Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885

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Chamberlain's Candid

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was the chief rival in those days of the Leeds Mercury in the great district comprising East Lancashire and Yorkshire. The Guardian was conducted with spirit and energy, and I had been annoyed to find that it was gradually pushing its way into that which we regarded as the territory of the Mercury. I accordingly proposed to the local rival of the Guardian, the Manchester Examiner, that it should enter into an alliance with th

ow respectively. (I ought to say that the Herald, like the Scotsman, already had its special wire from London.) We formed a thoroughly efficient editorial staff to do the work of the London office, and we entered into an arrangement with one of the London daily papers by which we secured access to all the information it received. In this way I was able to guarantee the readers of the Leeds Mercury as good a supply of important London news as they could obtain in one of the London dailies. I went further than this, however, and took a step of the wisdom of which I am not now so fully convinced as I was in 1873. This was the installation of a night editor in our office in Fleet Street, whose business it was to secure the earlie

e, but our friendship was of the slightest until I induced him to take a leading part in the London correspondence of the Mercury. He was at that time assistant-editor of the Daily News, but he did not like the work, and was anxious to be relieved of the drudgery of nightly attendance at the office in Bouverie Street. I was able to offer him terms which justified him in relinquishing his connection with the Daily News. He wa

nthusiasm that few men are capable of showing, even on behalf of their own interests. At a time, for example, when he was deep in the writing of one of his own greatest novels, he voluntarily undertook the work of a dying friend as a contributor to the Press, in order to ensure the payment of his salary to the end of his life. I remember meeting him once on his way to that friend's room, carrying in one hand a hare and in the other a can containing some soup or other delicacy. He was very particular about his appearance, always smart in his dress, and rigorously observant of the social convenances; yet these characterist

was from her I learned that Coquette, the bewitching creature who plays the chief part in "A Daughter of Heth," had for her original Black's first wife. I discovered for myself that the author was the original of "The Whaup," and when I taxed him with it he did not deny the fact. One evening, after dinner at Camberwell Grove, we went for a walk together. When we reached the top of the Grove he drew my attention to a pleasant little villa standing in its own ground. "James Drummond," he said, "li

his portrait. He once admitted that he had made use of me as a lay-figure in his literary studio, but I was never able to discover by what character I was supposed to be represented. As a rule, he was much too kind to his friends when drawing their portraits, for he liked to think the best and say the best of a man. Only once in my long friendship with him did I know him to exercise his power of making a man whom he disliked appear odious in his pages. But this particular person was so odious in reality that everybody felt that Black had only done him justice. Of course, Black was careful to give no clue to the identity of the disagreeable man which could be of the slightest use to t

. I do not wish to overpraise, but the man who could draw Coquette, and Sheila, and Madcap Violet was, I hold, a master in his craft. That he was, in a very literal sense, an artist in words, is universally admitted. There are passages in his writings which, in their power of conjuring up before the mind of the reader the scenes they describe, are not surpassed by anything that Ruskin himself ever wrote. The fact is that Black's sympathies drew him more strongly to art than to literature. If he could have had his way, I think he would rather have been a great painter than a great write

probability no other newspaper in Yorkshire would get possession of it. Everybody interested in our political history now knows the story of that bolt from the blue. It came with absolute unexpectedness, and some even of Mr. Gladstone's own colleagues in the Cabinet were taken by surprise. I know, at all events, of one member of the Ministry who was staying at the time in a country house in Yorkshire, and who, when the Leeds Mercury, with its announcement of the dissolution and the long address of Mr. Gladstone to the Greenwich electors, was brought to him, insisted that the paper must have been hoaxed. Mr. Gladstone had kept his secret so well that

ad been nowhere at the polls in 1868, was suddenly swept into the highest place by those "harassed interests" which Mr. Gladstone's great administration had offended by a policy that Disraeli described as one of "plundering and blundering." It was, in reality,

ing his adherence to Mr. Bruce's measure. So, in spite of his character and his public services, they brought out against him one of the agents of the United Kingdom Alliance. The Tories had brought out a local gentleman named Tennant as their second candidate. He was a man of many occupations, including that of a brewer. The fight which followed was the most bitter in which I have ever been engaged. Practically, Edward Baines stood alone, getting no help from Carter. The Liberal party had fallen to pieces, and Edward Baines, as a supporter of the Government, had to bear the weight of the offence given both to the Radical Nonconformists and to the rabid teetotallers.

