CHAPTER X

HENRY LABOUCHERE'S RADICALISM

Before dealing further with the part played by Labouchere in Irish legislation, it will be necessary to consider his view of English politics as a whole. He had not at first been an enthusiastic partisan of Home Rule. He had even gone the length at Northampton of saying that he himself was no Home Ruler. Yet, in point of fact, no English member was a more zealous advocate of Irish claims than he. Why was this? His motives, as I have been able to gather them from many conversations with him on the subject, were twofold: His Radical soul was disgusted by what, in the face of the Irish attitude, was the only alternative to Home Rule, namely coercion, and he realised that the only effective way to "dish the Whigs," whom he hated even more than the Conservatives, was to use the Irish vote.

The second motive was by far the stronger. He had a definite conception of Radical government to which he would undoubtedly have sacrificed hecatombs of Irish patriots if necessary. As a matter of fact, the Irish patriots happened to be a useful means towards his end, the establishment of such a government. Hence his alliance with them. When Mr. Gladstone and his Whig-Radical Government were faced in 1880 with the Irish question in so acute a form, Labouchere saw a real possibility ahead of establishing a Radical as distinguished from a merely Liberal {226} Government. The protagonist of his scheme was Mr. Chamberlain, already a member of the Cabinet, and, in the natural course of events, the almost certain successor of the already venerable statesman whose name had become the war-cry of English Liberalism.

With Mr. Chamberlain as Prime Minister almost anything might happen: the Lords and the Church might go, England might become, in all save the name, a republic. Mr. Chamberlain was the one statesman with whom he found himself in complete agreement as to the articles of the Radical faith, and in his future he saw the future of the party and of England. He wrote to him on July 3, 1883: "I was caught young and sent to America; there I imbibed the political views of the country, so that my Radicalism is not a joke, but perfectly earnest. My opinion on most of the institutions of this country is that of Americans--that they are utterly absurd and ridiculous. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see you leader of the House of Commons, with a Parliament pledged to the most drastic reforms. This is the aim of my humble endeavours, but, in the nature of things, a member below the gangway has not the same responsibilities as a Minister, and, if he is a Radical, necessarily is more advanced than a composite Cabinet. He has, too, to make motions or to hold his tongue. For instance, my amendment yesterday evening on titles was regarded in the House of Commons as a joke. But go to any meeting of even Liberals, and you would find that it was essentially a popular one. The real trouble in the House of Commons is that the Radicals below the gangway are such a miserable lot, and seem ashamed of their opinions. The Whigs, on the contrary, out of office act solidly together. This leads the public to suppose that your views are in a small minority in the House of Commons. If the Whigs are ready to pull a coach half way to what they consider a precipice, they must be greater fools than I take them to be. They do not act openly, but they conspire secretly. So long, {227} however, as they consent to work in harness, they ought to be encouraged. You have told them the goal, and I am certain that this declaration has done more to strengthen radicalism than anything that has happened for long. So I am perfectly contented, and quite ready to leave well alone."

Alas for the schemes of mortals! The very element on which Labouchere relied for the strengthening of the Radical cause in the Cabinet was to prove to Mr. Chamberlain himself the parting of the ways. The statesman who was to reach the highest power on the shoulders of Irish voters, when it came to the point, would have none of such support. The corner-stone fell out of the grandiose edifice that Labouchere had planned, the palace of Armida crumbled in the dust. Bitter, indeed, was his disappointment. It was characteristic of him in these circumstances to lose his head and throw up the game. The reader will remember how, as a boy, he described his own character at the gaming-table: "In playing even I failed because, although I theoretically discovered systems by which I was likely to win, yet in practice I could command myself so little that, upon a slight loss, I left all to chance." He lacked the patience or the industry of mind to reconstruct his schemes, and when Mr. Chamberlain was lost to the Radical party, Labouchere's constructive imagination seems never to have recovered the blow. He continued the war with abuse of privilege, absurdity consecrated by tradition, and the other heads of the hydra with which his party fought, but the tone of his attacks was not the same as before the Home Rule split. Too often they degenerated into mere party criticism, the note of personal invective, one might almost say of spite, becoming more prominent in them. He had lost faith in success, because the combination by which he had hoped to win had failed, and he could not, or would not, think out another. It was this consciousness of failure--of personal failure as he saw it, so closely had he identified himself with {228} his hopes--that inspired the peculiar bitterness with which, in and out of season, he attacked the statesman whom he held responsible for the altered situation. He did not, as his correspondence will show, give up hope for some time of Mr. Chamberlain's return to the party, but, when he had at last given up all such hope, nothing was too bad for "Joe." In the pages of _Truth_, in the Reform Club, in the lobby of the House of Commons, he constantly held forth to all who would read or listen on the "crimes" of the man who had divided the Liberal party against itself. He manifested no such bitterness against Bright or Hartington; but when Mr. Chamberlain fell from grace, he fell as no private individual, but as the symbol of the Radical party. With him, according to Labouchere, the party fell, and with the party his immediate hopes for the regeneration of England. Those hopes had, with ample justification for their existence, run high when Messrs. Chamberlain and Dilke joined Mr. Gladstone's administration in 1880. Labouchere based his scheme on the permanence of Mr. Chamberlain's Radicalism, and upon the fact that, in the natural course of events, a successor would very shortly have to be found for Mr. Gladstone. Both these, at the time, reasonable previsions were falsified by destiny. Mr. Gladstone remained for another fourteen years leader of the party, and Mr. Chamberlain became a Liberal Unionist. The years between 1880 and 1887 were, in so far as his political life was concerned, the most important of Labouchere's life. Until he saw that his game was finally spoiled by a totally unexpected fall of the cards, he did not for one instant relax his efforts to reach the end towards which he had planned to work. His patience was remarkable, his foresight uncanny, except in the all-important direction from which the blow that finally shattered his hopes descended.

