and committed to memory. In the ordi-
nary intercourse of daily life our phraseology is com-
monplace, and our vocabulary limited, and the more
we mix in general society the more commonplace and
the more poverty-stricken our talk. To speak with
felicity of expression is to risk the imputation of
affectation-the worst of vices in an Englishman's
opinion. The rustic, limited as his vocabulary is in
consequence of the limited range of his mind, has
Vorm
62
Four Years in Parliament.
a much happier and more discriminating way of
expressing himself than his better educated fellow
citizens, for he has no critics to fear and no fashion
to follow. Sometimes we get such an one on a
platform, and always to the delight of an audience
who are taken with his quaint way of putting things
in what the reporter will describe as a "racy
vernacular." We educated folks are ashamed to
appear different from others, to be singular even in
excellence, so we are commonplace all round. The
result is that when we speak in public we have a
difficulty in expressing ourselves in terms suitable
to the occasion, for the very folks who would ridi-
cule us, and call us fantastic and odd if we picked
our words in private conversation, not merely
tolerate, but look for a more elevated style from us
when we address them from the platform. Conse-
quently most of us, if we would satisfy an audience,
and maintain what reputation we have, must either
write out our speeches or those parts of them
which we desire to be effective and commit them
to memory, or must spend much time in thinking
them over, so that when we deliver them the words
and phrases which have occurred to us in thought,
and been selected by us as the most appropriate,
may flow as readily to the tongue as the less forcible
MqU
The Oratory of the House.
63
+

synonyms, we should employ if we had to express
the same ideas in private conversation. There can
be no doubt which of these processes is the better.
The man who has well thought out his speech,
though he may not have written down a word, will
deliver a much more effective address than the man
who has written it out, whether he afterwards
commit it to memory or no. But the former is
much the longer process, and speakers in Parlia-
ment have often no time to spare for it. Hence
the voluminous notes on which so many are com-
pelled to depend. Now Mr. Gladstone, although
he follows the fashion and uses notes, does not, so
far as I can judge, require them to anything like
the extent that others do for what I may be per-
mitted to term phraseological purposes. He seems
to have a complete command of an
vocabulary from which, at any moment, he can
select the precise words and turns of speech he
desires to use. Why such a man possessed of such
gifts and such acquirements hampers himself with
notes is a question that I should like him, in the
interests of future generations of speakers, to
answer. Yet with all his mastery of the tongue,
it is often said of Mr. Gladstone that, unlike Lord
Beaconsfield, he has coined no phrases that will
enormous
64
Four Years in Parliament.
live. Mr. Gladstone, it is true, is not a witty man.
His sense of humour appears not to be keen, though
occasionally he allows a dry comment to pass his
lips which provokes a smile. He is not ready with
a caustic repartee or a stinging sarcasm.
He is not
a sayer of smart sayings which are in everyone's
mouth to-day and forgotten to-morrow. The fact
is, he is too busy a man and too much in earnest,
even when he is carried away by some theory or
some scheme whose merits he alone can descry, to
be epigrammatic. Epigrams are the product of
a rested brain. It is after men have well slept
that their wits are brightest; the dullest intellects
are fertile in arguments against getting out of bed.
The brain that is curdled with all-night sittings is
in no condition to condense the wisdom of many
into the wit of one. Hence Opposition speakers
are more brilliant than Ministerial, for they have
more leisure and more sleep too, since they are not
compelled to make a House. But to return to
Mr. Gladstone. If he be not a "master of flouts
and jeers," it does not follow that he is, therefore,
incapable of coining phrases that will live. To be
buried in Remains or Jest-books, the common lot
of the wittiest epigrams, the smartest repartees,
and the pleasantest conceits, is not immortality.
The Oratory of the House.
65
The phrases most likely to live need be neither
clever nor striking, but they must be happily
turned and easy to remember, and such as may
come in handily on many occasions, and adapt
themselves readily to a variety of circumstances.
When Lord Russell (Lord John) noticed, in the
House of Lords, that some statesman whom he had
in a certain debate expected to see there was not
present, and said of him, paradoxically, that he was
66
conspicuous by his absence," he coined what be-
came a stock phrase in the language because it
supplied a daily want, namely a concise mode of
expressing a state of things of frequent occurrence.
Now phrases of this kind abound in Mr. Gladstone's
speeches. To mention a few-"within measurable
distance," "holds the field," "judicious mixture,"
"the dim and distant future," and so on. In
estimating the worth of such phrases as these the
fact, however, must not be lost sight of, that their
utterance by the most eminent statesman of the day
at once gave them currency. We humbler mortals
may issue just as good coin but we cannot as easily
get it into circulation.
There is no speaker in the House of Commons
that approaches Mr. Gladstone in copiousness of
vocabulary, in earnestness of manner, and in
F
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#
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66
Four Years in Parliament.
energy of delivery. Mr. Gladstone's chief faults
are his diffuseness and his prolixity. A working
man whom I knew summed these up admirably
in a criticism of a celebrated speech made by
Mr. Gladstone many years ago, at Blackheath,
which he had heard. He said, "If Mr. Gladstone
had spoken a great deal less he would have said a
great deal more." Consequently there are, in my
judgment, many speakers more impressive. Lord
Hartington is an impressive speaker, and has
become more so since he has been the acknow-
ledged head of what may be destined to be the
most powerful party in the State. He is no orator,
if to wrap up fallacies in fine phrases and pass
them off for truths be oratory, but he is wonder-
fully effective. I never heard Lord Hartington
until I became a Member of Parliament, and in no
public man was I ever more deceived. I had
formed a notion, from what I had read of him in
the Press, that as a speaker he was a ponderous
failure, and that his position in the House was due
mainly to the personal regard felt for a politician
who numbered honesty amongst his qualifications
-that he was, in fact, a sort of Goodman Dull-
respectable, especially as the heir to a dukedom,
and, like all respectable folks, honourable, but not
The Oratory of the House.
67
interesting. Never was man more mistaken. Of
Lord Hartington's great abilities there could, I
saw, be no doubt. For statesmanlike grasp of the
real questions in issue, for clear arrangement of
matter and incisive speech, I consider Lord
Hartington, in the present House of Commons, to
be unequalled. His delivery is thick and uneven ;
he has few, if any, graces of voice and action; but
he is by no means a monotonous speaker. When
he intends to be emphatic he lets you know it, and
I am acquainted with no one in the House who
can vary his style so aptly to suit the tone of the
debate or the subject under discussion. But above
all these powers shines conspicuous the straight-
forward honest character of the English gentleman;
and honesty is still the best policy in the House of
Commons.
Mr. Chamberlain as a speaker I admire because
he is so clear and concise, and because he combines
two qualities or powers not often found together,
the power to reply readily and effectively, and the
power to make a well-arranged opening statement,
the latter by far the rarer power of the two. On
the Ministerial side of the House Mr. Goschen's
style of oratory most resembles Mr. Chamberlain's ;
but although equally effective in its way, it is not
**
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Four Years in Parliament.
quite so bright and cheerful. Mr. Robertson, the
Lord Advocate, is one of the most polished
speakers in the House. If I described his speeches
as "neat," I should give a false impression of them,
for neatness in a speech suggests some sacrifice of
vigour; yet the word occurs to one in this con-
nexion, I suppose, because he is singularly happy
in his choice of words, and so conveys delicate
shades of meaning with a precision wanting in the
speeches of less copious though more boisterous
orators. The connoisseur in speeches, who likes his
humour, like his wine, dry, will thoroughly enjoy
Mr. Robertson's way of enforcing his points. I
might mention many other speakers of great
excellence, as, for example, Mr. Balfour, who for
sustained logical argument and dialectical powers
has exceeded all our expectations; but as I am
supposing myself to be addressing a Parliamentary
novice, I would say to him, Find these out for
yourself, and save me the invidious task of distin-
guishing between their differing merits.
You will now, after some study of the best
models, desire to make your first speech. Whilst
I should deprecate too great haste in this matter,
I should yet warn you against undue delay,
lest letting "I dare not, wait upon I would," and
The Oratory of the House.
69
putting off from time to time the terrible moment
—and it is to most men a terrible moment-you
should lose your nerve and sink into the ranks of
the voiceless, the men who have often desired to
speak, but have never plucked up courage enough,
or who have spoken once and failed, and feared to
face failure again. I do not include in this class
those useful men who have never had any inten-
tion to take a prominent part in the debates, but
who do good work on Committees, where their
ability, sound sense, and business habits are of
great service to the country. These men can speak
if they choose, and occasionally in the Committee
stage of a Bill or in private business speak briefly
and to the point. By the voiceless I mean the
men who have the capacity to speak and the desire,
but have missed their opportunities, and who now
stifle the qualms of conscience which they must
sometimes feel with the adage that if speech be
silvern, silence is golden.
Your constituents, too, will begin to look for
your name in the Parliamentary Reports. Call to
mind the circumstances of your own election.
Which among your many merits was the one
oftenest insisted on by those who advocated your
claims at public meetings? Was it not this: that
70
Four Years in Parliament
:
being a fair speaker, as speakers go, you would not,
like their late member, be silent in the House?
You can still, I doubt not, recall the impassioned
tones of your chief platform supporter: "Return
Mr. Blank to Parliament, gentlemen, and you will
be represented by a man who will make his voice
heard in that Assembly. Mr. Blank will not, like
our late member, be a dumb dog. He will not, like
the lady in the song (this was always a telling hit),
sit silently shelling green peas' (loud cheers), but
will make his mark in Parliament, and take part in
the debates with credit to himself and advantage
to the country." Electors who have successfully
carried their man like to have their own good
judgment endorsed by the popular voice. Their
man must advertise himself in some way, so that at
the least they may not be reproached by their
opponents with having returned a nonentity to
Parliament. You can begin modestly by asking a
question. Say that you chance on a paragraph in
a newspaper wherein is described what seems to
be an act of injustice towards an Indian fellow-
subject, and you see, as by inspiration, that your
opportunity has come. Accordingly, you ask the
Under Secretary of State whether his attention has
been called to the case of one Ram Chunder
The Oratory of the House.
71
Loblolly Bhoy, a talookdar of Bundelaragbag, in
the Jugglepoor district, who is reported to have
been fined five rupees by the local magistrate for
fishing for nuggers during the close time, and
whether such action on the part of the magistrate
is not a distinct violation of Article 2001 of the
Indian Penal Code. You get your answer, and
think no more of the matter until shortly after-
wards you encounter an influential supporter, who
greets you with effusion, and expresses his delight
at seeing your name in the paper as the asker of a
question in the House. "Thought you'd make
them sit up, sir, eh?" says he, with a chuckle, and
as he speaks he wrings your hand warmly, and,
inclining his head slightly to one side, gazes at
you fondly out of half-closed eyes, as though you
were a recent purchase, say a horse, that had
more than equalled his expectations. Now these
are feelings that a Member of Parliament cannot
afford to ignore. Hence, to some extent the pro-
tracted debates that generally take place, at the
beginning of a Session, on the Address. When one
is asked to speak in public without having time to
get up a special subject, one always selects "the
political situation," because that is a topic which
admits of much breadth of treatment. The same