bitter and flippant, not only about his political opponents, but about the older members of his own party. He had made himself one of the buglemen in the cry raised against Mr. Forster, towards whom he seemed to entertain a feeling of almost personal antipathy. At Sheffield he made himself conspicuous by his sneers at Mr. Gladstone and almost all the recognised leaders of Liberalism. His own political opinions appeared to be based upon a crude and intolerant Radicalism of the Socialistic type. He evidently believed that promises of material benefits would enable him to win the suppo

arge part in his political professions. It followed that from 1874 onwards the Leeds Mercury was never friendly to Mr. Chamberlain, and never gave him its confidence, even at a time when he was the idol of English Radicalism. For years I had to suffer because of this attitude towards the Birmingham politician; and many a time, when I have been sitting on the platfor

e Education Act; but I cannot help saying that in later years it degenerated into what, at any rate, looked like a feeling of antipathy towards the man who, at that time, was regarded as standing high in the succession to Mr. Gladstone as leader of the L

ngth, had been impaired by the action of advanced sections, who were so passionately bent upon carrying the measures in which they were themselves most deeply interested that they did not stop to count the cost of their proceedings on the fortunes of the party as a whole. It took some little time to recover our spirits after that heavy blow, but soon some of us began to feel that in time "the loppèd tree would grow again." I was helped in coming to this conclusion by some words addressed to me by a shrewd old Yorkshire Tory, which I have reme

which had relation to Mr. Gladstone himself. There was always someone ready to intrigue against him. There were always those who thought that, if only he could be got out of the way, there might possibly be room for themselves upon the top of the mountain. In 1868 the representatives of this class had protested against his being allowed to become Prime Minister. In 1874 they, or their successors, were still louder in their protests against his being allowed ever again to form an administration. He was a defeated Minister, and some of them took care to bring this fact home to him in as unpleasant a way as possible. One, at least, had good reason to repent of his audacity. No one who was in the House of Commons on the memorable afternoon when Sir William Harcourt tried a fall with Mr. Gladstone, and met with such terri

berals as a whole. But Mr. Forster's enemies on the Opposition benches, though not very numerous, were very bitter, and they at once put forward as the strongest card they could play against Mr. Forster the name of Lord Hartington. Lord Hartington was, like Forster himself, a man of high character, to whom no taint of intrigue attached. He had not offended any section of the party in the way in which Forster had offended the Nonconformists, and, above all, he was the

awing from the candidature, and thus prevented an unseemly contest. It is now known that Lord Hartington himself would have taken this course if Forster had not done so. They were two straightforward, honourable rivals, and they acted throughout this business like English gentlemen. That which made the election of Lord Hartington to the le

ngham plan, and of the rise of the National Liberal Federation, the existence of which people were just dimly beginning to recognise. I am not writing the history of the National Liberal Federation, and I pretend to no special knowledge on the subject of its origin. Popular opinion credits Mr. Schnadhorst, the famous organiser, of Birmingham, and subsequently of London, with the authorship of the scheme. But I doubt the truth of this. I knew Mr. Schnadhorst well,

r representatives on the Central Association. Every known Liberal had a vote, so that the constitution of the central body was, in theory at all events, delightfully democratic. These associations were designed to sweep away the old system of Liberal committees, influenced by local magnates, which had prevailed ever since the passing of the Reform Bill. There was a strong belief among the inventors of the caucus that by means of this plan they would secure the predominance of the advanced Radical party. The old privileges of wealth and rank were henceforth to count for

ral party. They further professed to wish to put an end to the influence exercised by cliques and privileged classes or persons in the party. The majority was to rule under all conceivable circumstances. Those who, like myself, have had an active and intimate association with the caucus and the Federation know that in practice the new system, so far from destroying the rule of cliques, merely substituted one set of cliques for another. The active busybody, who had little business of his own to attend to, o

