Lord Randolph Churchill

A RECENT critic in the Independent Review has said that Mr. Winston Churchill possesses every qualification for writing the life of his father except filial reverence. The other qualifications he certainly has: a lively interest in the only subject by which Lord Randolph came into touch with the world at large, that is, politics; a thorough knowledge of the times in which Lord Randolph played his part; a sense of proportion, with an absence of excessive bias; a power of breathing life into the characters of his drama; and, finally, an uncommonly attractive style. Nor does it seem fair to say that he lacks filial reverence. The impression left on the mind of the present writer, at least, is that Mr. Churchill has a great admiration and keen sympathy for his father. He makes no attempt, it is true, to conceal qualities which most readers will not admire; he tells of some things that will not be universally approved; and he prints specimens of what the English sometimes condone as invective, which furnish stronger evidence of wit than of the decorum proper among statesmen. These things had, no doubt, already been published; but apart from any such reason for their insertion here, it is clear that the biographer is proud of them. Their cleverness more than atones in his eyes for their faults.

Lord Randolph Churchill was essentially a politician, and in these volumes but little space is devoted to matters unconnected with public affairs. His boyhood and youth were not remarkable, and were quite unvexed by precocious signs of genius. His political career may be divided into four periods: first, a time of comparative obscurity, from 1874 to 1880; second, for five years, a period of rapid rise into the blazing light of public celebrity; next, eighteen months as one of the chief among the recognized leaders of the party; and then an eclipse. He entered Parliament in 1874, at the age of twentyfive, as the member for the old family borough of Woodstock, where the influence of his father, the Duke of Marlborough, was predominant. At this time he seems to have had no passion for public life, and, as Mr. Winston Churchill truly remarks, a private member of the House of Commons has little chance to win distinction while his party is in office. “Even in a period of political activity,” he says, “there is small scope for a supporter of a Government. The Whips do not want speeches, but votes. The Ministers regard an oration in their praise or defense as only one degree less tiresome than an attack. The earnest party man becomes a silent drudge, tramping at intervals through lobbies to record his vote and wondering why he came to Westminster at all.” So Lord Randolph made few speeches during this Parliament, spent much of his time in Ireland, where his father was viceroy, and learned a good deal about the country and the people that was useful to him in after life.

His chance in Parliament came after the general election of 1880 had brought Mr. Gladstone back to power with a large Liberal majority at his back. In opposition a young member may acquire fame by attacking the government as a free lance, without breach of discipline toward the leaders on his own side. But Lord Randolph Churchill went much farther, and played a bolder game. The Conservative minority in the House of Commons was led by Sir Stafford Northcote, — of a decorous rather than sanguinary temperament, an admirer of Mr. Gladstone, whose private secretary he had been in early life, and not a man to carry political contests to extremes. Many people felt, indeed, that he failed to take full advantage, for his party, of the many delicate and difficult questions which, in the course of the Parliament, the government was unexpectedly called upon to face. The conditions were favorable for a small body of members, something between knights-errant and banditti, who fought as guerrillas under the Conservative banner, but attacked on occasion their own leaders with magnanimous impartiality.

This small body, which, in contradistinction to the Liberals, Conservatives, and Irish Home Rulers, came to be known as the Fourth Party, began in one of those accidents that happen in irregular warfare. The Bradlaugh case, involving the thorny question whether a professed atheist could qualify in the House of Commons by affirmation or oath, vexed the whole life of the Parliament, and brought together in the opening days Sir Henry Wolff, Mr. (now Sir) John Gorst, Lord Randolph Churchill, and Mr. Arthur Balfour. The success with which they played upon the feelings of the House in this case made them at once conspicuous, and taught them the value of concerted action. With a short interruption, caused by a difference of opinion about the Irish Coercion Bill of 1881, the friends acted in harmony for four years. They had no formal programme, and no one of them was recognized as the chief; but it was understood that they should defend one another when attacked, and they were in the habit of dining together to arrange a common plan of action. They took a vigorous part in all debates, criticised the government unsparingly, and, under the pretense of assisting to perfect its measures, spun out the discussions and obstructed progress. They showed great skill in baiting Mr. Gladstone, and, when delay was their object, in drawing him out by turns into long explanations in response to plausible questions about the clauses of his bills. Their aggressiveness, and the profession — especially on the part of Lord Randolph Churchill — of popular principles under the name of Tory Democracy, spread their reputation in the country, and gave them an importance out of proportion to their number or their direct influence in the House of Commons.