It is interesting, in the light of subsequent events, to read the article which he wrote for the February number of the _Fortnightly Review_ in 1884, in which he set forth with {229} characteristic freedom of expression his views upon Radicals as differing from Whigs. "A Radical," he declares early in the article, "has been defined as an earnest Liberal," and he goes on to describe, in uncompromising terms, the faith of the earnest Liberal--or true Radical. "The Government Bill," he wrote, "assimilating the County to the Borough Franchise is to be encouraged, although it does not go far enough, to the extent, _i.e._, of Adult manhood suffrage. It will be for Radicals to take care strenuously to oppose every scheme which is a sham and not a reality. Let us all who are good Liberals labour to obtain a good suffrage Bill and a good redistribution Bill. This will strengthen our Parliamentary position, and we may fairly anticipate that Manhood Suffrage, electoral districts, triennial Parliaments, and payment of members will follow." The following extract shows very clearly Mr. Labouchere's opinions on what may be called the technique of legislation:

"The life of a Parliament is too long. Three years is the maximum period for which it should be elected. At the end of this time it is out of touch with the electorates. Promises and pledges made at the hustings are evaded, because each member thinks they will be forgotten before he has again to seek the suffrages of his electors; whilst Ministers are too apt to put off, until the period for a fresh election approaches, any drastic legislation to which they are pledged as leaders of their party. It is probable that, were the duration of Parliament limited to three years, as much political legislation would take place in this period as is now the case in the five or six years which is the average life of a Parliament. The fear of a speedy reckoning with electors would be ever before the eyes of Ministers and members. The 'Can't you leave it alone?' of Lord Melbourne would be replaced by 'We must do much and do it speedily, for the day of reckoning is near at hand.' Long Parliaments are as fatal to sound business as long credits are to sound trade. It is questionable, indeed, whether {230} three years is not too long for the duration of a Parliament. We should move in all probability more quickly, were the nation to insist upon an annual stocktaking."

The arguments, from the democratic point of view, in favour of the payment of members are thus set forth:

"The payment of members would do more to democratise our legislature, and consequently our legislation, than any other measure that can be conceived. At present, members, as a rule, are rich men. Many of them mean well, but they fatally take a rich man's view of all matters, and are far too much inclined to think that everything is for the best in a world where, although there may be many blanks, they at least have drawn a prize in life's lottery. So long as the choice of the poor men is between this and that rich man, so long will our legislation run in the groove of class prejudice. The poor man will not be the social equal of the rich man, and our laws will be made rather with a view to the happiness and interests of the few than of the many. All who are Conservative in heart know this, and for this reason the payment of members, which is the natural outcome of a recognition that a labourer is worthy of his hire, finds in them such bitter opponents. If a Minister is paid for being a Minister, it is only logical that a member should be paid for being a member. People must live. To refuse payment to members is to limit the choice of electorates to those very men who are not likely to see things with the same eyes as the majority of the men who constitute the electorates. Parliaments should be composed of rich men and of poor men. No one would advocate the exclusion of rich men. Why, then, should a condition of things continue which practically results in the exclusion of the poor man?"