72
Four Years in Parliament.
may be said of the general debate on the Address.
Speeches can be let off then which have already
seen service on the platform or which can be
utilized for that purpose afterwards. Consequently
men speak on the Address because it is the best
opportunity they are likely to have of delivering
a carefully prepared oration in the style most
familiar to them—the all-over-the-shop style. By-
and-by, when the House gets to business, and
measures requiring special knowledge come to be
considered, speakers of this stamp will leave the
field to less gifted beings. But to return to your
first speech. You will have no difficulty in finding
an opportunity to speak if you do not mind
speaking to an empty House on an empty stomach
in what is called the dinner-hour-that is, from
about 7 o'clock to 9 or half-past. Your chance
may possibly come quite unexpectedly. You are
listening to the debate, or are occupied with your
thoughts, and do not notice how the House thins.
Presently you see someone sidling towards you.
It is one of the Government Whips. This gentle-
man has a remarkably pleasant manner, and is so
affable too. He asks most kindly whether your cold
is better. You have not had a cold, but you reflect
that he cannot be supposed to bear in mind every
The Oratory of the House.
73
member's malady, so you reply cheerfully that it is
much better. He is quite glad about this. "That's
all right. Do you dine here to-night?" You say
that you do, but not just yet. He then informs
you that a good many members on the Ministerial
side are dining out to-night. It is a great shame,
when they know the Government want to keep a
House; but they will go. By-and-by he becomes
more communicative still. He tells you how many
supporters of the Ministry are in the House or its
precincts, and how many of the Opposition, and
implies that in the event of a division it would be
a touch-and-go thing, and that even a count might
be fraught with peril. He is so confidential in his
way that you almost feel as if you were the chosen
depository of the Cabinet secrets, and when he
affirms that the only safe course is to keep the
debate going till "our men come back, you
readily assent. He is down upon you in a twink-
ling. "Then we may depend on you, if no one
rises, to keep the ball rolling. That's all right,"
and off he goes in search of another victim to
"follow on." Your first impulse is to fly the scene,
but you resist this as unmanly; your second, to
acquire some Dutch courage at the bar in the
lobby. Before, however, you can make up your
""

74
Four Years in Parliament.
mind, the member who is addressing the House
gathers up his papers preparatory to an effective
finish. He sits down, and there is a moment's
pause. You are on the point of rising, when up
jumps another of Mr. Parnell's young men. What
a relief! You breathe again. Clearly it would
be preposterous to remove the representatives of
Ireland from the Imperial Parliament. How lost
we should feel without them! But even Irish
eloquence has its limits, and when this gentleman
resumes his seat you know that your time has
come. You rise, and are named by the Speaker.
The prospect before you is not encouraging. On
the Ministerial bench there may be a law officer or
two, and perhaps a junior lord. The front Oppo-
sition bench is a desert; but the scene behind it is
more animated, for there you are treated to an
exhibition of that nightly spectacle, the vanishing
member. Your audience becomes scantier and
scantier. You catch a glimpse in the doorway of
that most trusted of your friends, Trueman.
Surely he will support you! No, he has gone with
the rest. You fancy you guess his errand, and
that presently he will return, bearing in his
sympathetic hand the glass of water which each of
you has long since pledged himself to supply to
The Oratory of the House.
75
the other in his need. You are wrong. Whilst
you, parched and husky, are ploughing your way
through your notes, your friend is cracking a
bottle, as they say in the old farces, of dry
champagne, with a genial acquaintance to whom
he pleasantly imparts the information that when he
left the House poor Blank was up with not a soul
to listen to him. To support a man in the dinner-
hour is the last test of friendship, and should never
be exacted. Well, it is over at length. You get a
nod from the Treasury bench in kindly recognition
of the fact that you have answered the call of duty,
and you have the report in the newspapers to look
forward to. You open your Standard, say, next
morning, to find the following record of your first
appearance: "The debate was continued by
Mr. O'Trigger, Mr. O'Moreso, and Mr. Blank.”
But perhaps you consider yourself too great a swell
to be utilized in this fashion. You have, or you
think you have, a reputation which should secure
you against such a fate. At College you were
president of the Union. You have since figured so
creditably on the platform that you set a fancy
value on your public appearances, and decline to
speak at any but big meetings. In your own
words, you draw the line at fifteen hundred. Any
76
Four Years in Parliament.
זי
lesser audience you feel to be beneath your merits.
A judicious hint or two in the proper quarter will
soon spread abroad a knowledge of your views on
this matter, and you will not be troubled by the
Whips. They are mortal, and no fonder of a snub
than other men. Your object I take to be to make
an effective speech in a full House. I tell you
candidly that I doubt the wisdom of your policy.
You had much better take your chance when you
can; speak to the point on a subject of which you
know something, and not trouble about your style
or the impression you will create on the House.
But as I am sure that I should not convince you,
I
will not argue the question. You take your own
course, then, and await your opportunity. It may
be long in coming. A friend of mine nursed a
glass of water for a fortnight, and then never let off
his speech. The worst of this expectant attitude is
that the longer you wait the less inclined you feel
to take advantage of the opportunity when it does
occur. You get sick, too, of the whole business,
and your speech does not improve by keeping.
Every day's continuance of the debate suggests
additions to or subtractions from it, until at length
the original design is so metamorphosed that you
hardly recognise it. Then, by standing on your

The Oratory of the House.
77
merits, so to speak, or the order of your going, you
excite curiosity and arouse expectation. Failure
in such a case is the more to be dreaded.
However, you persevere. Your notion is that since
there are many good speakers in the House, and
since most questions that come up for debate are so
well worn that nothing new can be said on them,
your best chance of attracting attention and
making a speech something out of the common
way is to adopt a striking style. Le style, c'est
l'homme, you repeat to yourself. Ultimately, your
opportunity comes. In a fairly full House, which
grows fuller as you proceed, you achieve a decided
success; in the slang of the day, you "score."
From the first you have the House with you.
Your epigram might have been composed yester-
day, it seems so crisp. You introduce your
humorous interlude with the light touch of a
master. You enforce your argument without
labouring it, and you lead up to your retort with
such skill that it has all the air of an impromptu.
Summa ars est celare artem. This hackneyed
quotation reminds me that you make one mistake.
You give a long and not well-known passage from a
classical writer of antiquity in the original Latin,
You should remember that to know Latin and

78
Four Years in Parliament.
Greek is in the present day the mark of a pedant,
and that the only use of the Ancients is to supply
figures of speech to the Moderns. But, this
blemish excepted, if you do not quite come up to
your expectations, you do not fall far short of them.
A Minister who follows you later on pays a
handsome compliment to the honourable member
whose "brilliant contribution to the debate" must,
he feels sure, have been appreciated by all sections
of the House. You receive a hurried note or two
of glowing commendation from some more or less
prominent members which you read with a warm
gush of pride. So this is fame! How good it is!
And how easily acquired! You live on your
speech, and on the flattering comments in the Press,
for weeks, and you think yourself, what some have
already styled you, the coming man. In a month
or two's time it dawns upon you that your speech,
although as fresh as ever in your own recollection
—and no wonder, for you often inwardly repeat it
with never-failing satisfaction-has nearly, if not
quite, passed out of the minds of others. You
begin to suspect that to achieve fame is one thing,
to retain it another; and that the favourable im-
pression created by your first essay will be dis-
pelled if you do not shortly follow it up. To do
The Oratory of the House.
79
this needs even a greater effort than your first
speech entailed, for you are now as much afraid of
yourself as you then were of the House of
Commons. You dread to fall below the high
standard you then reached.
However, I will assume that you have nerve
enough to make a second attempt. You will try,
of course, to repeat your success on similar lines.
It is egregious folly on your part, but you will
commit it. You compose your epigram, you study
your light banter, you manufacture the source of
interruption which will bring in your retort, you
search the Scriptures for your humorous analogy.
In short, you make ready to out-do yourself in the
completest way. At length your chance comes.
There is a little stir of expectancy as you rise,
which pleases you. You make what you think a
good start with something clever. It falls flat.
Your friends even are mute. The House does not
like clever men at any time, and least when they
show off their cleverness. You proceed, and
presently get a cheer or two, but they have not the
right ring about them. The House knows by this
time that your main object is not so much to
discuss in an argumentative style the subject of
debate, as to win applause in the way in which you
-
+
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Four Years in Parliament.
won it on a former occasion. Now this is treatment
that the House resents. It is not a theatre for
young stars to scintillate in whenever they please,
but a place of business, in which grave affairs of
State have to be transacted. It is all very well for
a new member to make a hit once. He has to
show off his parts, and give a taste of his quality,
but after this he must take his place in the ranks
with the rest and go to work simply and straight-
forwardly on the matter in hand. His real merits,
if he has any, will be discovered and valued soon
enough.
But to return to yourself. You are now conscious
that the House is in a very different mood from
that in which it was when you first addressed it.
This puts you in a fluster. Your good points do
not seem quite so good now, and you are half-
ashamed to put them. Your epigram smells of the
lamp. You never even get off your retort, for
when you challenged contradiction no one spoke.
There is a buzz of conversation around you, and
you just catch the words, "Making a fool of him-
self, eh?” which do not reassure you. You forget
Presently a
your composed sentences and wander.
cry of “
Question" is raised. You are plucky, and
stammer on, when "Order, order, order!" resounds
The Oratory of the House.
81
through the House. Whilst you are wondering
what it all means, a friendly hand pulls you down,
for the Speaker is up. "I must remind the
honourable gentleman that his observations are
somewhat discursive, and must request him to keep
to the point." Discursive! Good heavens! you,
who pride yourself on the neatness and conciseness
of your periods, discursive! You feel disposed to
give in, and remain in a sitting posture, but a
neighbour whispers, "All right, old man, go on."
So you rise again, signify your intention to obey
the ruling of the Speaker, an announcement that
every member makes when the Chair interposes, as
if he had any option in the matter, and resume your
discourse. It is, however, all over with you now.
You struggle on bravely for a second or two, but
presently go dead lame, as lame as a cab-horse, and
after a shambling finish sit down-on your hat.
Probably you have, in truth, done not so badly as
you suppose, but what crushes you is the contrast
you draw in your mind between the striking
success of your first speech, and the failure of your
second. You recover from your depression a bit
under the sympathy of your friends who are very
hearty in their condolences. "Do you good, old
fellow;" "Just what you wanted to take the
G

