Gladstone in the House of Commons.

Woodville Examiner, Volume 3, Issue 281, 3 September 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

Gladstone in the House of Commons.

The Scene When He is There and When He is Not— How He Dominates the Entire Assembly—His Power

in Debate,

A London correspondent of the New York Times writes : What parallel in history is there for this 'situation—where the question of free self-government for a whole nation confessedly turns upon the ability of a man seventy-seven years old to be at his best on a certain afternoon ? Could there be a more remarkable illustration of the absolute quality of Mr. Gladstones’s rule in British politics ? No one can understand the marvellous domination until he has seen the House of Commons in the two stages of its being—with Gladstone and without Gladstone. To see the House on any evening when he is absent, no matter how interesting the subject before it may be of itself, or how well the reports may read next morning, is to view one of the least inspiring spectacles conceivable. Indifference is stamped on every face, on the pose of every lolling figure. Deadly mediocrity rules on both sides, and the House yawns in bored acquiescence in its supremacy. Opposition dullards asks questions in perfunctory listlessness ; ministerial dullards answer with routine commonplaces. A spell of drowsiness seems to hang over sparselyfilled benches. Nobody listens to the speaker, or even pretends to be interested in what he is saying. When he pauses at the end of a rounded period to receive the sustaining “ cheers ” of his party, three or four men say “Hear! hearl” languidly, and the rest wearily look at each other, at the galleries, at the ceiling, and slide further down on their cushioned seats. The few Ministers who sit on the Treasury Bench have their hats tilted over on their noses, their chins on their breasts, their legs far out to the dispatch table, their hands buried deep in their trousers pockets. Nobody cares for them, and they care for nobody. The prosy orators drone away, members and ministers saunter out to gossip in the lobby or drink in the smoking-room below, disappointed strangers get up and tiptoe out, amazed that the Parliament of such an Empire should be so stupid a place. But go some night when the premier is there—and note the difference 1 It is such a change as a fairy prince wrought on the enchanted palace. The benches are well filled, and the members—especially tha new members—sit upright and with eyes wide open. The occupants of the front opposition bench look nervously conscious and apprehensive. Every speaker—and particularly if he be a new man—evidences by his manner, his voice, his delivery, that he is chiefly anxious to impress Mr. Gladstone favorably, and that he is really speaking to no one else. If there is a chance that the Premier is to speak, you will find few loungers in the lobby—fewer still in the smokingroom.

There is an indescribable fascination in watching the great man as he sits toward the outer end of the Government bench listening to a debate. It may be that this is not his invariable rule, but at least I have never happened to see him in the House in any other garb than evening dress, with a wider expanse of shirt front than is ordinarily worn even here, where very much linen is the fashion. He leans back comfortably, with one thin leg over the other, and with his eyes musingly fixed on the great mace on the table before him, when in repose. The full top light shines on his long, bald crown, his clustering, gray side-locks, and his shirtfront, and makes him the conspicuous object of every eye. About 10 or 11 o’clock in the evening he always writes his daily letter to the Queen, using a pad on his knee and a quill pen, and it is one of the most familiar of bis curious ways that this occupation never prevents his hearing acutely all that is'going on. All at once you will see him stop writing and screw his head to one side like a very wise old bird, and yon may know that he has heard something which interests him. If the speaking happens to be unusually good he will turn and look at the orator steadily, as if delighted at the discovery of new talent. When leaser lights of the opposition—and the name of these is legion—are attacking him, he customarily draws his head down into his collar and looks stonily at them; but if the assault be from somebody worth listening to, say Churchill or Smith, he listtens more gracefully, expressing on bis strikingly mobile face, as the indictment goes on, all his emotions—amusement, interest, dissent, indignation, scorn, elation. No great actor ever knew better how to show forth more varied feelings in all their intensity on his face. And then to see him nod his head or slowly shake it, in response to some controversial assertion I Lord Burleigh’s nod could not have been more subtly eloquent. When he rises to his feet a great hush falls over the House. It would not be exact to say that all eyes are turned upon him, because he is at all times the focus of observation, but a light of interested expectancy comes into every face. He begins in a low tone of voice, but there is such absolute silence that his first words are never inaudible and rarely indistinct. He has been making notes during the speech he is to answer, but he will not refer to them once he is on his feet. His form as he stands at the side of the table, upon which he lightly rests one hand, does not seem as tall as it really is, so delicately is it proportioned. I wish there were words in which to convey the sound and fibre of his voice, for until you are able to associate this with your image of the man the mental picture falls. It is unlike any other voice, just as Sarah Bernhardt’s is ; it has in itself the power of generating new sensations, new thoughts in the. listener’s mind; it seems to have something of primordial weirdness in its suggestions—like the ocean or the “ forest primeval.” Of oratory, as such, there will not be much. There will be nothing to recall Wendell Phillips or Webster, or to suggest Castelar or Gambetta, It is not even the eloquence of Bright or of Joseph Cowen. There are no gestures, save limited-movements with one hand; there are no swelling outbursts of the voice, no tricks of rounded elocutionary period. One feels only at the outset that a great man is terribly in earnest; then, as the slow, careful, logical sweep of speech goes on one feels that this earnestness is not contagious—one catches its spirit, hangs approvingly upon its development, thrills with enthusiasm at its climax of conclusions. The great orators whom I have named could electrify a legislative assemblage, play upon its emotions at will, blanch its cheeks, quicken its pulses, command its wildest plaudits, but after the speech was over the votes would be cast just as if it had not been made. There are no such physical excitements in listening to Mr. Gladstone. He does not storm your senses —he conquers your reason, convinces your judgment.