Never has the Radical view of the House of Lords and the Crown been more forcibly expressed than in the following:

"The Whigs seem to know that ---- is in favour of the abolition of a House of hereditary legislators. Let us hope that they are correct. We are frequently told that the {231} people love, honour, and respect the House of Lords. Let any one who entertains this notion allude to this assembly at a popular political gathering in any part of the country, and he will find his illusion rudely dispelled. There are earnest Radicals who hold that there ought to be two legislative Chambers, and not one; although why they think so, it is difficult to say, for in every country where the two-Chamber system prevails, either one of them has become a mere useless court of registration, or the two are engaged in perpetual disputes, to the great detriment of public business. No Radical, however, is in favour of our existing Upper Chamber. If he were, he would not be a Radical. What an hereditary legislator ought to be is well described by Burke in his letter to the Duke of Bedford. What our hereditary legislators are we know by bitter experience. They almost all belong to one particular class--that of the great landlords. When any attempt is made to deal with the gross absurdities of our land system, they rally almost to a man to its defence, not from natural depravity, but from the natural bias of every one to consider that what benefits him must be for the best. The majority of them are Conservatives; even those who call themselves Liberals are the mildest of Whigs. When a Conservative Administration is in power they are harmless for good or evil. When a Liberal Administration is in power they are actively evil. Such an administration represents the deliberate will of the nation. Before bringing in a Bill, however, it has to be toned down, lest it should meet with opposition in the Lords. Nevertheless it does meet with opposition there. The Lords do not throw it out, but emasculate it with amendments; then when it comes back to the Commons a bargain is struck that, if the Commons will agree to some of these amendments, the Lords will not insist upon the others. Thus, no matter what may be the majority possessed by a Liberal ministry in the House of Commons, it can never legislate as it wishes, but in a sense between what it wishes and what the Conservative {232} majority in the Lords wish. In great and important questions it almost always obeys its Leader like a flock of sheep, and thus one man is able to provoke a dissolution, not only when he thinks that this is in the interests of the country, but when he imagines it to be in the interests of his party. It is asserted that the House of Lords is useful because its rejection of a Bill is an appeal to the country against a House of Commons which is acting in opposition to the popular will. It is not easy to understand on what grounds the Lords are supposed to know what the popular will is; and, indeed, they never do, for there is not one single case on record where, when the Lords have appealed to the country against a decision of the House of Commons, the verdict has gone in favour of the former. Although rich, the peers are not independent. They are, in fact, remarkable for their abnormal greed. Because they are by the chance of birth legislators, they insist upon decorations, distinctions, and salaries being showered upon them and their relations. In the Financial Reform Almanack for this year there is an interesting calculation of the amounts that living dukes, marquises, and earls, and their relations, and those that have died since 1850, have received out of the public exchequer. The dukes figure for £9,760,000, the marquises for £8,305,950, and the earls for £48,181,292; total £66,247,242. The voracity of a vestryman is nothing to compare with that of the British nobleman. Eighty-three peers are privy councillors; 55 have received decorations; 192 are connected with the army and navy; 62 are railway directors; their total rental is £11,872,333, and they possess 14,251,132 acres; yet in pay and pensions they absorb annually £639,865, and whenever there is a change of administration they clamour for well-paid sinecures about the Court, and other such sops, like a pack of hungry hounds. _Les soutiens de l'État_ indeed! _Comme une corde soutient un pendu!_ The greater number of them are obscure thanes, who never take an active part in legislation or attend in their {233} seats; and they are summoned to London by their party leader whenever it is necessary to vote down some Liberal enactment, which has been passed after long and careful consideration by the elected representatives of the nation, and for this service to the State they generally insist upon receiving an equivalent--a ribbon, a Lord Lieutenancy, or an office for a relative or a dependent....

"Radicals are essentially practical, and are not accustomed to waste or misdirect their energies. They do not approve of the fuss and feathers of a Court, and they regard its ceremonies with scant respect, for they are inclined to think that they conduce to a servile spirit, which is degrading to humanity. They admit, however, that the scheme of a monarch who reigns but does not rule has its advantages in an empire such as ours, where a connecting link between the mother country and the colonies is desirable. Their objection to the present state of things is mainly based upon financial grounds. Admitting that there is to be a hereditary figure-head, they cannot understand why it should cost so much, why funds which are voted to the monarch should be expended in salaries to noblemen for the performance of ceremonial service, or why the children of the monarch should receive such enormous annuities." He quoted an occasion when the disloyalty of Radicals was supposed to have been amply proved. One of them had voted for an amendment of Sir Charles Dilke when Lord Beaconsfield's Government had proposed an allowance of £25,000 per annum to the Duke of Connaught. "It would have been more to the purpose to show," he said, "why this young gentleman should receive so very ample a pension for condescending to be the son of his parents. Nothing has conduced more to shake that decent respect for the living symbol of the State, which goes by the name of royalty, than the ever-recurring rattle of the money-box. Radicals do not perceive why the children of the monarch should be made public pensioners any more than the children of the {234} Lord Chancellor. They know that Her Majesty lives in retirement, and that she has a wholesome contempt for the costly ceremonies of a Court; they are aware that as a necessary consequence she has sufficient accumulations to keep her children in comfort. They ask, therefore, why their maintenance should be thrown on the country, and why, if so, this should be on so very costly a scale. They consider, it is true, that Her Majesty has too large a Civil List; yet although they are not deceived by the 'pious fraud' which assumes that the monarch is the owner of the Crown domains and surrenders them on accession to the throne in consideration of a money equivalent for what they produce, they have no burning desire to interfere with existing arrangements during the lifetime of the present incumbent, for they have a sincere respect for the Queen, not only as the constitutional head of the State, but also on account of her excellent personal qualities. They are of opinion, however, that when provision is asked for the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, this will be a fitting opportunity to inaugurate an entire change in the financial relations of the Crown with the country."