82
Four Years in Parliament.
conceit out of you;" "Never say die, my boy;
better luck next time." If you take this last
advice, you may yet do well, but the best thing
that could happen to you would be for someone to
take you by force and compel you to talk twaddle
in Committee every night for a month; the worst,
that you should take your failure too much to
heart, become soured, blame everybody but yourself
for your shortcomings, and ultimately become a
member of the noble band of Neglected Geniuses.
Bittersweet is a Neglected Genius. Hear him
now, in his favourite corner of the Smoking Room.
"If this sort of thing goes on I shall vote against
the Government some fine day. Indeed, I have a
good mind to tell old Smith so myself. (The
Genius always affects familiarity with the great.)
It would serve them jolly well right too, 'pon my
soul it would." He has been recounting at after-
dinner length the history of his vain endeavours to
secure the countenance of the Ministry to some
scheme of legislation which would cover him with
undying fame, and thus concludes the sad recital.
It is a way with the Neglected Genius to threaten
a wavering of allegiance in order to draw the
attention of the leaders of his party to his
unrequited merits. He seldom puts the threat into
The Oratory of the House.
83
execution, though, to show what he could be
capable of if driven to extremities, he will some-
times give an earnest of worse deeds by walking
out of the House on the eve of a division. "Tis
then that the neglected one is seen at his best.
"Here you are! here are all your fine legislative
qualities, all your high-toned Constitutional princi-
ples a-growing and a-blowing," he seems to say, as
with a modest mens-conscia-recti air he sails down
the House and sniffs the freedom without. The
Whips in the doorway, men not wanting in courage
in the ordinary way, are taken quite aback by the
display of such independence and virtue.
"Aye
lobby?" they say to him mechanically; but he
heeds them not. As he pushes through the crowd
of senators struggling in the entrance his lip curls
and the words of the poet elevate him: "Be not
like dumb driven cattle-be a hero in the strife."
When the division is over he affects a kindly
interest in the result, to intimate that he is mortal
like the rest of us. "I did not vote, you know," he
explains, with just a shade of pity for the inferior
beings who did.
It may be suspected, from admissions let slip in
unguarded moments, that the Neglected Genius is
occasionally influenced by motives more personal
•
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Four Years in Parliament.
than patriotic. "I'll tell you what it is," he will say,
"it is of no use to be too civil to your party leaders.
You must be rough on them if you want them to
respect you. Look at Randolph. How did he make
his reputation? Did he sugar his leaders? Not a
bit of it. Gave them pepper, sir, pepper. Talk of
ability! Well, I don't deny him ability-he can
pick other people's brains with any man—but it
wasn't ability that brought him to the front. No,
sir, it was impudence-cheek, if you like it better;'
and so on. Although the Neglected Genius seldom
condescends to a speech, especially if his merits in
that direction have been misappreciated in the
early stage of his career, he is yet a believer in the
policy of keeping oneself well in evidence. It is
he who questions Ministers in a minatory style.
Indeed, it is quite a treat to hear him, he makes so
brave a show over the business. "Mr. Speaker, Sir,
I beg to ask my right honourable friend the
Secretary of State for the Circumlocution Depart-
ment question number nine hundred and ninety-
nine which stands on the paper in my name," is a
mouthful which, well rolled over the tongue, can
be brought out in highly effective style. By a
little art, too, the sensation may be prolonged. It
is not easy to satisfy the Genius. He is not to be
* A HON W wit,
The Oratory of the House.
85
put off with a soft answer, and no one is keener
than he in scenting a chance for further display.
Hardly has the Minister resumed his seat, or as
often as not found an uneasy perch on the knees of
a much crowded colleague, than the Genius is at
him again. “Mr. Speaker, Sir, arising out of the
answer of my right honourable friend, I beg to ask
my right honourable friend whether he wishes the
House to understand that the Government assent
to the proposition that the whole is greater than
the part?" Loud cheers from the Opposition
greet this query. It is felt to be an embarrassing
moment for the Minister. That official, desirous to
give as small a handle as possible to his questioner,
is commendably brief. "Yes, sir," he replies, half
rising from his comrade's knee. "Then, sir,"
triumphantly exclaims the Genius, "I beg to give
notice that in consequence of the extremely un-
satisfactory nature of the answer of my right
honourable friend, I shall take an early oppor-
tunity of calling the attention of the House to this
subject, and shall move a resolution." Cheers
again from the other side of the House. Crawley
on the front Opposition bench nudges Jawley and
whispers, "They are going to pieces over there.
See how their own men distrust them.
Hear,
86
Four Years in Parliament.
hear." The one side of the House always cheers
the Neglected Geniuses of the other side. It is
kindly meant. It is to encourage them in their
career of usefulness. Neglected Geniuses do not
as a rule secure that appreciation of their merits
which they aim at by such tactics as these. Do
not, therefore, let your sense of disappointment at
your failure or your dread of another fiasco induce
you to join these blighted beings. Besides, the
profession is overcrowded.
It is not, however, failure and its consequences
only that may ruin your prospects of political
advancement. Success of a certain kind may be
equally fatal to them. Say you have some sense of
humour, and that by what you deem a happy
chance you find the House in the right vein one
night and tickle it to laughter with your way of
dealing with the subject under discussion. A little
will do it, for we are ordinarily so dull that the
thinnest joke is a relief, and takes as readily as
the weakest judicial witticism in a court of law,
though that of course is helped to "go" by the
sycophantic snigger of the junior bar. No power is
more fascinating in its exercise than the power to
excite one's fellows to laughter, and once success-
fully put forth, the temptation is almost irresistible
The Oratory of the House.
87
to resort to it oftener and oftener, until at length
the member who yields to such temptation comes
to be regarded as a professional joker, or licensed
jester, and nothing more. The Member of Parlia-
ment who thus deliberately lays himself out to
amuse the House forfeits all other claims on its
attention. He may be as able as you please, he
may hold the soundest views on the greatest
political questions, but once let him figure as a
farceur and the House will never suffer him to be
anything else. We have a few celebrities of this
kind in the House now. Whenever they rise we
expect them to keep us on the broad grin, and feel
defrauded of our just due should they, by some
misjudgment of their true position, chance to sink
into sense. That the jokers who are something
more than mere jokers-men who know that, if it
were not for the fatal reputation they have created
for themselves, they might take a useful part in
the transaction of the business of the country, and
even aspire to guide the national policy-feel
acutely the false position in which they have
placed themselves, is manifest by the piteous
efforts they make to escape from it. Unable to
keep the attention of the House when they address
it in any style but the jocose, they write long

88
Four Years in Parliament.
letters to the newspapers, in which, with all the
gravity of genuine statesmen, and often with
marked ability, they criticise the policy of Min-
isters and of the leaders of their own party, and
enunciate their own; or they parade on platforms
as reformers of abuses, redressers of evils, economists,
financiers, and so forth-all to no purpose; their
position in the House is not one whit bettered ;
they can secure no following. No party, no section
of a party, however small, will submit to be led by
its funny men.
Let me conclude with a word or two of warning.
Should you, whose aim I trust may be higher than
that of amusing the House of Commons, be unable
sometimes to follow the drift of a speaker's remarks,
or fathom his meaning, recollect that a Member of
Parliament is obliged to weigh his words (often to
find them wanting, I doubt not), and to express not
the opinions he really holds, but such as will give
least offence to his constituents, or compromise him
least when some question now only looming in the
dim and distant future comes within the range of
practical politics. (See how useful Gladstone's
phrases are!) Thus many representatives of agri-
cultural constituencies will dally with Fair Trade,
although in their hearts they may be convinced
The Oratory of the House.
89
k
that any form of Protection would be disastrous to
the commerce of the country. The man who spoke
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, in the House of Commons, would make a
reputation by the singularity of his conduct.
Again, you may wonder that some members,
clear-headed enough in the ordinary way, straight-
forward enough in the ordinary way, are at times
so difficult to understand as to their drift and
meaning. Well, Demosthenes found a mouthful of
pebbles no impediment to distinct utterance, but it
is not recorded of him that he tried to speak with
his tongue in his cheek.
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Four Years in Parliament.
THE EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY DEMANDS
ON MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.
SOME time since, in my capacity of Member of
Parliament for a certain constituency, I assisted at
the opening of a new club intended to advance the
prospects of the political party to which I belong.
In the course of my remarks, being somewhat
gravelled for matter, and knowing, from experience,
that the mention of his lordship's name would be a
certain draw, I expressed a hope that Lord
Randolph Churchill might one day be induced to
visit the club and address its members. Resounding
cheers greeted this sentiment, and shortly afterwards,
as I was leaving the building, two or three young
men pressed round and eagerly demanded whether
I thought there was any speedy prospect of the
event I had indicated taking place. To them I was
compelled to admit that I feared there was no such
prospect. Marking their evident disappointment, I
The Extra-Parliamentary Demands.
91
explained that when a statesman had reached the
position attained by Lord Randolph Churchill his
speeches would naturally assume the character of
declarations of policy, and that, consequently, regard
for the public interest would compel him to silence
much oftener than might be the case were he in
Opposition, or were he a less distinguished member
of his party. I was reminded of this incident on
reading a speech of the noble lord wherein he con-
gratulated his hearers on the absence of that flood
of oratory which in the Gladstonian period used to
inundate the country during the Recess. This,
indeed, is not the first intimation he has given of
his opinion that the time of a statesman may be
better employed in learning the duties of his office,
or in mastering the principles of good government,
than in making speeches on platforms. It will be
remembered that when the Conservatives took
office in the summer of 1885, Lord Randolph
Churchill declined to canvass Woodstock in person
(and so in the opinion of party managers ran the
risk of losing his seat there), on the ground that he
had just accepted the Indian Secretaryship, and
felt it to be imperative upon him to acquaint
himself with his new duties, and inform himself
with regard to the important subjects he would have
J
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Four Years in Parliament.
to consider. At a subsequent period, too, it was
announced that he had refused invitations to
address public audiences for the reason that the
time of the Ministry would be fully taken up with
the work of preparing the measures they proposed
to submit to Parliament. Both by precept and
example, therefore, Lord Randolph Churchill gave
his followers sound practical advice-advice simple,
indeed, and to be summed up in the old adage, ars
longa, vita brevis. To understand the science of
government we must study it, and this we cannot
do if we fritter away the brief life which is here our
portion in the frequenting of political gatherings
and the making of political speeches. I wish his
followers, and, indeed, all who interest themselves
in public affairs, would take this advice to heart,
for I venture to affirm that the demands made on
the time of a Member of Parliament both by his own.
constituents and by others, if he be an effective
speaker, are so many and various that if he were to
meet a considerable portion only of them it would
be at the sacrifice of much more important duties.
A man's own constituents have naturally great
claims upon him, but there is a tendency unduly to
press even them, and often with the best intentions
towards the representative himself. After the
The Extra-Parliamentary Demands.
93
opening of the club which I mentioned at the
beginning of this article I walked home with a
constituent of whose devotion to his party and to
myself I entertain no doubt, and whose services
have been freely rendered and most valuable to me.
This gentleman, talking about the club and the
benefits to be expected from it, said, with perfect
simplicity I am sure, "What a capital thing it
would be if you could look in at the club of an
evening once or twice a week or so. It would make
you very popular, and help to keep the party
together wonderfully." I fear I was too vehement
in my reply, for I said, "God bless my soul, what
are you thinking of? From 52 to 104 evenings
a year spent popularity-hunting at a political club!
The notion is preposterous, and not to be entertained
for a moment." The good soul, not to be driven
quite off his point, murmured something to the
effect that I need not spend the "whole evening
at the club. It would suffice if I "just looked in,
don't you know"-a modification of his original
suggestion which I did not think fit to notice, and
the subject dropped. Now, the worst of it is that
this gentleman was not merely speaking with a view
to my interests and those of the political party to
which we belong, but was expressing the sentiments
94
Four Years in Parliament.
!
of a great number, perhaps the majority, of my
supporters in the constituency. Their idea is that
it is the first duty of a Member of Parliament to
nurse his constituency so effectually in various ways
as to make his re-election sure on the next occasion
that he should have to seek the suffrages of the
voters. I need not argue that this is an imperfect
conception of the chief functions of a legislator,
whose highest duty it should surely be to master as
thoroughly as he can the principles of Constitu-
tional government, and to inform himself on the
main subjects which are likely to engage the atten-
tion of the Legislature. But, however imperfect a
conception of a Member's duties it may be, there
can be no doubt of its prevalence. Apart from
its tactical aspect, it forms the basis of, or the excuse
for, most of the demands which are made on the
time and purse of a Member of Parliament. The
invitations which are showered down on one to open
bazaars, take the chair at meetings of all sorts and
kinds, and say a few words on this occasion or that,
almost invariably state, either directly or by impli-
cation, that political support may be expected to
follow from their acceptance. As a fact the pro-
moters are mainly anxious for the presence of a
more or less conspicuous individual likely to attract
The Extra-Parliamentary Demands.
95
others, and who, if unable to come in person, will
supply the deficiency with a donation to the funds
of the institution in which they may be severally
interested. From their point of view their conduct
is intelligible enough, but, in their desire to further
various good objects, they do not sufficiently con-
sider certain truisms, namely, that there is a limit
to human capacity, that a man cannot be in two
places at once, and that, if he accede to all the
public demands that are made on him, he cannot
sit quietly at his desk and study as he should the
bearings of grave political questions.
I am far, indeed, from saying that a Member of
Parliament should not, from time to time, come
amongst his constituents. I hold it to be essential
that he should do so, not only in order to keep in
touch with them, but also to learn their views on
matters of local interest. It would be an excellent
plan for the persons who have a practical knowledge
of the wants of a particular district to assemble now
and then for the purpose of discussing those wants,
and to invite the attendance of their representative.
At present a Member of Parliament has to glean
bits of opinion here and there as best he may in
casual conversation with individuals, some of whom
may be ill-informed, whilst others, having private