who undoubtedly had the chief claim upon the Liberal party in the town. A meeting of the newly-formed Liberal Association was called to consider the question of choosing a candidate. As editor of the chief Liberal paper, I had been taken into the counsels of the local Liberal leaders ever since assuming that post, had been invited to attend the meetings of their committee, and found that they were at all times desirous of securing my support. When I spoke to one of the officials of the new Association of t

e political influence in Leeds than any other man. But "logic is logic," and under the new system any claim founded upon mere influence, or even upon past services, was inadmissible. I was too young, however, to acknowledge this fact at the time, and I bluntly delivered an ultimatum to the President of the Association. "You may hold your caucus meeting," I said, "but if it is to be private so far as I am concerned, it shall be private so far as the reporters of the Leeds Mercury are concerned also. I shall si

ation Act. Another gentleman denounced him with equal violence because he was the proprietor of the Leeds Mercury, a journal which had dared to speak disrespectfully of the truest and most honest Liberal of the day, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. That was the first occasion on which my fellow-Liberals in Leeds belaboured me with the name of Mr. Chamberlain. On all sides I heard extreme opinions expressed by men whose faces and names were quite unfamiliar to me, and I found to my dismay that the more extreme the opinions, the warmer was their reception by these representative Liberals. They would hardly listen to their old leaders, who had grown grey in fighting the battles of Liberali

me after the establishment of the caucus, it pursued a distinctly aggressive course, and inspired all of us with alarm. In course of time, however, I realised the fact that there were certain severe limitations upon its power. It could not stand against the country when the country was in earnest. It could not give that inspiration to a party without which victory cannot be achieved. No amount of organisation, however skilfully devised, could s

at as a rule his power is not accompanied by a corresponding degree of responsibility. Above all, it has lowered the status of a member of Parliament, and made him more or less of a delegate who is bound to yield to the wishes, not of his constituents as a whole, but of the party organisation which seeks to usurp the place of the constituency. The story of the struggles of Mr. Forster with the Bradford caucus is familiar to political students. I was mixed up with all those struggles, and always on the si

Washbourne, the head of the Robert College at Constantinople. I know both Mr. Pears and Dr. Washbourne. They are men of the highest honour and integrity, whilst Dr. Washbourne, who is by birth an American, has been for many years the best authority on the question of the treatment of the Christians of the Ottoman Empire by the Sultan. No one who knew the source from which the Daily News stories emanated could dream of dismissing those stories as coffee-house babble. Mr. Disraeli, as a matter of duty, should have made himself acquainted with the authority on which these stories rested before he took it upon himself to denounce them as sensational fables. But in spite of Mr. Disraeli, who at this very moment blossomed into the E

ld in the dry, official language of a Foreign Office report, was still sufficient to arouse a passion of righteous rage in the breast of any person endowed with the ordinary instincts of humanity. The old fear of Russia as our rival in Eastern Europe still constituted the chief influence in determining our foreign policy, and the old idea of the Turk as our friend and ally was still popular amongst us. But these r

lves under the influence of the prevailing excitement. Many foolish and many dangerous things were uttered at the meetings at which every town and village gave expression to the horror inspired by the Sultan's crimes. Mr. Gladstone's strongest utterances were seized upon by his fervent admirers and were carried to an extreme from which he h

ost. In the late autumn, a Conference on the subject of our relations with Turkey was held in St. James's Hall. This was no demonstration on the part of a caucus, but a gathering of the notables of all the great towns of England. No doubt the majority of those present were Liberals, but a very considerable minority were Conservatives who had hitherto supported the Government. It was my good fortune to be present at that wonderful meeting in St. James's Hall. Never was there such a political platform seen at a public meeting befor

as it happened, I was absorbed at the time in other work. The consequence was that I could see the evil, as well as the good, of this extraordinary upheaval of popular emotion, and when I returned later on to my work at Leeds I took a cooler view of the whole question than most Liberal journalists did, and dealt with it, not from the merely emotional standpoint, but from that of our duty and interests as a people. Of course, I was blamed for this by the