The Established Church, education, and the Land Laws are thus drastically treated.

"The income of the Establishment is close upon £5,000,000 per annum. It is the Church of a minority. The greater portion of its revenues were acquired by confiscation. Its division of them amongst its clergy is in defiance of all rule and justice. Cures of souls are matters of public barter. Only the other day the secretary of a race-course company bought the next presentation to a living in order to ensure that the views of the next pastor should be sound on the question of racing. In every country except this the principle has been recognised that so-called ecclesiastical property is national property. In some countries this principle has been pushed to its ultimate consequences, in others it has received a more restricted application. Were we all {235} members of the Established Church there might be some plea for our devoting a portion of our property to the maintenance of the Church's employés. But the majority of us are not churchmen. Why then should we perpetuate so invidious an application of national funds? The vested rights of living incumbents should be respected, and perhaps it would be only fair that the Church should retain those funds that she has received from the liberality of private donors within the last few years. On an excessive estimate this would amount to £1,000,000 per annum. We require the remaining £4,000,000 per annum for educational purposes, and we mean to have them....

"Whilst all Radicals are agreed that our land system requires a thorough reform, all are perhaps not in accord as to the details of that reform. Some are followers of Mr. George and demand the nationalisation of land; others--and these are the wiser--whilst admitting that it is to be regretted that the paramount proprietorship of the community has been almost entirely ignored, hardly see their way to resume it absolutely, nor do they admit that a person who has acquired a legal title to a freehold can be divested of it without fair compensation. All, however, are agreed that real estate has, in contradistinction to personal estate, certain inherent qualities: it is limited in quantity, and it is a natural instrument; consequently, the State has a right to regulate the conditions of its tenure, and its transmission from one individual to another. We would legislate to break up and destroy all huge domains; to make the occupier to all practical intents the master of the soil which he cultivates, and to secure to him not only fixity of tenure and independence of a landlord's rules and caprices, but the enjoyment of these rights at a fair and reasonable price. A long succession of landlord legislatures have, in the words of Mr. Cobden, 'robbed and bamboozled the people for ages.' All our laws affecting land have been made in order to perpetuate its tenure in the hands of the few from generation {236} to generation; to render its purchase difficult and expensive; to free its owners from taxes and obligations, in consideration of which their predecessors acquired lordship over it from the State; and to give it an artificial value by securing to its possessors social and political pre-eminence. That there should be few Radicals amongst landlords is less surprising than that any one who is not a landlord should remain outside the Radical pale. To suppose that when Radicals have the power to place our land laws in harmony with the good of the greatest numbers, or to imagine that they will allow the _imperia in imperio_ of huge domains to continue, is to suppose that they will take to their heart of hearts their 'robbers and bamboozlers.' Landlords are a mistake socially, politically, and economically. The only true proprietary rights in land are a reasonable interest on sums spent in rendering it more productive, and this only so long as the outlay continues to produce this result; to talk of any other natural proprietary rights is as absurd as it would be to talk of a man having a natural property in the air that we breathe. It is too late now, however, to revert to first principles. We must accept facts and endeavour to make the best of them. This we propose to do, and, as a preliminary step, we demand the renewed imposition of the land-tax at four shillings in the pound upon the full true yearly value at a rack rent; that there should be no more subventions in aid of local taxation from imperial funds largely derived from taxation on food and drink; and that landlords who will not use their land themselves should be made to give it up to those who are ready and anxious to use it."