96
Four Years in Parliament.
interests to serve, may be biassed in their views.
Local debating clubs, or parliaments, might be useful
in this respect if local subjects were discussed in
them by practical men; but this is seldom the
case. The questions for debate are usually well
worn, and such as have a general and not a local
bearing. For instance, I have before me a notice of
the subject which, at the moment of my putting
these words on paper, is in course of discussion in a
local parliament. I find it to be the notorious
Bradlaugh case revived, and I am tempted to think,
although my absence from the scene may be com-
mented on (for I believe I am a member of the
Government), that I am more usefully engaged at
home than I should be were I taking part in so
profitless a debate. The most frequent speakers in
these assemblies are young men whose chief aim is
to practice oratory, or old stagers who speak on every
subject without knowing more of one than of
another. The business men who are familiar with
the wants of a district do not frequent such insti-
tutions. There is not enough reality about them
for practical men, and if there were, such men would
probably prefer to spend an hour or two of well-
earned leisure at a place of amusement rather than
at a debating society. If in some informal way a

The Extra-Parliamentary Demands. 97
Member of Parliament could occasionally meet
those of his constituents who were best informed of
the wants of the locality and talk over matters
quietly with them, he would be the last person to
grudge the demand such conferences might make
on his time, seeing that one hour's conversation
might save him many of laborious and, perhaps,
fruitless study.
It is not therefore of the, so to speak, legitimate
calls upon a Member of Parliament that I complain,
but of the illegitimate. Look, for example, at the
public dinners he is expected to attend. Political
réunions are, of course, a necessity. A banquet
arranged in order to give an opportunity to a
leading statesman to rally his forces, or deliver an
opportune declaration of policy, ought to be well
attended by his supporters, and an annual dinner
may be the means of keeping together the members
of a valuable political organization; but in many
ways besides these this banqueting business is, in
my humble judgment, overdone. For instance, the
leading adherents, say, of Mr. Blank, desire to cele-
brate his election and glorify themselves by giving
him a dinner. The promoters of the entertainment
naturally wish to make the affair a success. A sure
means of attaining this end is to be able to announce
H
98
Four Years in Parliament.
•
that Mr. Blank will be supported on the occasion by
a number of public men well known in the political
world. On the principle of "nothing venture,
nothing have," invitations are boldly sent to a
Cabinet Minister or two. Failing these and other
lesser celebrities, who can plead the pressure of
official duties, the organizers of the dinner have to
fall back on mere ordinary Members of Parliament.
Perchance Mr. Blank himself may have attended
some similar celebrations in other constituencies. If
this be so, no time is lost in writing to the repre-
sentatives of such constituencies to remind them that
one good turn deserves another, and to express a
hope that as Mr. Blank was present at the banquets
given in their honour, so they also will support him
on a like occasion. Personal friends of Mr. Blank
in the House, too, will be looked up, as also any
members who may happen to be connected, however
remotely, with the constituency he represents.
Ultimately these labours will be rewarded, and
some dozen or so of legislators will waste a whole
evening because they do not like, or do not think it
politic, to resist the pressure put on them to swell
the triumph of Mr. Blank and his party managers.
In boroughs, smoking concerts have lately come
into fashion in connexion with political organiza-
The Extra-Parliamentary Demands.
99
tions, and the member for the division is expected
to take the chair at these social gatherings once or
twice in the course of the season, and if he be
popular and good-natured, his services in a similar
capacity will be in request in other constituencies
besides his own. The very considerable extension
of the Primrose League throughout the country has
greatly multiplied the demands on the time of
Conservative members, as has also the new scheme
of dividing the country, for the purposes of political
organization, into district unions federated with a
central union in London. I speak not of church
openings, missionary meetings, agricultural dinners,
the fêtes of friendly societies, and so on, for their
claims are long established and well recognized. I
content myself with putting it thus-that the
extraneous duties of or demands upon individual
members of Parliament in these latter days have
increased, are increasing, and ought to be dimin-
ished if the country wishes to have an efficient
House of Commons.
The average Member of Parliament, be it remem-
bered, is either a professional man, or a commercial
man, or a man whose private concerns are of
sufficient magnitude and importance to him to
require a fair share of his attention. In each case
Uor M
+
#
H 2
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Four Years in Parliament.
he is much occupied with matters external to his
legislative labours. It may be said that men with
these ties should not seek to enter Parliament, and
that only men who can devote their whole time to
their constituents and their parliamentary duties
should have seats in the House of Commons. I
entirely dissent from this view. We want practical
men in that House, men with a varied experience
of life, self-made men, men who in their struggle
upwards from poverty to wealth have necessarily
acquired habits of business-habits which they will
retain when called upon to deal with the affairs of
an Empire. An assembly containing a great pro-
portion of such men will faithfully represent the
wants, the feelings, the sympathies, and the opinions
of average men and women. Now, men of this
description have generally in the course of their
professional and commercial career also served a
kind of apprenticeship to parliamentary life in
various public offices. The qualities which have
contributed to their success in their several avoca-
tions will, in most cases, point them out to their
fellow-citizens as men fitted to take a useful part in
the local government of the country. There will
be among them justices of the peace, Poor Law
guardians, churchwardens, managers of schools,
The Extra-Parliamentary Demands.
101
trustees of various institutions, and members of
divers local boards. It is even desirable that so far
as possible they should continue to hold these
offices after their election to seats in the Legisla-
ture, in order that they may from time to time renew
their acquaintance with and their knowledge of
local life. Should county boards be constituted, and
local government generally be remodelled on larger
lines, prominence in the local parliament will
naturally mark out a man as fitted to play an
effective part in the Parliament at Westminster.
In any case what I may term the business members
of the House will be men who, from some or all of
the various causes I have mentioned, will be occu-
pied in important affairs, which they should not for
light reasons be forced to neglect.
There are, of course, a number of useful and pro-
mising members of the House who, with ample
means and leisure, choose to devote themselves to
the service of the State, rather than spend their
days in amusement or inglorious ease-eldest sons
of peers, for example, and the like. These, from
their position in society, are generally men of the
world, and by dint of application many may acquire
habits of business. There are, too, a few who owe
their seats mainly to their connexion with the
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Four Years in Parliament.
organization of their party. Fluent platform
speakers, they have for years been engaged in pro-
moting the interests of others in divers constituencies,
until at length, rewarded by invitations to contest
seats in their own right, they find themselves in the
haven where they would be. But the business men,
as I must call them for distinction's sake, constitute
by far the most numerous, as they are the most
valuable, section of the House; and if we were to
exclude them on the ground of their inability to
devote their whole time to Parliament and their
constituents, by whom must they necessarily be
succeeded? By elderly men retired from active
life, by men of leisure unversed in business, or,
worst of all, by professional politicians, who hope
that a seat in the House may in some way conduce
to their worldly advantage. At present the Par-
nellites are the only professional politicians in the
House, and neither their example here nor that of
worthies of a similar stamp across the water is cal-
culated to impress thoughtful men with the value
of their services to any but themselves. The point
I am now enforcing, therefore, is this: that the
most useful Members of Parliament are the men
of business; that men of business cannot have
acquired a right to be so styled without contracting
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103
public and private ties which, especially if they are
in the prime of life, must continue to engage some
of their attention; and that, consequently, although
all feel the inconvenience and the harm of the per-
petual calls on the time of a Member of Parliament,
some of which I have indicated, the most useful men
in the House are the most injuriously affected by
them.
I have said that the efficiency of the House is
likely to be impaired unless the extraneous demands
on members are diminished, and the proposition is
almost self-evident. The best class of men of
business will avoid a political life if it is to involve
such sacrifices as those I have mentioned, and the
House will lose their experience and knowledge of
the world. Many of the men who are willing to
serve their country in Parliament will be compelled
to confine their attention to a single subject for
want of time to attain that mastery of affairs and
that capacity for grasping the salient points of a
situation which distinguish the statesman from the
mere politician. Some of these effects are visible
now. How few men there are in the House suffi-
ciently grounded in the principles of government as
applied to a highly-civilized, and therefore complex,
society, to be able to expose on the instant the