Throughout its career the Fourth Party assumed to be independent of the regular opposition leaders in the House. At times it went so far as to accuse them of indecision, and of an inability to lead which disorganized the party. In his private correspondence Lord Randolph commonly referred to them and their friends as Goats. After Lord Beaconsfield’s death in 1881 the Conservatives had no single recognized leader until the party came to power again in 1885. Lord Salisbury had been chosen by the Tory peers their leader in the House of Lords; and Sir Stafford Northcote remained, as he had been in Lord Beaconsfield’s last years, the leader in the House of Commons. The members of the Fourth Party asserted that this dual leadership, by causing uncertainty in the counsels of the party, was disastrous; and they soon settled upon Sir Stafford Northcote as the object of their censure. The attack upon him culminated in April, 1883, when his selection to unveil the statue of Lord Beaconsfield seemed to indicate that he was to be the future Conservative premier. On that occasion Lord Randolph Churchill published a couple of letters in the Times, in which he spoke of Sir Stafford in abusive terms and declared that Lord Salisbury was the only man capable of taking the lead. These he followed up by an article in the Fortnightly Review for May, entitled “Elijah’s Mantle,” describing the decay of the Conservative party, setting forth his ideas of Tory Democracy as a means of regeneration, designating Lord Salisbury as the proper heir to Lord Beaconsfield’s mantle, but revealing at the same time his confidence in his own fitness to be a leader. His quarrel with his chief in the House of Commons did not impair his popularity in the country; while his speeches, with their vituperation of prominent Liberals, and their appeals for the support of the masses, caught the fancy of the Tory crowds. Hitherto he had decried Sir Stafford Northcote and praised Lord Salisbury, but he now embarked upon an adventure that brought him into sharp conflict with the latter. Mr. Balfour, being Lord Salisbury’s nephew, could not follow in the new path, and before long opposed his former comrade; but the other two members of the Fourth Party continued to support him.

In the summer of 1883 Lord Randolph Churchill conceived the bold plan of getting control of the popular organization of the party, known as the National Union of Conservative Associations, and making it in his own hands a great political force. The attempt of a politician to capture the machine was a surprise in England, but it is not so astonishing as the means that were employed. The facts are told fully and fairly by the biographer, who prints in an appendix some of the most important documents; these, together with the rest of the correspondence, having been published at the time in the form of a report to the Association. Perhaps readers may draw different inferences from the facts according to their prejudices; but the story is so characteristic of Lord Randolph Churchill’s audacity, throws so much light on certain possibilities in English politics, and is withal so little known, that it may be worth while to tell it at some length. The National Union had been formed in 1867 as a federation of local party associations throughout the country; and it was governed by a Council, consisting of thirtysix members. Twenty-four of them were elected for a year by the Conference, or annual meeting of delegates from the local bodies, while twelve more were added, or, as the expression goes, coöpted, by the Council itself. From the beginning the Union was clearly designed as a powerful agency in winning elections, and was not intended to direct the policy of the party. As one of its founders had declared, it was “organized rather as what he might call a hand-maid to the party, than to usurp the functions of party leadership.” The Council had, in fact, been managed in concert with the leaders of the party in Parliament, and the real direction of electoral matters was vested in the “ Central Committee.” This body, created at the instance of Lord Beaconsfield, after the defeat of 1880, to devise means of improving the party organization, was quite independent of the Union; and, working under the Whips, had exclusive charge of the large sums entrusted to them by the subscribers to the campaign funds. Complaints had long been made by members of the Union that the Council, instead of being truly representative, was practically in the hands of a small, selfelected group of men, acting under the direction of the party leaders. Lord Randolph took advantage of the opportunity offered by these complaints, and, seeing that in order to achieve any large measure of independent power the Union must have pecuniary resources, he determined to obtain for it a share of the funds in the possession of the Central Committee.