Towards the end of the article Mr. Labouchere delivers himself somewhat tentatively on the Irish question as follows:

"It was said in the first session of the present Parliament--and no one was more fond of using this argument than Mr. Gladstone--that the limited number of Mr. Parnell's {237} Parliamentary followers proved that the majority of the constituencies was not with him. Later on, when the error of this estimate of his strength was perceived, it was alleged that his influence was alone secured by terrorism. Slowly it had dawned upon the English mind that the vast majority of Irishmen, rightly or wrongly, cordially and truly sympathise with him. No one now questions that he will sweep Ireland at the next General Election. On the doctrine of probabilities, this will make him the arbiter between parties at St. Stephen's. How is this to be met? The only suggestion put forward as yet has been that both parties should agree that the Irish vote is not to count on a party division. But does any sane human being imagine that such a scheme is practicable? The 'ins' would always assent to it, but the 'outs' would defer their assent until they became the 'ins.' It is indeed becoming every day more and more clear that we must either allow the Irish votes to reckon as other votes, or that we must boldly assert that Ireland shall no longer be represented in Parliament, because we disagree with the representatives that it chooses. There is no middle course; and, if we accept the former, we shall have to allow Ireland hereafter to decide as she best pleases on matters that only locally regard her. Most Radicals would be of opinion that one Parliament for the entire United Kingdom is a better system that one for Great Britain and another for Ireland. But they would go a long way to establish a fair _modus vivendi_ between the two islands, and nothing that Mr. Parnell has ever said can be adduced to show that he does not entertain the same desire. Most of his views recommend themselves to Radicals, especially those in regard to land.... If the Irish wish for Home Rule why should they not have it? It surely would be easy to conceive a plan in which that island would have a representative assembly that would legislate upon all matters, except those reserved to the Imperial Parliament. These reservations might be precisely the same as those which the American Constitution {238} reserves to Congress in her relations with State Governments. Mr. Gladstone seemed inclined to accept this solution in 1882, for, in a speech during the session of that year, he asked the Irish members to submit their plan to the House of Commons, whilst the only objection that occurred to him was, that it might be difficult to find an arbiter between the Imperial and the Irish legislature in case of any conflict of jurisdiction--a difficulty which a cursory glance at the American Constitution would have solved. The Irish are sound upon almost every question; they are even more democratically inclined than we are. We want their aid and they want our aid. Irish, English, and Scotch Radicals should coalesce. Mutual concessions may be necessary, but this is always the case in political alliances. That the Irish should not love the English connection is hardly surprising. We are only now beginning to do them justice, and we have accompanied this modicum of justice with a Coercion Act, aimed not only at crime, but at legitimate political agitation. If we remove their grievances, if we make Irishmen the true rulers of Ireland, and if we cease to meddle in matters that concern them and not us, there is no reason to suppose that they would wish to separate from us any more than our colonies. Separation would, indeed, be as disadvantageous to them as to us."