104
Four Years in Parliament.
fallacies latent in some wild theory pompously pro-
pounded by a pragmatical professor! What is the
result? Why, that individual rights, themselves
the foundation of true liberty, are in the very name
of this same liberty whittled away because those
who would defend them, having no clear notion of
the line they ought to take, waste their energies in
combating details, only to find, when the struggle is
over, that they have virtually conceded the prin-
ciples for which their adversaries contend. Even
leading statesmen, men whose capacity to refute
error none can doubt, often exhibit a large spirit of
compromise in regard to questions which ought to
admit of none, for the reason, I imagine, that they
haye to take into account the ignorance of their own
supporters for it is ignorance, and not impartial
discrimination, which, when all sound argument is
on one side only of a controversy, admits that much
is to be said on the other. The single-subject men
or specialists are with us now, and are on the
increase, but I doubt if we are much the wiser for
them; we are certainly not the happier, for they arẹ
most of them bores. There must always be men
better informed on certain subjects than on others.
On legal matters one naturally looks for guidance
to the lawyers. But I do not refer to these. I refer
The Extra-Parliamentary Demands. 105
to men who, owing to the mass of extraneous work
thrown upon Members of Parliament, abandon the
hope of attaining a statesmanlike grasp of affairs,
and deliberately apply themselves to the study of
some one question, often a very small one, to the
neglect of all others, so that on that question at any
rate they may establish a reputation. In so far as
the study of their selected subject gives them a
mastery of facts it is useful; but the common run
of specialists exhibit a tendency to take a contracted
view even of their selected subject, and to twist
their facts to suit that view. Mere knowledge of
their subject does not content them. They want
to be thought authorities upon it, and they are
consequently forced to take up a particular line or
mode of dealing with the subject which shall dis-
tinguish their treatment of it from that of others,
and announce theirs as the only remedies likely to
abate the ills that may affect it. Nothing can
exceed the pedantic airs which some of these
specialists give themselves. I was talking to one
of them some time since, and happened to hazard
an opinion on a matter on which most educated
persons are fairly well informed, in ignorance that
I had touched on his hobby. I shall not soon forget
the superior manner in which, without deigning to

106
Four Years in Parliament.
pursue the discussion, he suppressed me.
"Ah,"
said he, taking his cigar from his mouth, "that's my
subject, you know." Then he replaced his cigar
and gave it his attention.
Besides, it is an evil that certain subjects should
be appropriated by certain men by no means in all
cases the fittest to deal with them, because, by a
sort of unwritten etiquette or feeling of courtesy,
other men hesitate to take a leading part in the
handling of questions, which, session after session,
have been supported by the same advocates. Who
would deprive Mr. Labouchere of his ewe lamb ?
Yet, who can doubt that if a serious attack upon the
House of Lords were really intended, some weightier
politician should have the conduct of it? The fact,
too, that the specialists are, I may say, without
exception, men not in the first rank of statesmen-
and I doubt if a single instance could be adduced
of a specialist rising to the first rank-shows that
this concentration of energies on one subject,
whereby some members are enabled to bear the
pressure of numerous extra-parliamentary engage-
ments, can only have a limited application if the
country is to be served by its best men. Great
questions of policy, too-foreign, imperial, British,
financial, commercial, and so on-on all of which a
The Extra-Parliamentary Demands.
107
Member of Parliament, if he have not to express an
opinion, has at least to give a considered decision,
do not admit of the same easy mastery as the
favourite subjects of the specialists-capital punish-
ment, anti-vaccination, contagious diseases, local
option, and the like. Without, therefore, pursuing
the matter further, and adducing, as I might,
instances in detail of impaired efficiency in the
deliberations and work of the House of Commons
due to the unreasonable calls upon the time and
attention of members from outside sources, I think
I have said enough to show that an evil exists, and
that the best way to remedy it, if I may use a phrase
borrowed from a section of the House for which I
have but scant respect, is to leave Members of
Parliament "severely alone."
}
108
Four Years in Parliament.
SOME OF OUR CORRESPONDENTS.
BEFORE I became a Member of Parliament, I had,
in common with the bulk of my fellow-creatures,
endured much for the privilege of flourishing in
what will be know to the historian of the future as
the Circular Age; but when I was entitled to
append the letters M.P. to my name, the communi-
cations that reached me by every post, comprised,
besides the ordinary run of prospectuses, with which
I was familiar, a vast number of appeals for support
and assistance, which but for my public position I
should probably not have received, or, having
received, should have turned a deaf ear to. In my
canvass of my present constituency-the Great
Western, or Little Witley Division of Dampshire—
I was not specially struck with the thews and sinews
of the younger part of the population; but there
must be some noticeable athletes among them, to
judge from the number of associations my division
1.
.
Some of our Correspondents.
109
contains for the advancement of manly sports. I
would as soon trust myself on an albatross as on a
bicycle, yet at this very moment I am president of
at least a dozen clubs of "cyclists," and next week
I have to present prizes to successful competitors on
the "cinder path" (I believe this is the sporting
term) for their proficiency in what I shall be forced
to describe as a delightful pursuit which nothing
but my devotion to my country prevents me from
indulging in. Cricket an Englishman is, of course,
bound to support and profess an admiration for, and
I own that I like to look on at a game, though I
never was an adept at wielding "the willow "-again
the sporting phrase. I shall not lack opportunities
of gratifying this taste if each of the clubs of which
I am president, or patron, or honorary member,
expects me to attend its matches. I thought
clergymen were the most persistent beggars in
existence, and I shall have a word to say in respect
to them presently, but the young athletes run them
close. They are more wary, too. They do not
unblushingly ask for money, but they are convinced
that if the name of a person so justly eminent as
myself were to be announced as the president of the
All Muggletonian Cricket Club, that institution
now, they regret to say, far from flourishing-would
110
Four Years in Parliament.
at once spring into new life again. Say I consent.
It is then, I reflect, midwinter; I shall certainly
not be asked for a subscription till the next summer.
Write me down an ass. In a week's time I receive
an invitation to attend a concert (under my own
distinguished patronage) in aid of the funds of the
All Muggletonian Cricket Club, together with a
bundle of tickets-five shillings each-which I am
requested to pay for and distribute among my
friends. But not cricket and bicycle clubs alone
engross me. The Royal Rovers (hare and hounds),
the Reckless Rushers (football), are but types of
many kindred associations of ardent youths who all
behold in me the sole source of their success in the
future. If I will but become a member (honorary),
not merely will all manly sports, of which they are
sure I must be a staunch upholder, receive an
immense impetus, but (and here is where the art-
fulness comes in) the personal popularity which
would attach to me in consequence could not fail
to be advantageous in certain contingencies" which
the present aspect of the political horizon suggests
may not be far distant."
I lay no special stress on race meetings, hunt and
tradesmen's balls, bazaars, and so on, because all
the resident gentry, in common with myself, are
Some of our Correspondents.
111
called upon to support these, but there are many
appeals made to me from distant and unknown
quarters which they escape.
"Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?
'The Man of Ross,' each lisping babe replies."
So wrote Pope. If the Man of Ross lived in our
day, he would proceed on quite different lines. I
assume, for the purpose of illustration, that the
Man of Ross was a clergyman and rector of the town
which his benevolent deeds have immortalized,
though, as a fact, I believe he was a layman. He
might adopt various lines. This would be an effec-
tive one—
"THE WYE TOUR. Important and Interesting.
"No one who has traversed the lovely valley of
the Wye can have failed to notice, towering con-
spicuously above the picturesque little town of Ross,
and suggesting the holiest reflections by its heaven-
ward direction, the elegant spire of the venerable
parish church. Close inspection of this ancient
pile would, however, reveal the fact that this splen-
did monument of the piety of our forefathers was
rapidly falling into decay. Such, indeed, was the
case but a short time since. So ruinous was the
112
·Four Years in Parliament.
condition of this beautiful edifice-a chaste specimen
of the Florid Gothic order-that the rector, the
Rev. John Kyrle, resolved to have it thoroughly
examined, with a view, if necessary, to its com-
plete restoration. He accordingly consulted that
eminent architect, Mr. Queerson, F.R.S., F.A.S.,
F.S.A., &c., &c., who gave it as his opinion
that not only was the spire in such a dangerous
condition as to require to be taken down and
rebuilt, but that the whole edifice needed extensive
renovation."
66
Here would follow a summary of the report of the
eminent architect, including the estimated cost of
the restoration, and further statements to the effect
that a certain sum (wholly insufficient) having been
subscribed, the work was commenced, extensive
additional repairs were found necessary, and large
extras" incurred, so that in the end, the original
estimate having been greatly exceeded, when the
church was reopened (by the Lord Bishop of the dio-
cese), there was a debt upon it of an enormous amount.
The appeal would conclude somewhat in this way:
"This debt has since been reduced by the sum of
£1.178. 9d., the proceeds of the sale to the con-
tractor of the old oaken fittings, which have been
replaced by neat structures in pitch-pine; but with

Some of our Correspondents.
113
this exception, no substantial reduction in the
liabilities incurred, amounting to over £6000, has
yet been effected. In these circumstances, the
rector confidently appeals to all supporters of our
grand old Church of England, and especially to
the admirers of the beautiful scenery to which
the spire of Ross church (so conspicuous an object
since its re-erection in Bath brick) lends an
indescribable charm, to come to his relief in the
difficult situation in which he finds himself placed,"
and so on.
The above would stand as a not unfair specimen
of the communications of this nature which reach
me by each morning's post. All are characterized ·
by certain unvarying features. The good folks
who desire to restore their churches, build their
chapels, their mission halls, and their schools, begin
the work either without counting the cost, or with-
out having any reasonable expectation of obtaining
the funds they know will be required in order to com-
plete it. They are consequently reduced to the pitiful
necessity of plaguing every person to whom any
sort of publicity attaches to help them out of the
difficulties their own recklessness has brought
them into. In prospect of the restoration of his
church, ordinary considerations of prudence desert
I
✔

114
Four Years in Parliament.
the average parson, especially should his brethren
in adjoining parishes have lately succeeded in
restoring their churches. He then goes into it
"baldheaded."
From the point of view of the subscriber, parsons
who err from excess of caution may, however, be as
objectionable as the plungers. These are the folks
who circulate far and wide a neat history of the
building they desire to restore, which, strange to
say, is invariably an edifice marked by features of
There is a
an unusually interesting character.
unique monument in the chancel in alabaster, sup-
posed to represent Sybilla de Fydelstyck, the third
wife of Hugh de Fydelstyck, a knight of fame in
the Holy Wars, surrounded by their combined family
of sixteen sons and sixteen daughters. It is sup-
posed that the poet Shakespeare, as a boy, in a
boyish freak (his youth being admittedly riotous)
may have chipped off the nose (which is undoubtedly
missing) of the sixteenth daughter. Possibly, too,
the redoubtable Oliver may have stabled the steeds
of his buff-jerkined followers in the side aisle, now
used as a vestry, distinct traces of crib-biting being
visible on an ancient oaken coffer therein, which
may have served as a temporary manger, and so on.
Appended to this circular is a list of subscribers
Some of our Correspondents.
115
which bears painful evidence of repeated parsonie
importunity.
Miss Dobbs
Do. do. 2nd Donation
Do. do. 3rd do.
£ s. d.
10 0 0
500
210 0
Do.
do. Special Spire Fund
100
Miss Clack.
500
Do.
do. annually (5 years)
0 10 0
&c.
&c.
Applications for money for some specific object
are not, however, the only appeals that reach me.
I am ashamed when I think how utterly ignorant I
have hitherto been of the very existence of institu-
tions and associations of the most praiseworthy
character which I am now for the first time invited
to support. There is the Mad Dogs' Convalescent
Home, with a long array of lady patronesses; the
Harmless Idiots' (male and female) Mutual Improve-
ment Society; the Domestic Cats' Choral Union;
the Housemaids' and Christian Young Men's Sunday
Out Society; the Silly Society; and those admirable
and justly valued institutions, the Society for the
Prevention of Women and Children, and the Society
for the Propagation of Small Pox in Populons
Places, which latter, I find, was awarded a gold
medal at the late Health Exhibition.
•
I 2