The three friends were already members of the Council. Sir Henry Wolff had been there from the beginning. Mr. Gorst had recently been given a seat as vicechairman, and Lord Randolph Churchill had been elected a coöpted member in 1882 by the casting vote of the chairman, Lord Percy. The first scene in the drama was arranged for the Conference of the Union held at Birmingham on October 2, 1883. There, when the usual motion was made to adopt the annual report, a Mr. Hudson moved a rider directing “the Council for the ensuing year to take such steps as may be requisite for securing to the National Union its legitimate influence in the party organization.” He said that the Conservative workingmen should not be led by the nose, and that the Union ought to have the management of its own policy. Lord Randolph Churchill supported the rider in a characteristic speech, in which he described how the Central Committee had drawn into its own hands all the powers and available resources of the party, and kept the Council of the Union in a state of tutelage. After intimating that the committee had used money at the last election for corrupt purposes, he ended by saying that the working classes were quite determined to govern themselves, that they would neither be driven nor hoodwinked, and that the only way to gain their confidence was to give them a real share in the government of the party. Several men spoke upon the other side, and among them Lord Percy, who repudiated the charge that the Central Committee had spent money corruptly. He said that he and others had been members both of that Committee and of the Council, and that there was a constant interchange of ideas between the two bodies. He was willing, however, to accept the rider upon the understanding that the Conference was not committed to any of the modes of carrying it out that had been suggested. The rider was then adopted unanimously.

Lord Randolph Churchill was reëlected to the Council, and so were many persons who had no sympathy with his views. The two sides were, in fact, nearly equally balanced, but he and his friends had the advantage of a definite, well-arranged plan, while the others were unprepared. Twelve coöpted members were to be chosen, and by presenting the names of men of local influence in the large towns, to whom his opponents found it hard to object, Lord Randolph secured a small but decisive majority in the Council. At the first meeting, in December, he had a committee appointed to consider the best means of carrying out the votes passed at the Conference. It was composed mainly of himself and his friends, and at once chose him its chairman, although, according to the custom that had been followed hitherto, the chairman of the Council, Lord Percy, should have presided in all committees. Early in January, 1884, the committee had an interview with Lord Salisbury, and brought to his attention the desire of the Union to obtain its legitimate influence in the management of the party. Lord Salisbury took the matter under consideration. But meanwhile, on February 1, when the committee reported progress to the Council, Lord Percy protested against his exclusion from the chair, and motions were made to the effect that he ought to preside at meetings of committees. They were rejected by close votes, whereupon he resigned his position as chairman of the Council; and, as he refused to withdraw his resignation, Lord Randolph Churchill was, on February 19, chosen to succeed him, by seventeen votes to fifteen for Mr. Chaplin. Lord Salisbury, however, ignoring the change of chairman, still communicated with the Council through Lord Percy, which exasperated Lord Randolph’s friends.

On February 29, Lord Salisbury, in a letter to Lord Randolph Churchill, replied in behalf of himself and Sir Stafford Northcote to the suggestions that had been made to him in January. He began by observing that no proposals had been put forward beyond the representation that the Council had not opportunity of concurring largely enough in the practical organization of the party. He went on to describe the work that it could properly do, and added, “The field of work seems to us large — as large as the nature of the case permits.” To any one familiar with the history of the National Union it would seem clear that the letter was intended to enumerate the very functions that the Council had hitherto performed; but the committee affected to receive it with joy as a complete acceptance of their plan. Mr. Winston Churchill says of the matter,—

“The arrival of this letter was hailed by Lord Randolph and his friends with delight, and with elaborate gravity they made haste to accept it as a ‘ charter ’ establishing for ever the rights and position of the National Union. It might seem at first sight that Lord Salisbury’s utterances were sufficiently vague and guarded; but this was not the view of the Organization Committee, and they forthwith proceeded to draw up a report, in which, it must be confessed, the assigned duties of the National Union seemed to be of a very responsible and definite character.”

In their report the committee remarked: “The Council will, no doubt, perceive that for the proper discharge of these duties now imposed upon them by the leaders of the party the provision of considerable funds becomes a matter of firstclass necessity.” They proposed, therefore, to claim a part of the funds in the custody of the Central Committee, and recommended changes in the organization and activity of the Council that would have thrown great power into the hands of Lord Randolph as chairman.

