CHAPTER X

TRIUMPHANT TORYISM

WHEN, as narrated in a former page, the House of Commons, on a snatch-division, censured the War Office for having an insufficient store of Cordite, Lord Rosebery and his colleagues made haste to resign. Lord Salisbury again became Prime Minister, and, addressing the House of Lords on the 27th of June, he said: 'We have but one policy, and that is Dissolution.' Parliament was dissolved on the 8th of July, 1895.

'Milvain,' says Lawson, was sent down to Cockermouth to fight me, but somehow or other I beat him by a majority of 241.

'One of the ridiculous Election Songs which the little boys sang up and down was :

'Sir Wilfrid is a gentleman,

But Milvain is a fool:
Before he goes to Parliament
He ought to go to school,

which was more untrue than most electioneering efforts, for Milvain behaved like an intelligent gentleman. I believe that if he had promised to vote for the Eight Hours Bill he would have got in, but, being honestly opposed to it, he declined "to sell the truth to serve the hour a course by no means taken by all candidates.'

When the General Election of 1895 was ended, it was found that Lord Salisbury had a large majority over Liberals

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and Nationalists combined, and the Tory Government entered on ten years of undisputed power.

This General Election,' says Lawson, was I suppose about the most complete smash that the Liberal Party ever experienced, and was the inauguration of a series of years of the most doleful, deadly, dreadful politics that one can conceive of.

'One cannot but moralize on the reason why the working classes who really hold the balance of power in this country should have taken this line and returned a Parliament determinedly set against all measures really for their good.

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Everyone will have his reason. I have mine, which I think is a good one.

'When the Liberals suffered a great defeat at the General Election of 1874, Mr. Gladstone, writing of it afterwards, said he believed the principal reason of the disaster was that the Liberals were swept away by a "torrent of gin and beer." That torrent really flows at every General Election, and circumstances at times enable it to flow with greater volume, or, rather, prevent more efficient opposition being made to its deadly force. Those who direct this "torrent of gin and beer"-the great brewers and liquor-dealers are always watching their opportunity.

'In 1895 the Liberals had threatened many corrupt interests who know that in the Liquor-Trade they have their surest and most trusty ally, and my belief is that, in this Election, Drink swept the country more thoroughly than it had ever done before. What I mean is that the Liquor-Power was able to take advantage of the disorganization and discontent existing to a considerable extent in the Liberal ranks more than it had ever done before. I may be quite wrong, but I should like anyone to suggest any better reason which made numbers of working men vote against their own

and their country's welfare, except the hold which the LiquorPower has upon them.

'Anyway, the Electorate overwhelmingly supported the new Government composed of Tories and Liberal Unionists, who I suppose may be now said to have started on their career of Imperialism. To what depths of disgrace and disaster that policy has brought us those who read these pages know too well. Whether they will do anything to check the "Torrent of Gin and Beer," who knows? I always think about Drink that it will be "the last Enemy that shall be destroyed "--because it is the strongest, and people are afraid to tackle it.

'Before Parliament met for the Session of 1896, outsiders, by deputation and so forth, did all they could to enlist the new Government on their various sides. The friends of Armenia got no comfort from them. The permanently distressed agriculturists got no real encouragement; but the denominational educationists were almost openly patted on the back.

But the most important and portentous event of the recess, or indeed of modern times, took place on the last day of 1895, when Dr. Jameson invaded the Transvaal with a few hundred men who were promptly met, overpowered, and imprisoned by the Boers. These ruffians were in touch with Cecil Rhodes, who knew all about the Raid; but the question of supreme interest was how much Mr. Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, knew of the intended raid; and that point has not been cleared up at the time when I am writing this.

'Another wondrous revelation of the state of public opinion in this country was seen when some months later, the Boers having released their prisoners-soldiers in our own armythese men who had taken part in this sordid and senseless outrage were brought to England to take their trial.

They were received in the streets with acclamation; they were cheered in the Police-Court where they were committed

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for trial, and it was said at the time that, if a man was dressed in the coat, leggings, and slouch hat which was supposed to be the dress of the raiders, he might calculate on being treated to drinks fifteen times in an hour in the Public Houses by the "Man in the Street." Altogether, never was there such a manifestation of how we cared nothing for whether a thing was right or wrong. I suppose the bottom of this approbation of these criminals was because they had raided the Boers, who years ago had defeated us in fair fight at Majuba. Could anything be more utterly contemptible?

All the excitement caused by these proceedings was seething, simmering, smouldering, and even blazing, when Parliament assembled for the Session of 1896.

'A long, weary, and depressing Session indeed it was, distinguished for the very late hours which we kept—often not rising “till daylight did appear," and on one occasion sitting from 3 P.M. on a Thursday until 1.30 P.M. on a Friday. In looking back, it seems very curious that this sort of thing should have been necessary when this Government had such an immense majority. But a minority when it sets to work resolutely to use all the forms and rules of the House to impede business can do wonders. And really the business which the Government asked us to do was of such a mischievous nature that the Opposition had justification in acting on Lord Randolph Churchill's maxim that "the duty of an opposition is to oppose."

'A Rating Bill, an Education Bill, and an Irish Land Bill were the main subjects of our nocturnal labours and controversies. The two first were good specimens of the usual Tory policy of benefiting the classes at the cost of the

masses.

'But the Irish Land Bill Debates were tolerably entertaining, as there was perpetual growling from the Irish Landlords against the Government for not dealing fairly with them; at times indeed they were almost "nasty." Of course,

the House of Lords came to their rescue; but after much wrangling the Lords' amendments were somehow or other harmonized with the Bill, which was ultimately passed, Balfour announcing on the occasion that "a great peace had descended on the land." I very much doubted whether this grand result would follow, for I remember how 1900 years ago Peace on Earth was announced, not by a Prime Minister but by an angel-the result being that during all these centuries, and up to this very moment, the members of the human race have made it their principal business and their proudest boast to kill one another.

'Still, there is among nations a dislike to seeing other nations indulging in slaughter and massacre in which they themselves have no pecuniary interest, and accordingly one day we passed a Resolution expressing our "sympathy" with the Armenians, whom the Turks, according to custom, were massacring, though with rather more activity than usual. Whether this did much good to anyone I know not. But I fancy that if, some years later, when we ourselves were busy shooting Boers, a Resolution of sympathy for these unfortunate people had been passed by some Foreign Legislature it would have had no effect upon us by way of causing us to cease from their destruction.

The odd thing about the immense preparations for satisfactory and efficient slaughter of our fellow-creatures, on perfecting which we spend so large a portion of our Parliamentary time, is that they always turn out according to the "experts to be miserable failures. At some period we are assured that all the machinery of slaughter, all the arrangements for our fighting men, are most admirable. A few years go by, and the very same experts come down to the House and "make night hideous" by their cries of anguish over our hopeless, helpless state of unpreparedness for doing anything in the way of National Defence.