116
Four Years in Parliament.
It is wonderful, too, what interest a large class of
public benefactors take in my health and general
physical and mental well-being since I became a
Member of Parliament. There is great danger, I
am kindly informed, of serious injury to the lungs
and bronchial tubes by sudden changes from the
heated atmosphere of the House to the cooler air
outside. If, however, I will but wear Dr. Dash's
Nasal Protector, which is "rather ornamental than
otherwise," I need be under no apprehension on this
score. A "troublesome tickling in the throat" is,
I am assured by one professor of the healing art,
who has made diseases of the larynx his specialité,
frequently produced by the atmospheric causes above
mentioned. The remedy prescribed is a petrified
pellet (containing in a concentrated form ozone and
carbonic acid gas) to be placed on the base of the
tongue as far back as possible, and allowed to dis-
solve slowly in that situation, where, I am told, that
it forms "no impediment whatever to free articula-
tion." "Relaxed or clergymen's throat" is, it seems,
a malady from which even senators may suffer. It
is caused, I am informed, by unequal tension of the
vocal chords combined with an irritable condition of
the uvula, and can be effectually cured by taking
several deep inspirations daily through the patent
Some of our Correspondents.
117
lung-inflator. This handy instrument, which, to
judge from the accompanying diagram, would seem
to be of the size and shape of a Whitehead torpedo,
is highly charged with a compound which gives off
a vapour exactly resembling the delightfully pure
air to be found on the summit of Chimborazo. I
am advised, if I would desire to address the House
of Commons in a sweet, clear, resonant, ringing
voice, which could not fail to penetrate into every
nook and cranny of the chamber, to take six deep
inspirations through the inflator just before rising
to speak. I should like to address my fellow legis-
lators in tones answering to the above description;
but I do not see how I am to get the inflator into
the House without incurring a suspicion of dynamite,
and I am persuaded that if this preliminary diffi-
culty were overcome, any attempt to utilize the
instrument in the presence of the collective wisdom
of the nation would clear the House as effectually
as my own voice.
So I pass, with a shade of disappointment, from
this class of correspondent and turn to another,
which I would term the Class of Inquisitors. These
are the gentry who are engaged in the compilation
of works of a biographical character, which cannot
fail to interest the present generation, and, at the
118
Four Years in Parliament.
same time, be of incalculable service to the historian
of the future. I am desired by one to send him a
concise sketch of my life, my family, and my works,
literary or otherwise, if any. He has, he adds,
addressed a similar communication to my brother
legislators, who have, in the majority of instances,
most favourably received it. The answers he pro-
poses to publish in an attractive form, at a price
varying with the binding and general get-up of the
volume. He invites my subscription to the work,
and, to save me trouble, encloses an order form and
a stamped and addressed envelope.
Another member of this class sends me a printed
list of questions, something similar to those required
to be answered by intending life-insurers. This
gentleman is apparently a believer in Mr. Galton's
theory of the transmissibility of mental qualities, for
he institutes the most minute inquiries into my
ancestry in the direct line, and, should any of my
collateral relatives chance to have distinguished
themselves, he would be glad to hear of them and
their deeds.
One of the most simple-minded of these pur-
veyors to human curiosity is the gentleman who
is making a collection of the election addresses
of members and candidates, with a view to their

Some of our Correspondents.
119
publication. Possibly these compositions are about
the last of their literary efforts which politicians
would wish to see revived in a shape handy for
reference. I did not comply with the request
of this confiding individual, who, I suspect, has
discovered, ere this, the unprofitable nature of his
venture.
I forgot to mention in their place, which, I take
it, would be among the Inventors of Petrified
Pellets and Lung Inflators, the Professors of
Elocution. Only two have sent their circulars to
me, though I should judge, by the quantity of
indifferent speech-making one is compelled to listen
to, that there ought to be business enough for at
least a score. One of these very two did give me some
instruction many years ago, from which I might
certainly have profited had I been of an age to
consider the utilities. My first lesson in elocution
at the hands of this gentleman often recurs to my
mind. I was bidden to stand behind a desk at the
end of a long class-room, and make a speech on
some simple subject-freshmen, dons, senior
wranglers, or the like common objects-selected
offhand by our instructor. On a bench in front
were some dozen or so ingenuous youths, prepared
even to scoff at Demosthenes had he failed in
120
Four Years in Parliament.
pebbles and taken up with preceptors. Behind them,
at the opposite end of the room, stood the reverend
elocutionist himself. I went through my task
lamely enough, as the event proved, for, taking my
place at the desk when I vacated it, our instructor,
for my benefit, and to the infinite merriment of the
ingenuous youths aforesaid, proceeded to give a
broad, but seemingly striking, imitation of myself.
He hummed and hawed as, I suppose, I hummed
and hawed; he lounged inelegantly at the desk as,
I suppose, I lounged; he fingered and toyed with
books and small articles lying on the desk as, I
suppose, I fingered and toyed with them. In fine,
he illustrated my own awkwardness in so graphic a
way that the picture has always remained imprinted
on my mind. I remember that at the time, youth
though I was, I thought the hints thus conveyed
useful, and the teacher of elocution not so con-
temptible as some would regard him; for, returning
one evening through the quadrangle of the college
where the professor held his class, on some young
blades at an open window striking an attitude, as
was their wont when they saw us, and exclaiming
in theatrical accents, "My name is Norval!" I
fiercely defied them from the safe level of the court,
and assured them that my name was not Norval,
•
Some of our Correspondents.
121
nor anything like it, intelligence which, with
unseemly gestures, they derided. Now-a-days the
instructor most needed by Members of Parliament
would be some daring soul who would teach them
when not to talk.
+
122
Four Years in Parliament.
:
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PRIMROSE
LEAGUE.
I REGRET that I was not in my place in Parliament
when an instructive discussion took place on the
political pressure exercised by the Primrose League,
as I should like to have given my personal
experience of the working of that tyrannical organ-
ization. I lay stress on the words " personal
experience," because to judge from the reports of
the speeches of the chief denouncers of the League,
these gentlemen seem to have informed themselves
on the subject they brought forward after the
fashion of the German naturalist, who, having never
seen a camel, evolved a life-like description of the
animal from his inner consciousness; or of the
ingenious English man of letters, who, proposing to
write a treatise on Chinese metaphysics, looked up
"China" and "metaphysics" in an encyclopædia
and combined the information. Although, there-
fore, the matter was admirably handled by
The Primrose League.
123
those who called the attention of Parliament to
it, some additional weight may be given to their
arguments by the simple narration of plain facts
as they have come under the notice of a practical
observer. Most of the honourable members who
took part in the debate in question laid stress on
the social tyranny practised under the sanction of
the Primrose League. I wonder at their modera-
tion. I am clear now that they could not have
spoken from personal knowledge. "Social tyranny,"
indeed; why, it is actual physical torture! Let a
victim explain. Students of history will remember
that it was an unpleasant custom of our ancestors
to subject their enemies, and possibly their political
opponents, to the peine forte et dure. This form of
torture, consisted, if I mistake not, of forcing the
doomed man to swallow water until he was ready to
burst. Now, I aver, without fear of contradiction,
that this is a common test of political principles
among Primrose Leaguers; only instead of water
they use tea-and such tea! Often inferior
Souchong at two shillings, and frequently the
coarsest Congou at sixpence less. It is at the so-
called entertainments of the League, or as they are
sometimes openly termed Primrose teas, that this
test is imposed. Attend one of them, and you will
124
Four Years in Parliament.
believe me. If on such occasions you decline the
beverage altogether, you are suspected of dynamite ;
if you swallow less than half-a-dozen large cupfuls,
good measure, running over into the saucer, pressed
upon you by winning, but withal imperious" dames,"
your Conservatism is regarded as blemished. The
elder Mr. Weller, at the celebrated meeting of the
Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction
Ebenezer Temperance Association, declared of one
lady who had imbibed nine and a half breakfast-
cups of tea, that she was "a-swellin' wisibly " before
his eyes. This distension of the human frame-
chiefly the male human frame--owing to the cruel
practice above mentioned, is fast becoming a fixed
characteristic of Conservative politicians. A glance
at the Ministerial benches in the House of Commons
will confirm the substantial accuracy of this obser-
vation. But it is not only physical torture to which
we are subjected by the Primrose League. This
baleful institution works upon the mind, and after
the manner of certain ascetic bodies, exposes its
members to various forms of humiliation, in order to
curb the unruly and reduce them to a slavish and
spiritless obedience to the behests of the leaders of
the League. I will give two instances in point,
where I was myself the unhappy subject of this
The Primrose League.
125
system, and will invite you, in fancy, to accompany
me to the scene, and picture it as I describe it. I
am asked to deliver an address to the members of
a certain "Habitation." I appear on what the
lawyers call the locus in quo, in due course, and am
welcomed by the active and intelligent secretary
(all secretaries have a prescriptive right to be
termed active and intelligent). "Ah, Mr. Blank,"
says he. "How are you? Glad you've come" (as
if it had not been an arranged thing for weeks ! ),
awfully busy, capital meeting, we shall have a
roomful. They've come to hear Melville Jones, you
know." "So there is to be another speaker,” I say
to myself, "some local celebrity, doubtless, fully
prepared to cut me out and bring down the house.”
I hang about in a purposeless way for a bit, as it
seems to be nobody's business to pay me the
slightest attention, and listen to what seems to be a
kind of tuning up behind somewhere. Presently
the secretary passes again. I hail him. He is a
cheery man, with a pleasant wit. "Walk up, walk
up, just agoin' to begin," he says with a smile, to
intimate, I suppose, that the Ruling Councillor is
prepared to take the chair. I control my feelings
at this desecration of an occasion on which I am
to deliver an oration that may, metaphorically
126
Four Years in Parliament.
•
:
speaking, shake England to its core, and ask as
calmly as I can, "By-the-by, what is to be the
order of proceedings?" "What, haven't you a
programme? Let me see" (scanning one that he
takes out of his pocket), "I know you are down
somewhere" (I should think so, indeed). “Oh, yes,
here you are, between Letty Smith and Melville
Jones!" "Letty Smith and Melville Jones!" I
repeat to myself with inward bitterness and
numerous suppressed notes of exclamation; then
aloud, interrogatively and plaintively, for I feel
that there must be something very wrong some-
where," Miss Smith? So ladies are to speak, eh?"
"Oh dear no. She sings, and a very nice girl, too.
This is a sort of mixed entertainment; mixed to
match the company, don't you know" (and he
smirks with satisfaction at his wretched joke);
66
songs and speeches and that sort of thing." And
it is for "that sort of thing" that for weeks past I
have taxed my brains for epigrams, antitheses,
flowers of rhetoric, and so on! However, I am in
for it now, so I pursue my inquiries, but without
any real interest in the affair. "And Thingummy
Jones, what does he do?" I ask. "Oh, he's our big
gun, capital fellow, comic singer,
going to give us
something in character, I'm told." During this
The Primrose League.
127
conversation I glance over the programme, and
seeing that in the title of Miss Smith's song the
word "love" occurs once, if not twice, I say with a
shade of reproach, "I am to be sandwiched, it seems,
between a sentimental singer and a comic?"
"Exactly," he replies cheerily, as if he thought
this an excellent joke which it was pleasant of me
as well as clever to see the point of and appreciate.
However, he does not ruffle me, for I am a chastened
spirit now. So in due course, and humbly, as
becomes the obedient instrument of an organization
as powerful and as ruthless as the Inquisition, I
abandon all my high hopes of swaying by winged
words the destinies of an empire, and deliver a
scratch speech huddled into fifteen minutes to an
audience dying to hear Melville Jones in his cele-
brated song,
"The man who went to bed in his
boots."
This was a low depth to sink to, but I sank lower
afterwards. For a budding statesman to contend for
the favour of the crowd with a comic singer is bad
enough; but to be entered for competition, so to
speak, with the brute creation, is worse. Yet this
happened to me once. I was to assist at a grand
open-air demonstration of the League, in the West
Midlands. Before the speeches began I strolled
128
Four Years in Parliament.
66
about the ground in the company of some member
of the League told off to escort me. All the
rustics around were making holiday, and as we
passed a group, one exclaimed," Here er be, George,
look !" It was a proud moment to be recognized,
even in the wilds, and by these unsophisticated sons
of the soil. I called up my best smile, the one I
always use in my own constituency, and was pre-
pared to bestow it upon them, when thus replied
"George," who stood facing me, "Wheer be 'im,
Bill? I doan't see 'im." I was on the point of
introducing myself in an affable manner when Bill's
rejoinder startled me. Why, shure, in this eer
tent, stoopid," and looking round a placard caught
my eye, "Now on view, the most wonderful Natural
Phenomenon in the World. Admission 2d." So
this-a pig with eight legs, as it turned out, and
not the future, well, say Postmaster-General (the
height of my ambition at the moment shows the
depth of despair to which the incident had reduced
me)-was what the yokels came forth to see. The
bustle drew my companion's attention to the centre
of attraction. "Oh, here's the pig," he exclaimed
buoyantly; "perhaps you would like to have a look
at him?" I think I crushed him. "Sir," I said
in tones in which grief and indignation struggled
The Primrose League.
129
for mastery, "if the individual" (I laid stress on
this word) "so richly endowed by nature is to
support me on the platform, an introduction may
be advisable, otherwise I can dispense with his
acquaintance. And permit me to add, sir, that I
do not consider pigs and politicians to constitute a
judicious mixture."
Humiliating ordeals such as these which I have
just related are not imposed upon the rank and file
of the League. They are tests applied only to mem-
bers actively and seriously engaged in carrying out
the grand objects of the institution-the restoration
and perpetuation of the dark days of Tory ascen-
dency. Your ordinary shilling-a-year subscribers
know nothing of the inquisition, the secret conclave,
and the torture chamber. To them the League
is an association whose political significance is
subordinated to its festive character. The young
folks join the Primrose League because it affords
amusement, and gives them opportunities of meeting
which they might otherwise be without-in a word,
because it throws them together, and proximity, the
adage tell us, is the soul of love. Young couples
who obtain their first introduction to each other
while masquerading, so to speak, as knights and
dames, or damsels, of the Primrose League, would
K