This tremendeus power of persuasion is the key of the whole man. It accounts for both his strength and his weakness. He is so superb, so matchless an arguer that he can lead English sentiment around after him wherever he wants to go. But he is also so wonderful a casuist that he pursuades even himself out of his own judgment sometimes, and then the deader and led

alike go into the ditch. Sentiment and | shrewdness are curiously mingled in his mental control. He may be as cautious and wary as Machiavelli up to a certain point; then he will be for a time as open and unsuspecting as Lady Jane Grey—and then, all at once, flame forth with the passionate fervor of a Loyola. Yet all the time he will be, in his intentions, deeply conscientious and sincere. Toward whatever point of the compass his steps may really be directed, his moral vision will be fixed upon the north star of political enfranchisement and advancement. Hence it has happened that while the clever men of his party, able at least to see that he was temporarily in the wrong path, have often held aloof from him, the masses of the English people, having supreme faith in his intentions, have followed him blindly through good and evil report. And now, when Mr. Goschen and Lord Hartington feel constrained from one point of view to part company with him, and Messrs. Chamberlain and Trevelyan from a widely different standpoint are threatening t« desert him, I believe that the people of England are more united in sympathy with him and support of him than they have ever been before. Be that as it may—and the question will soon be put to the test—there will be no dissent to the proposition that the House of Commons will be another and different body when he drops out of it. Since Disraeli left the House Gladstone has been a sort of heroic survival in it—the last of his race. In office or out of office he has so monopolised attention as to literally dwarf his associates, colleagues and opponents alike. There has been nobody to share attention by his side, much less to stand against him. He is a veritable Gulliver among Lilliputians. Long since the query became familiar to Liberals, Who will lead when Gladstone dies ? and the efforts to answer it have only served to show the measure of Hortington’s incapacity, side by side with Chamberlain’s unfitness. But a more general question still forces itself upon a student of Parliament here. Who will render the House of Commons intellectually respectable even when Gladstone is gone ? And there seems to be no answer at all to this question. Every American is familiar with the theory that the day of big men is past in America, and with the illustration which the personnel of the United States Senate is supposed to afford. The thing seems pitifully true here, at least. There are some strong, or relatively strong, men in the front ranks of the Liberal party—and the issue of the next few months may reveal that John Morley is more than relatively strong. But not even Mr. Morley, brilliant as he is and great as he may become, shines individually beside the radiance of Gladstone’s genius. And on the other side what is there? From sheer destitution of leadership Lord Randolph Churchill has been allowed to force himself forward, and he unquestionably is the cleverest and readiest Tory on the front opposition bench. He about matches Chamberlain in debate and repartee, and he more than matches him in outside popularity with the “ hoi polloi.” When they are pitted against each other now the effect is interesting, often enjoyable, because there is always present the recollection that they are understrappers, and that a far greater man is the responsible head of affairs. But when this head is finally discrowned by death, must the House sink to the Chamberlain-Churchill level ? It is not a welcome thought.