Lord Salisbury was informed of the proposed report, and hastened to remove any misapprehension by a letter in which he said he had not contemplated that the Union would in any way take the place of the Central Committee, and hoped there was no chance of their paths crossing. Lord Randolph replied that he feared such a hope might be disappointed, adding, “In a struggle between a popular body and a close corporation, the latter, I am happy to say, in these days goes to the wall.” Lord Salisbury wrote to Lord Percy also, saying that the duties entrusted by the leaders to the Central Committee could not be transferred, and deprecating the adoption of the report. Lord Percy laid this before the Council; but it adopted the report, and the committee was instructed to confer with the leaders of the party about carrying out the plans foreshadowed in their letter. The temper of the leaders may be imagined, and may well excuse a step which was, nevertheless, a mistake, because it offended members of the Council of local importance, who had probably intended no disrespect to Lord Salisbury. Three days after the adoption of the report a letter came from the principal agent of the party, giving the National Union notice to quit the offices occupied jointly with the Central Committee. Lord Randolph Churchill showed no open resentment at this; but, treating the objections of the leaders as if they applied only to the details of the report, he prepared to make in it some minor changes. He held also with Lord Salisbury a conference, which was again an occasion for misunderstanding; for on April 1 his Lordship wrote that some passages in the report had been explained to him there, and it had been made clear that the National Union did not intend to trench on the province of the Central Committee, or take any course on political questions not acceptable to the leaders of the party. He went on to describe the proper functions of the Council in language evidently intended to cover the same ground as his letter of February 29. He suggested that to secure complete unity of action it was desirable to have the party Whips sit ex officio on the Council, and that under these conditions a separation of establishments would be unnecessary.

Lord Randolph called at once a meeting of his committee, and, although only three members beside himself were present, he sent to Lord Salisbury in its name a letter unique in English political annals. “It appeared at first,” he wrote, “from a letter which we had the honour of receiving from you on February 29 that your Lordship and Sir Stafford Northcote entered fully and sympathetically into the wishes of the Council. . . . The Council, however, committed the serious error of imagining that your Lordship and Sir Stafford Northcote were in earnest in wishing them to become a real source of usefulness to the party. . . . The Council have been rudely undeceived . . . The precise language of your former letter of February 29 is totally abandoned, and refuge taken in vague, foggy and utterly intangible suggestions. Finally, in order that the Council of the National Union may be completely and forever reduced to its ancient condition of dependence upon, and servility to, certain irresponsible persons who find favour in your eyes, you demand that the Whips of the party . . . should sit ex officio on the Council. ... It may be that the powerful and secret influences which have hitherto been unsuccessfully at work on the Council, with the knowledge and consent of your Lordship and Sir Stafford Northcote, may at last be effectual in reducing the National Union to its former make-believe and impotent condition; in that case we shall know what steps to take to clear ourselves of all responsibility for the failure of an attempt to avert the misfortunes and reverses which will, we are certain, under the present effete system of wire-pulling and secret organization, overtake and attend the Conservative party at a General Election.”

It might be supposed that, after receiving a letter of that tenor, Lord Salisbury would have had no more to do with Lord Randolph Churchill forever, and would have refused to hold further communication with the Council; but politics make strange bedfellows, especially in a parliamentary form of government. Lord Salisbury could not afford to alienate a body which represented a considerable fraction of the Conservatives in the country; while it would have been folly for Lord Randolph to burn the bridges behind him. Negotiations were, therefore, opened through a third person, and were approaching a result, when one of Lord Randolph’s supporters in the Council, who had not intended to force a rupture with Lord Salisbury, and was not aware of the pending negotiations, moved on May 2 for a committee of conference to secure harmony and united action. Although letters were read showing that steps already taken would probably lead to an understanding, and although Lord Randolph said that he should regard the motion as one of want of confidence, the mover persisted, and, as several of Lord Randolph’s friends were absent, carried his proposal by a vote of seventeen to thirteen. Thereupon Lord Randolph resigned as chairman of the Council. But his popularity in the country was great, and there was a widespread feeling of regret at a quarrel among the influential members of the party. The chairmen of the Conservative associations in some of the chief provincial towns acted as peacemakers: they drew up a memorandum, suggesting an arrangement, and urging that if this were accepted Lord Randolph should withdraw his resignation. The memorandum was laid before the Council on May 16, and Lord Randolph was unanimously reëlected chairman. At the same time the committee, composed mainly of his opponents, that had been appointed to confer with the party leaders, reported that it aad reached an agreement. The terms were, in fact, precisely the ones indicated in Lord Salisbury’s letter of April 1, save for an allowance of £3000 a year to be made to the Union from the party funds. Naturally, Lord Randolph’s friends were dissatisfied, but they failed to procure any changes, and on June 27 the plan was adopted as it stood.