130
Four Years in Parliament.
naturally desire further opportunities of inter-
changing political sentiments. What pleasanter
pastime could there be for a knight and a damsel of
the League than to wander hand in hand on a fine
summer's evening by the borders of some purling
stream, and discuss, say, the Irish question? There
are various ways, of course, of doing this. There is
the parliamentary style, for example, which, if I
were asked my opinion, I should not adopt on such
an occasion. I should rather try something simpler
and more conducive to reciprocity of feeling, say,
the Kathleen Mavourneen style. However, the
young people, in a case like this, may safely be
trusted to select their own topic, and treat it in
their own good way. I merely wish to illustrate a
view of the influence of the League which has not,
I think, been sufficiently considered. I have myself
been at the pains to collect statistics on the subject,
and find from a careful computation of the figures
that my contention is amply borne out by facts.
Since the establishment of the League there is con-
clusive proof that 33.28 per cent. more single
women have been engaged to be married than was
previously the case; and that of these no less than
91.042 per cent. were successfully settled; and this,
after all, is the grand point-a point that often
The Primrose League.
131
requires a deal of leading up to. The returns as to
widows are naturally more uncertain, but it may be
taken generally as to them that through the agency
of the League a large proportion of repairs have
been promptly and satisfactorily effected.
The truth about the Primrose League has now
been told. It is a secret society which retains its
hold over the few by terror, and over the many by
encouraging a favourite pursuit of a doubtful cha-
racter, to wit, matrimony. Can we, therefore, any
longer wonder at the power and popularity of this
remarkable political organization!
11
K 2
132
Four Years in Parliament.
>

CONSERVATISM IN THE COUNTIES.
I HAVE been staying with my distant cousin, Tony
Lumpkin, down in Dampshire. For years we had
lost sight of each other. He, when he succeeded to
a small patrimony, the wreck of a once great estate,
affected something of the country gentleman's con-
tempt for a struggling professional man, whilst I
had no mind to be snubbed by a thick-headed rustic,
as I then thought fit to term him, whom the acci-
dent of birth had invested with the ownership of a
few hundred acres of land and the headship of an
ancient family of respectable dullards. So we had
drifted apart. When, however, I became a Member
of Parliament, and good Tony had recovered from
the shock occasioned by the fact that a man " with
nothing to recommend him but his wits," as he
pleasantly put it, should have won the suffrages
of an important constituency, he signified his
appreciation of my success in the agreeable shape of
Conservatism in the Counties.
133
a woodcock and a brace of pheasants, and so we
renewed our acquaintance and presently met.
With much naïveté he assured me that he had always
spoken of me as a "rising man," that since my
election he had taken occasion to make some timely
allusions to his "cousin the Member," with the
result, as he honestly believed, of some social ser-
vice to himself. Thus, it might be fancy, of course,
still there was the unmistakable fact that of late
his great neighbour, Sir Thomas Topsawyer, instead
of his customary stare of uncertain recognition,
had extended to him two aristocratic fingers, had
actually said, "Ah, Lumpkin, how d'ye do?" and
had looked as if he intended to inquire after his
wife and family. In order, chiefly, as it seemed to
me, to improve these social advantages, Lumpkin,
who used to be something of a Gallio in politics,
though always with a gentlemanly leaning towards
Conservatism, became quite active in "the cause."
He seconded a vote of thanks to the chairman at a
great Conservative meeting in Potterbury, and
during Mr. Gladstone's last administration he more
than once openly proclaimed his belief that the
country was "going to the dogs." But the Prim-
rose League must have the credit of really eliciting
the latent enthusiasm of his character. He is
134
Four Years in Parliament.
seldom to be seen now without a pretty little
enamelled device in his buttonhole, and Mrs.
Lumpkin has quite a handsome brooch, a gift from
her husband, emblazoned with the royal arms in a
style that might put the College of Heralds to the
blush. To the Primrose League, indeed, I am
myself indebted for my visit to Dampshire. There
was to be a demonstration this autumn under the
auspices of the League at Babbicombe, the magnifi-
cent seat of Lord Swadlincote, the Lord Lieutenant
of the county, and they were hard up for speakers;
Lumpkin bethought himself of me, and hence his
invitation to spend a fortnight in Dampshire, where,
by way of further inducement, he added I should
have the opportunity of studying the excellent
system of organization which had been established
by the party in the county.
It is always flattering to one's self-love to find
oneself an object of interest and attention, and I
own that I was gratified with the reception accorded
us. It was clear that the Lumpkins desired, and I
do not blame them, to make some social capital
out of us. We had quite a grand dinner party of
county people one day, with scarcely a clergyman
among them, evidently an unusual function, to
judge by the strain which the enterprise appeared
Conservatism in the Counties.
135
to put on the resources of the establishment. Then
there was the laying of the first stone of a free
library in Potterbury, a ceremony which had been
purposely timed in order that I might take the
principal part in it. I trust that the stability of
the edifice will not depend on the accurate setting
of the block of granite, which, after tapping thrice
in approved fashion, I declared to be well and truly
laid, for surrounded by the civic dignitaries in all
their glory, the clergy in full canonicals, and the
élite of the neighbourhood, I found my position
somewhat embarrassing. It was a proud one, though,
all the same; and when the proceedings culminated
in the presentation of an illuminated address to
me by the mayor and a bouquet to my wife by
his little daughter dressed in white, I felt quite
like Royalty, or, at all events, like the Marquis
of Lorne.
Of course, the chief event was the demonstration.
There had been some debate, it seemed, among the
promoters as to the programme. A few would have
preferred a mere political gathering of the ordinary
type, but when Jobson, the spirited proprietor of
"The Crown and Sceptre," who had hired two extra
brakes for the occasion, gave it as his firm belief that
you wanted to elevate the masses you should have
if

136
Four Years in Parliament.
66
'tight-rope dancing," it was felt that he had struck
the true note. So there was to be a variety enter-
tainment, brass bands, comic singers, M.P.'s, tight-
rope, a balloon ascent, and fireworks, not to mention
minor amusements of a baser sort, such as beer and
skittles. At 5 P.M. the concert was interrupted to
make way for the political addresses. The Member
for the Potterbury division reviewed the "work of
the Session" and left me the "Irish question." I
fancied that I handled this well-worn theme with
some freshness, and as I lounged round the grounds
afterwards with the easy consciousness of duty well
done, I encountered Lumpkin. I saw that he was
-jubilant, and I honestly admit that for the moment
I expected a compliment on my speech. But no,
he was repeating with much gusto the refrain of a
comic song, which, by the way, had struck me as a
trifle too suggestive for that or any occasion-
66
"O, he knows it,
O, she knows it,
O, they know it,
Don't you know?”
Capital," he said, "wasn't it? Just the thing to
impress the masses. I am told they have enrolled
100 new members already. It is wonderful how
the cause is progressing. The Radicals haven't a

