COULD NOT FAIL

Evening Star, Issue 21319, 25 January 1933, Page 9

COULD NOT FAIL

IRON CHAMBERLAIN A HEW VIEW OF HIS CAREER HIS LIMITED RANGE One of the occasions in my life which I most vividly remember is an evening at John Morley’s house in the year 1898, Joseph Chamberlain discoursed to a_ little company over the wine after dinner about polities and his own career. We sat till midnight, and the subject was far frotn exhausted, writes J. A. Spender in the ‘News-Chronicle.’ He spoke with frank disappointment about his position at that moment. He said quite simply and without any boasting that up to the year 1886 he had every reason to suppose that he would in due course become Liberal leader and Prime Minister. Now all that was gone 'owing to Mr Gladstone’s precipitancy in breaking the Liberal Party. He had no illusions; there was only one thing worth being in public life, and that was Prime Minister. If you were Prime Minister you could do what you liked, even if it was only for a short time; if you were anything else, you were always at other people’s beck and call. But, though he was reduced to the second best, he meant to make the very best of tho_ second best, and—addressing the radicals at the table with some vehemence—he_ didn’t care a damn for our jibes at him on_ the point of consistency. He was going to get as much as he could of his original radical programmes out of the Tory Party and pay any price within reason. We might call him an opportunist if we liked; all practical politicians were opportunists, there was a right and a wrong kind of opportunism, and his was the right kind. RADICAL DAYS, This comes back to me as I read the first volume of Mr Garvin’s ‘Life.’ which deals wholly with Chamberlain’s radical days up to the beginning of 1885. What a wrench it must have been, when he crossed over to the other camp, taking with him all this purely democrats equipment and experience, all this highly developed skill and knowledge in the arts of crowd-compelling and agitating described in this volume, and with it a character and disposition obviously designed bv Nature for the perfect radical leader ! Mr Garvin, with his peculiar faculty for concentrating on the event of the hour and seeing it big with fate for what is to come, makes an astonishingly vivid story of Chamberlain’s early career, and at times almost persuades us that the battles of the Education League and the Birmingham Municipal struggles were as titanic _ and momentous as they appear to be in his pages. They had, indeed, a real significance, for the method of the Birmingham group, which he applied successively to the Education League, to Municipal, and finally to political organisation, spread outwards to the whole country; and in both parties alike dethroned the inner coterie of whips, influential persons, and political clubs, which till then had nominated candidates to Parliament and largely controlled political ac-

tion. The much reviled “ caucus,” alleged to “ Americanise our institutions,” is now the normal machinery of l nil parties. . Cnamberlain was right—for his day at all events—in perceiving that there was no way of stirring the dry bones of municipal politics except by infusing into them the political party spirit, ana he got things done in this way which would never have been done in any other way. His record as a local leader is highly honourable and creditable, and on© need not at all grudge him the evident pleasure ho took in wigs being on the green. ' ' SEVERELY PRACTICAL. Checked by a memory winch holds pictures of him only a little later than these days, I cannot quite colour him as Mr Garvin does. I see him as the embodiment of combativeness, with an extraordinary efficiency within a deliberately limited range. His sallies carried far when reported, but on the platform or in the House of Commons ho was quiet, restrained, cutting, bringing his softly-spoken sentences to a biting and sometimes hissing conclusion. Ho was severely practical, and indulged in no flights of imagination. The House of Commons, which, judging from his reputation, had expected to find him a noisy demagogue, was pleasantly surprised at the dapper, well-groomed, accomplished man of the world who actually appeared tfibre. The story was told that in his second session he asked an old and much-re-spected member to tell him frankly how he was doing. “It is all very nice, very nice, Mr Chamberlain,” was the answer, “ but the House would take it as such a compliment if now and again you could manage to break down.” This all through his life was quite beyond his capacity.. One parts with regret, on Mr Garvin’s assurance that they are untrue, with some legends of the political wild oats which Chamberlain was supposed to have sown, in his “ Republican ” days, but in return m get a charming picture of him in his homo and among liis friends. WORK HIS PASSION. He suffered desolating domestic afflictions which plunged him into despair, but he rallied from them to concentrate more than ever on his public work. This was his passion; he had no shame in calling himself a professional politician, and small patience with, amateurs who treated politics as a diversion.

Possibly Mr Garvin is right in saying that he disliked Whigs more than Tories, but his hand was against all aristocratic and privileged persons who treated politics as their preserve and looked disdainfully on the “ new man from the provinces.” He would force his way through them all and get right into the Cabinet at the first time of asking, and when there he would break down their solemnities and proprieties and bring blasts of provincial fresh air into the inner sanctum.

This was the main cause of his quarrel with Mr Gladstone, who. though very hospitable to new ideas, loved the solemnities and proprieties. Again and again as time wont on he was heard saying of Chamberlain and Dilke, “ They don’t know the rules of the game,” and they did not, as ho understood these rules. They had the very modern habit of stirring up outside agitation and taking newspapers into their confidence about differences in the Cabinet; and Chamberlain on the platform constantly used language thought highly improper in a Cabinet Minister. What is more, ho went on doing it in spite of the remonstrances of Queen and Prime Minister. , The disaster of the 1880 Government wr.s, in fact, the unresolved quarrel between Whips and Radicals, which paralysed the Cabinet for decisive action at critical moments; and it must in fairness bq said that Chamberlain himself

contributed not a little to it. Working with Dilko and Morley (as his spokesmen in the Press) and with a group of radical members behind him, he was too powerful to ignore, but not powerful enough to have his own way. I cannot think that his part in the Gordon tragedy was sufficient to require the retelling of that story, but he- was a force to be reckoned with in all domestic affairs, and the German documents reveal that ho and Dilke together busied themselves in foreign affairs in a manner which would have horrified the Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville, if he had known of it. There is more material here than Mr Garvin has used.

Mr Garvin has taken 624 pages to bring bis story up to the beginning of the year 1885. Nothing is long but what seems long, and Mr Garvin’s animated and brilliantly-coloured narrative forbids tedium. If he proposes to publish one volume at a time each will be read by itself and judged by itself. But if he is thinking of his book being finally read as a whole, on what scale must the later and presumably more important parts be, and how will ho get the sense of sequence and climax into so vast a scheme unless he spares himself at the start? The political biographer is always in a difficulty; he must either fill in a background which is familiar to the seniors or take this for granted and write a book which will be unintelligible to the young Whenever there is a dbubt I would give it for the young, but there are risks on either hand.