Although Mr. Winston Churchill ascribes at this time a large measure of success to Lord Randolph, it is not easy to perceive that he had as yet obtained anything for the National Union, except the subsidy of £3000 a year. Personally he had become the leading figure in what purported to be the great representative organization of the party, for the chairman of the Council was the most important officer in the Union; but the position of the organization itself remained substantially unchanged. However, the agreement that had been reached was merely a truce, and both sides canvassed eagerly the delegates to the annual Conference of the Union for 1884, each hoping for a decisive victory that would give undisputed control of the body. The meeting was held at Sheffield on July 23, and in his speech on presenting the report of the Council, Lord Randolph described the dissensions that had occurred, begging the delegates to elect members who would support one side or the other. His object, he said, had been to establish a bona-fide popular organization, bringing its influence to bear right up to the centre of affairs, in order that the Tory party might be a self-governing party. As yet, he added, this had been successfully thwarted by those who possessed influence. The speech was followed by a fierce debate; but the real interest of the meeting lay in the ballot for councillors, and before that was taken the coöpted members were abolished, so that the result of the ballot would determine finally the complexion of the Council. A majority of the delegates sympathized with Lord Randolph, but they did not, as he had hoped, divide on a sharp line for the ticket put forward by one side or the other. He headed the poll himself with 346 votes, while the next highest received 298. When, however, the result was announced, his friends had only a small majority in the Council.

Lord Randolph Churchill had won a victory; but by no means a crushing victory. His own reëlection as chairman was assured, and for the moment he controlled the Council, yet his control would be neither undisputed nor certain to endure. He could use the Union in a way that would be highly uncomfortable for Lord Salisbury, but he could not do with it whatever he pleased. Again it was for the interest of both sides to make peace, and the negotiations were completed in a few days. The Central Committee was in form abolished, the Primrose League, recently founded by the Fourth Party, was recognized by the leaders, Lord Randolph withdrew from the chairmanship of the Council, and mutual confidence and harmony of action were restored. These appear to have been the nominal conditions. Whether the real terms were ever definitely stated, or were merely left in the form of a tacit understanding, we do not know, and Mr. Winston Churchill tells us that no record has been preserved of what passed at the interview between Lord Randolph and Lord Salisbury. The practical upshot was that the Fourth Party was broken up. Lord Randolph abandoned the National Union to its fate, acted in concert with the Parliamentary leaders, and was given a seat in the Cabinet when the Conservatives next came to power.

The National Union was one of the three means used by Lord Randolph to thrust himself upon the chiefs of the Conservative party and climb into power. The other two were the aggressive tactics of the Fourth Party, and his appeal to the masses on the basis of Tory Democracy. Mr. Winston Churchill insists constantly that the last of these three was the expression of a genuine conviction, that a sincere belief in the need of democracy, for the welfare, both of the nation and of the party, went very deep into his father’s nature, and was the cause of his final quarrel with Lord Salisbury’s government in 1886. The story of the Fourth Party, on the other hand, is so told as to leave the impression that convictions were very much diluted with opportunism; while in the adventure of the National Union there is scarcely any attempt to show that Lord Randolph acted upon principle at all. If he cherished any real desire to place the party organization upon a popular basis, he sacrificed it in the compromise with Lord Salisbury; for thereafter he stood aside while the Union was effectually reduced “to its former make-believe and impotent condition,” and carefully reorganized so as to prevent its capture by any one else. The biographer seeks, however, to defend Lord Randolph from the charge, made by Mr. Harold Gorst in his story of the Fourth Party,² that his father, Mr. John Gorst, after devoting his skill in organization to the service of his friend, was deserted by him in the hour of victory. The evidence that has been made public is hardly enough to justify a definite opinion. There is, however, no doubt that Mr. Gorst felt aggrieved at the isolated position in which he found himself; that in the following autumn Lord Randolph openly rebuked him in the House of Commons for clinging to the policy about the Reform Bill which the whole Fourth Party had pursued in May; that the intimacy between them came to an end; but that, when Lord Salisbury formed a cabinet in 1885, Lord Randolph procured the appointment of Mr. Gorst to a position, although a subordinate one, in the ministry.