Conservatism in the Counties.
137
me.
chance in this division. Besides, our organization
is simply perfect. This gentleman can tell you
that," and as he spoke he introduced me to a
youngish man, whom I had noticed on the platform,
as the secretary of the County Conservative Associa-
tion. He and I had some interesting conversation.
The association was admirably constituted, he told
Lord Swadlincote was president, with a long
and imposing list of vice-presidents, and Sir Thomas
Topsawyer chairman of the executive committee.
Their system was this; for each polling district
they had a chairman, generally a country gentleman
of position if they could get him, a vice-chairman,
generally a substantial farmer if they could find one,
and a committee composed of, well, say farmers
where they could persuade them to act, small trades-
men where they could give up the time, and a
sprinkling of nondescripts, little dealers, and so on,
who sometimes attended when business was slack,
and thus the county was mapped out in a thoroughly
systematical way. What did the association and
its branch committees do? Oh, the central body,
of course, met quarterly, and passed the accounts
and held their annual meeting besides for the
election of officers and for receiving the annual
report. The registration was supposed to be con-
138
Four Years in Parliament.
ducted by the association, but as a matter of fact he
and two or three others managed that with the
assistance of the members for the county, who prac-
tically found the bulk of the money, but, of course,
he reported to the association. As to the district
committees, it was difficult exactly to define their
duties, and, to be precise, they were not all in
actual existence at that moment. It was not always
easy to find the class of men you wanted, and so
they had in some cases to throw two or more dis-
tricts together and work them as one. Were the
labouring classes represented in the association ?
Not so fully as he could wish, but there was certainly
a better feeling among them, and here the Primrose
League came in. The concerts were very popular,
and so were the teas-especially with the women.
How about the Press? Well, there he was bound
to admit the Radicals had the pull of them. The
Potterbury Post was the old-established Conserva-
tive organ, taken in by all the county families, and
by many of the farmers, but the Chronicle—the
Radical paper-seemed to be more popular with the
people, he could not exactly say why, unless it was
that it was conducted with more enterprise and
spirit. But on their part they had "leaflets" which
were widely distributed. He supposed they must
Conservatism in the Counties.
139
have given away some hundreds that day-indeed
the grounds, as I could see, were quite littered with
them. Then these demonstrations must have an
educational effect on the masses. Ah, look, there
was the balloon going up now! See the name?
"The Constitution."
(6
As we wandered in the direction of the tight-rope
on which Signor Totterini, the world-renowned
equilibrist," was shortly to exhibit his marvellous
powers, the conversation turned on the new County
Councils, and I asked whether the seats were likely
to be fought on party lines. No, he hoped not.
The difficulty would be to persuade the county
gentlemen to come forward. Now, if other parts of
the county would only follow the example of Potter-
bury all would be well. There they had great hopes
that Lord Swadlincote himself would stand. True,
nothing was decided, for his lordship had not yet
been formally approached. The fact was, at the
end of the London season his lordship had a touch
of his old complaint-overstrain of the digestive
organs and had been ordered to Carlsbad for the
waters. Thence his lordship had gone, as usual,
north for the grouse shooting, and he was now at
his place in Norfolk shooting partridges. After-
wards he would probably pay a round of visits,
140
Four Years in Parliament.
ending, perhaps, with a few days in Paris, and
return to Babbicombe about the second week in
November, when he commonly shot his coverts for
the first time. Then would be the chance to catch
him, and if his lordship happened to be in the
humour the affair might be satisfactorily settled.
Was his lordship likely to be opposed? Well,
curiously enough, there was already a candidate
before the electors-a Dissenting minister of ability,
who professed to stand on independent principles,
but he would be supported by a good many Radicals,
no doubt, and as he had taken a strong line on the
temperance question, the teetotalers would vote for
him, and so would the anti-vaccinationists, and the
anti-vivisectionists, and the anti-squalling-brat
smackers, and the rest of the large class of persons
who allow their emotions to get the better of their
judgment. I asked if it was not injudicious to
permit this gentleman to have the field to himself
so long beforehand. He thought not; Lord Swad-
lincote was a big fish worth waiting for, and when
his lordship did come forward, his influence, and
character, and standing in the county, and so on,
could not fail to carry great weight.
Among the delighted gazers at the feats of
Signor Totterini we found Lumpkin again, still
Conservatism in the Counties.
141
humming the refrain of the comic song, which
he seemed to regard as a kind of substitute for the
National Anthem, with the additional advantage of
not being a "party tune." "Well," he said, "our
friend has told you all about our organization, eh?
Perfect, isn't it, and yet, would you believe it, the
Radicals claim to gain largely on the registration
this year, and openly boast of turning out our man
at the next general election. Absurd, isn't it, in
face of such a demonstration as this? Why, the
fireworks alone, they say, will cost close upon £20!"
Certainly the set-piece-Gladstone's portrait blown
up with maroons-was very striking, and must have
been a fine lesson for the young folks.
We left Dampshire next morning profoundly
impressed with the prospects of Conservatism in
that county. I am bound also to add that our
visit, short though it was, gave me a clearer insight
into my cousin's character and ability than I had
previously acquired. Lumpkin, like myself, is a
"progressive Conservative." He acknowledges
that we must "march with the times." He is for
"measures, not men." He urges the necessity of
"organization," and, although satisfied with the
attitude of the party in Dampshire, he would,
speaking generally, like to see more "vigour and
142
Four Years in Parliament.
activity" in their ranks, and less "apathy and
indifference." On questioning him, I found that,
although often solicited to take part in the public
affairs of the locality, circumstances had hitherto
stood in his way. For example, he might have
been chairman of the board of guardians, but
unfortunately that body always sits in the season
on a hunting day. He subscribes, he told me,
10s. 6d. a year to the Conservative Association, but
never attends their meetings; they hold them in
the evening at such awkward hours, and, as he
feelingly put it, after a certain time of life a man
"misses his dinner." But his principles are sound,
and he instils them into his family. He has named
his stock bull" Salisbury," and his little girl who
used to call her fox-terrier " Mustard" now calls him
"Randy," while nothing would serve that promising
pickle, Master Tony, on the day of the demonstra-
tion but he must plait the Tory colours in the mane
of his favourite pony. Even the baby has her heart
in the cause, and it was a daily exhibition of un-
failing interest to put to her the question, "Who
will be the ruin of old England?" and mark her
prattling but unswerving reply, "Dadstone.”
LONDON; PRINTED BY WM. OLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
FOUR YEARS IN PARLIAMENT
WITH
HARD LABOUR.
BY
C. W. RADCLIFFE COOKE, M.P.
66
What Mr. GLADSTONE says:-
My only complaint is, that once opened it is difficult to close the
volume. It is a happy gift to tread contested ground in a spirit which
raises no ill blood; and, written as of course it is from your point of
view, I recognise in it an enviable union of fancy, humour, and good
sense." THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE.
66
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
The handsome praise awarded by Mr. Gladstone to Mr. Radcliffe Cooke's
little book on the House of Commons is thoroughly well deserved, and I should
advise any one desirous to gain an insight into the everyday life of an M.P. to
read it. The banter is kindly and the wit is considerable."-Truth.
“A very charming book. It is something more than readable-it is positively
fascinating."-South London Press.
66
Mr. Cooke has an attractive knack of writing, and has made the story of his
parliamentary adventures exceedingly entertaining."-St. James's Gazette.
The enemies of Mr. C. W. Radcliffe Cooke, M.P.-if he have any, which, as he is
a Conservative member, is primâ facie not improbable-are rejoicing because he
has written a book. Their jubilation, however, is premature, for the elegant
little volume with the novel title, "Four Years in Parliament with Hard Labour,"
which Messrs. W. H. Allen and Co. have brought out, provides no opportunity for
the blasphemer, and is very bright."-Pall Mall Gazette.
66
'On the oratory of the House of Commons Mr. Cooke is in his element. Of
Mr. Gladstone he has much to say, and there are also capital bits of description of
the styles of Lord Hartington, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Robertson-the Lord
Advocate-and Mr. Balfour.”—Evening News and Post.
(2)
He
"Mr. Radcliffe Cooke has written another book; and a very good book it is.
Most of our readers are locally familiar with the name of the Member for West
Newington. Mr. Cooke has made himself famous in many directions.
distinguished himself at Cambridge; distinguished himself as a Conservative
organiser; distinguished himself in Herefordshire as a political factor; and he
now distinguishes himself as a cool yet graphic narrator of what happens to a
man when he is sent to the House of Commons.... The whole of the book is
pervaded by a very interesting, reflective, and analytical tone."-Worcestershire
Chronicle.
"To the aspirant to parliamentary honours, and more particularly to such as
wish to address the House with success, Mr. Radcliffe Cooke offers much good
advice, marked by robust common sense, knowledge of human nature, and a
wholesome desire to be perfectly candid with all men. It is therefore a useful
as well as entertaining work-useful because it lets the electors see that the
official life of his Member is not a mere matter of cakes and ale, but a life of hard
work tempered with many disappointments, and some trials from which the
average man is free; entertaining, because Mr. Radcliffe Cooke writes in an easy,
natural style, marked by a good deal of humour. We can very cordially com-
mend these pages to the attention of any electors who wish to understand how
their representatives do their work."-Yorkshire Post.
"It goes without saying that anything emanating from the pen of Mr. Radcliffe
The book, however,
Cooke will be read with avidity by all Herefordshire.
When
seeks a wider field, and unless we mistake not, is sure to obtain it.
Mr. Radcliffe Cooke made his maiden speech in the House of Commons, Par-
liament discovered that which Herefordshire had long known and appreciated,
viz., that the hon. and learned gentleman possessed a ready fund of quaint
humour, and that his speeches were certain thenceforth to be anticipated
with a good deal of relish. Mr. Radcliffe Cooke having long since established
for himself a reputation as a polished and racy speaker, is obviously an authority
on oratory, and his article on that subject as applied to the House of Commons,
apart from its humorous phases, contains sound practical advice to members
anxious to catch the Speaker's eye. From whatever view regarded the book
is capital reading, and ought to command a ready sale."-Hereford Journal.
"The author of this lively and diverting volume certainly possesses the
faculties of observation and critical satire very largely developed. There is
The character sketches are particularly well
not a dull page in the book.
drawn, and the fun is never ill-natured.”—Portsmouth Times.
"This thoroughly diverting book is well worth reading."-Hereford Times.
"Mr. Radcliffe Cooke has produced an exceedingly amusing little book. With
a sharp, but not ill-humoured pen, he depicts what, indeed, are sufficiently
obvious even to outsiders, the absurd and perverse features of modern parlia-
mentary life, especially as they are certain to strike a clever man who comes
into the House fresh from his constituents, and is animated with a reasonable
desire of taking part in public affairs, and of not being a mere ornamental
appendage, or a voting item in the cortège of his party leader."-Newcastle
Journal,
An interesting and amusing volume."-Glasgow Evening News.
:
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