A year or two later he gave clear expression to the same Radical faith in the House of Commons in a speech which he made on his own amendment to the motion that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair: "That in the opinion of this House it is contrary to the true principles of representative Government, and injurious to their efficiency, that any person should be a member of one House of the Legislature by right of birth, and it is therefore desirable to put an end to any such existing rights." "It has been pointed out to him," he said, "that these words might include Her Majesty, which, of course, was not intended ... they had been engaged in democratising, as far as they could, the Commons {239} branch of the Legislature; but all their efforts would be abortive, all their efforts at Parliamentary reform would be illusory, if they allowed side by side with that House a Legislative Assembly to exist, which, in its nature, was aristocratic, and which had a right to tamper with and veto the decisions of the nation, which were registered by the House of Commons.... Members of the House of Lords were neither elected nor selected for their merits. They sat by the merits of their ancestors, and, if we looked into the merits of some of those ancestors, we should agree that the less said about them the better. The House of Lords consisted of a class most dangerous to the community--the class of rich men, the greater part of whose fortune was in land. It was asserted of them that the House of Lords was recruited from the wisest and best in the country--that the Lords were so wise and good that, in some mysterious way, they were able to transmit their virtues to future generations in _secula seculorum_. The practice in the selection of those gentlemen was not quite in accordance with this theory. They consisted generally of two classes--of those who were apparently successful politicians, and of those who were undoubtedly successful money-grubbers. He would take a few examples, and, as he did not wish to be invidious, he would take them from both sides of the House. They all knew and appreciated Sir R. Assheton Cross, Mr. Sclater Booth, Sir Thomas Brassey, and Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen. What did they think of these gentlemen? As members of this House everybody respected and liked them; but they were looked upon as decent sort of mediocrities of the ordinary quality, which was converted, in course of time, into administrative Ministers. Take another class. Why were brewers selected as peers? Simply because they, of late, had accumulated very large fortunes by the sale of intoxicating liquors, and for no other reason. The names of Guinness, Bass, and Allsopp had been long household words in every public house in the country, but who ever heard of them as {240} politicians? Yet these gentlemen were considered to be the very best men in the country to be converted into hereditary peers. Another class who made money were the financiers. Lord Rothschild inherited a large fortune, and had increased that fortune, and no doubt spent his money in the most honourable way; but Lord Rothschild did nothing in the House of Commons in any way to distinguish himself. With brewers, when one was made a peer another must be made a peer for advertisement. So with financial houses; when a Rothschild was made a peer, it was necessary to fish up some one of the name of Baring, and one was converted into Lord Revelstoke--a gentleman who, though probably eminent in city circles, was hardly known to any one in that House, and who had never taken part in politics. So much for the composition of the House of Lords.... Deducting representative peers from Scotland and Ireland, and deducting members of the Royal family, and deducting bishops and archbishops, he found 470 peers sitting as hereditary peers in the House of Lords. He found that those peers had annually distributed among them £389,163, amounting on an average to £820 each (salaries from appointments under Civil List)--these rich men who would, with one accord, protest against the payment of members of the House of Commons. These were the rich men who were found at public meetings denouncing members from Ireland as a wretched crew, because, being mainly poor men, they received enough to enable them to live from their constituents. The peers were almost as careful of their relations as of themselves. In a valuable publication he saw it put down that, from 1874 to 1886, no fewer than 7000 relatives of peers had had places of emolument under the Government.... In the other House there were 120 Privy Councillors, of whom he ventured to say the majority had never heard. Orders had to be found for these gentlemen. Almost every one of them had a decoration. There were three decorations which were absolutely made for peers and for no other {241} body--the Garter, the Order of St. Patrick, and the Thistle. Walpole had declined a decoration 'because,' he said, 'why bribe myself?' Lord Melbourne said of the Garter that its pleasing feature was that there was 'no nonsense of merit about it.' An impression existed that private Bill legislation was more independent in the House of Lords than in that House. He did not think it was.... No men looked better after the class interests of those to whom they belonged than the peers. They were great landowners; 16,000,000 acres belonged to them. Yet our Land Laws were a disgrace to the country and tainted with feudalism.... This House of Lords was not collectively any worse than any six hundred men would be. They were _ex necessitate_ a Tory House and a House of partisans. The assertion that they subordinated public interests to their private class and party interests was merely tantamount to saying that they were human beings. A House of Artisans would act on similar principles.... His amendment went to the root of the evil. He at first thought of including bishops, but he struck them out on the principle of _de minimis non curat lex_. If the hereditary principle were done away with, what the honourable member for Birmingham called 'the incestuous union between the spiritual and the political world' would cease of itself. His amendment would not prejudice the question of whether there ought to be two Chambers or one only. Personally he was in favour of one, but those who voted with him need not necessarily support him on that particular point. Other countries which had two had simply followed our example, and it was a mere result of chance that we happened to have two. If they agreed, the second was useless; if they disagreed, the second was pernicious. If the functions of an Upper Chamber were to be properly fulfilled by those who soared above party and class interest, we must not look for its members in this world, but we must bring down angels from Heaven; but, as that would be difficult, there was one other alternative. The Conservatives at their meetings {242} always shouted, 'Thank God we have a House of Lords!' Radicals had no intention to remain any longer supinely like toads under the harrow of the House of Lords. They intended to agitate until they could say: 'Thank God we have not an hereditary House of Lords!'"

Mr. Labouchere's amendment on that occasion was defeated by a majority of 61 in a House of 385 members. On November 21, 1884, Labouchere had moved the following resolution: "That in view of the fact that the Conservative party is able and has for many years been able, through its permanent majority in the House of Lords, to alter, defeat, or delay legislation, although that legislation has been recommended by the responsible advisers of the Crown, and approved by the nation through its elected representatives, it is desirable to make such alterations in the relations of the two Houses of Parliament as will effect a remedy to this state of things." Sir Wilfrid Lawson, in seconding the resolution, said that he remembered a few years ago Mr. Labouchere giving notice of a very similar resolution. He asked him if he thought a House could be made for it. Mr. Labouchere had answered, "No, I do not think there will be, for all the Radicals want to be made peers." The member for Northampton prophesied truly, for not forty members could be got to come down.

With untiring patience, however, Mr. Labouchere moved a resolution of the same nature almost every year that he was in Parliament. His perseverance on the subject was only matched by the dogged persistence with which he attacked the ridiculous appurtenances inseparable from the upkeep of a constitutional monarchy. When he was asked by Captain Fred Burnaby once at Homburg why he was always attacking the Royal family, who after all were well meaning people, he replied: "One must find some very solid institution to be able to attack it in comfort. If the love of royalty were not so firmly established in the middle-class English breast, I should not dream of attacking it, for the {243} institution might topple over, and then what should I do? I should have all the trouble of finding something else to tilt against."

Another expression of his views on the Establishment is found in his speech on Mr. Albert Grey's amendment on the occasion of the Second Reading of the Church Patronage Bill. "From a Radical standpoint," he said, "it was undesirable that there should be an Establishment at all, and there seemed to be no reason why they should be continually tinkering up and remedying this and that abuse in connection with the Church.... He agreed with the Secretary of State that this Bill did not go far enough, if it granted compensation in the case of those who now held livings. To sell a cure of souls had always been regarded as a most monstrous iniquity, and why should they give compensation to those who were enjoying what was wrong? They might as well suggest that Simon Magus himself should have had compensation. There was another preposterous clause in the Bill. These advowsons could only be sold to the great landlords and the lords of the manor. If the livings were sold at all, they should be sold to anybody who might be ready to buy them. But why should the great landlords--the race he should be glad to see cleared off the land--why should the great landlords and lords of the manor be allowed to buy livings while other people were not? ... There was no doubt that matters would be infinitely improved if the parishioners had the right to veto the appointment of clergymen. But the amendment did not go far enough. Why was there only to be a veto? Why not allow the parishioners to elect any clergyman they liked? Why was the bishop to be the only person to be allowed to have a veto? If the majority of the people in a locality were dissenters, he thought they should not be compelled to elect a Church of England clergyman. He was opposed to all this tinkering of the Church of England, which should be disestablished and disendowed.... He was quite ready to leave the {244} Church such amounts as had been given to it within the last twenty years; but he had seen calculations made that, deducting these amounts, a sum of about £5,000,000 per annum ought to come to the public. That sum was the property not of a sect, but of the English people who paid it, and he should like to see a Bill introduced dealing with glebe lands. These glebe lands were, he believed, the worst cultivated in the country, and it would be infinitely better to redistribute them in allotments amongst the deserving labourers of the village than to leave them in the hands of the clergymen. When his honourable friend brought in a Bill dealing with glebe lands, and giving back to them the £5,000,000 of which they were now deprived for the benefit of a sect, then he would give him his most cordial support." And so on.

In the June of 1884 he made one of his common-sense speeches on the subject of the enfranchisement of women. It occurred during the debate on the Representation of the People Bill. "It may be that we should enfranchise women," he said, "but because we have enfranchised men is no reason that we should do so. We may discuss the subject eloquently, we may refer to Joan of Arc and Boadicea, but, in point of fact, from the time of Eve till now there has been a distinct difference between men and women. There are a great many things which I am ready to admit women can do better than men, and there are other things which I think men can do better than women. Each have their separate functions, and the question is whether the function of electoral power is a function which women would adequately discharge. I do not think it is. As yet I understand that no country has really given women the vote; and were it not that honourable gentlemen opposite, who are generally averse to giving the franchise to any large body of men, think, and think justly, that a very large majority of women would vote for Conservatives, I should be surprised at their making this desperate leap in the dark. Some honourable {245} members on this side of the House have told us that women are better than men. That is the language of poetry. But when we come to facts I am not at all disposed to admit that women are better than men. It is not a question of whether women are angels or not, but whether they will make good electors ... the honourable member has told us that he was convinced of this because Queen Anne was a great queen; and he told us also that Elizabeth was a great queen. But Anne was not a great queen, and Elizabeth had the intellect of a man with the weaknesses of a woman. The honourable member also spoke of Queen Christina of Sweden, but every one knows that she was one of the most execrable queens that ever lived, for, after being deposed by her subjects, she went to Paris and murdered her secretary. We learn that, by the operation of nature, more women are born into the world than men, that women live longer than men, and that a considerable number of men leave the kingdom as soldiers and sailors, while women remain at home. In consequence of this there are, at any given moment, a greater number of women than men in the country. I am told that in every county, with the exception of Hampshire, more women would be put on the register than men if we had woman suffrage. And what would be the consequence? They would look to the interests of women; they would band themselves together, and we should have them, of course, asking to be admitted to this House; and then, if they were admitted, instead of being on an equality with them, we should put ourselves under petticoat government; we should have women opposite, women on these benches, and a woman perhaps in the chair. They would, of course, like women everywhere, have their own way. The honourable member had hesitated as to whether he would give the vote to married women as well as to unmarried women, and, by his mode of dealing with the question, it would seem that he gave to vice what he denied to virtue. As long as a woman remains a spinster, it appears that she is to have the vote, but that, so soon as {246} she marries, she is to cease to be an elector; she is to lose her rights if she enters into the holy and honourable state of matrimony, and, if her husband dies, she is again to get the vote. When Napoleon was asked by Mme. de Stael who was the best woman in the State, he said: 'Madame, the woman who has the most children.'"

It will be seen from the above extract that his opinion of the female sex was early Victorian, and so it remained to the end of his life. He was always a bitter opponent of woman suffrage; and when, in 1896, a petition for the Suffrage signed by 257,000 women from all parts of the United Kingdom was exhibited, "by kind permission of the Home Secretary," in Westminster Hall on a series of tables for the inspection of members, he immediately called the attention of the Speaker that afternoon in the House to the "unseemly display," and insisted upon its removal.

He was indefatigable in his efforts to introduce economical Radical finance into every detail of government, always assuring his hearers that he was fighting for the principle of economy, and not merely against the mere absurdity of the existence of certain traditional offices and extravagances. In 1885 we find him requesting the Attorney-General to do his best to suppress the offices of Trainbearer, Pursebearer, and Clerk of the Petty Bag. He protested ably against the large sums spent upon the upkeep of the royal yacht, and upon the "objectionable practice" of asking the Commons to vote a sum of money for special packets for conveyance of distinguished persons to and from England. He protested against the nation being asked to pay the expenses incurred in the ceremony of making the present King (then Prince George of Wales) a Knight of the Garter. He was, in short, unceasingly vigilant wherever the spending of public money was concerned, and his remarks were usually practical and to the point. A quotation from a letter he wrote to the _Times_ in the same year on the Graduated Income Tax will be of interest, as peculiarly illustrative of his clear and simple {247} view of the rights of the poor man versus those of the rich man. "The income tax," he wrote, "when first put on by Mr. Pitt, was a graduated tax. No one then regarded this as a spoliation or confiscation. That a rich man should pay a higher percentage of taxation than a poor man is based upon what Mr. Stuart Mill terms 'equality of sacrifice.' It will, I presume, he admitted by all that the first call upon a man's income is that portion of it which is necessary for him and his family to eat, to be clothed, and to secure some sort of home. If a man earns only £50 per annum, and has an average family of two children, let me ask what remains after this call has been met? Nothing. And if he has to pay taxes, he and his family are obliged to go without a sufficiency of clothing, or without a fitting home. Now look at the case of a man with £50,000 per annum, and with a family of the same size. He pays in taxation about 4½% on his income---let us say 5%. This absorbs £2500. He may secure to himself and them not only all necessaries, but all comforts, for £500 per annum. Surely the sacrifice on his part to the exigencies of the State of £7000 per annum would not be so great a one as would be that of £2, 10s. per annum by the man with an income of £50 per annum. As a matter of fact, however, the rich man pays at present a maximum of 5%, and the poor man about twice that percentage...."

He made a speech in the Radical Club at North Camberwell on November 14, 1885, in which he once more resumed his creed, and with it I must end this chapter, so as to proceed with the history of the practice to which he put his theories. "In the House of Commons," he said, "Radicals had hitherto been in a very small minority, and were not appreciated, and it was therefore gratifying to him as a strong Radical to find what they did in the House of Commons was appreciated by those who made the House of Commons. For his own part he was bound to say he could not form any clear idea of what 'Conservative' meant now. In the past, Conservatives {248} were a party banded together to support the landed interest, but Lord Randolph Churchill told them that this was to be all forgotten, and that the Conservatives were to become Tory Democrats. These two words were utterly antagonistic in themselves, and he could not understand how men could be fish and fowl at the same time. The only principle which was guiding the Tories was to get into office and remain there. No reasonable man could become a Conservative. As for the Whigs they were more dangerous than the Tories. There were about thirty of them in the House of Commons. They rarely spoke, but their influence--a backstair influence--was such that Ministers yielded to them, and it was to them that the action in Egypt was due, and they were the cause of the Crimes Bill in Ireland--both of which had been steadfastly opposed by the Radicals in Parliament. It was easier to deal with an open enemy than with a traitor in the camp. Happily the Whigs were expiring, and he did not think any one would care to adopt their creed. Coming to the Radical creed he said it was that England should become a democracy, by which was meant the rule of the people by the people and for the people. He was surprised statesmen could not see that the people would use the power given them for their own advantage. They would insist on a Government not mixed, as now, with an aristocratic element in it. They would deal with the entire Legislature, the Crown, the Lords, and the Commons; and, if they were of his mind, they would go in for a much more sweeping franchise. The vote was a right and not a privilege, and every man, not a criminal, ought to possess it, or he was defrauded of his right. He went in for residential manhood suffrage, for free education, for which he would apply the Church revenues and the misused charities. He was opposed to all indirect taxation, and advocated what had been described as equality of sacrifice in general and local taxation--that was, he would have a graduated income tax, and, in no case, tax the necessaries of life. In {249} conclusion he said he hoped Mr. Chamberlain would succeed Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister, and as for the Whigs they were welcome to go over to the Tories. He would not refuse to accept Lord Hartington, if he elected to fight under the Radical party, but he would refuse to sink his own personal opinions for any one."[1]

[1] _Times_, October 15, 1885.

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