The Conservatives came into power in June, 1885, and Lord Randolph Churchill was given the post of Secretary of State for India. The life of the government was not long. It lasted only seven months, but during that time came the general election, which opened rifts in the Liberal ranks, gave Mr. Parnell his long-coveted control of the balance of power in the House of Commons, and prepared the way for the Home Rule Bill. For Lord Randolph himself the period was one of triumph and of snares. Two things happened that showed his power, but might have turned any man’s head. When the government was formed he refused to join it if Sir Stafford Northcote were to lead the House of Commons. Lord Salisbury submitted reluctantly, and the old leader was removed to the oblivion of the House of Lords. Then, while Lord Randolph was at the India office, the Queen urged the appointment of one of her sons, the Duke of Connaught, as commander-in-chief at Bombay Without consulting Lord Randolph, she made the suggestion through Lord Salisbury to the Viceroy, and secured his approval; but when the Prime Minister told this to Lord Randolph a few days later, he tendered his resignation, with the result that the duke was not appointed.

When Parliament met in January, after the general election, the government was defeated upon an amendment to the Address, and resigned. Mr. Gladstone, again in power, brought in his ill-starred Home Rule Bill, and in the debates that followed Lord Randolph, who took a very prominent part, still further increased his reputation. With the help of the Liberal Unionists the bill was rejected, and Mr. Gladstone, appealing to the people, was beaten at the general elections. The Conservatives came back, this time Lord Randolph Churchill being made the leader of the House of Commons with the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was now only thirty-seven years old, and had reached the highest political place in his country except that of Prime Minister. He was on cordial and confidential terms with Lord Salisbury, extremely popular in the country, and seemed to have before him an extraordinary career; but in six months he was at odds with the rest of the cabinet, and was out of office. The true motives of his conduct will, no doubt, always remain a matter of conjecture. His enemies believed that he thought one more quarrel would leave him master of the party; his biographer maintains that the real cause of cleavage was an irreconcilable difference of opinion upon his principles of Tory Democracy, although the motives assigned do not strike one as perfectly consistent with one another. But whatever his ultimate objects might be, his battleground was unfortunately chosen, for he took his stand in the cabinet upon a reduction of the army and navy estimates, at a time when the national desire for economy was on the wane. His colleagues did not agree with him, and on December 20 he tendered his resignation to the Prime Minister. Mr. Winston Churchill makes it clear that Lord Randolph did not suppose his resignation would be final, that he expected the cabinet to come to his terms, or make some arrangement with him. In short, he was apparently confident of coming out victorious; but Mr. Goschen, a Liberal Unionist, took his place, and the government went on without him. He had overestimated his personal power, and failed to realize that a conflict in 1884 with the leaders of the Conservative party in the Houses of Parliament, — two men neither of whom had yet proved his capacity to be at the head of a cabinet, or won the full confidence of the country, — was a very different thing from a quarrel in 1886 with the government of the nation , at a time when it stood in the eyes of a majority of the people as the bulwark against disunion.

Lord Randolph soon realized that the breach was fatal; and time slipping by brought clearer and clearer proof that it would never be healed. To his credit it should be said that he did not, like many a fallen minister, turn upon his former colleagues. At times he disagreed with their policy, and even attacked them bitterly, but no more than he had always done; and as a rule he supported them, and tried to keep them in power. Although he remained in the House of Commons, his own career was at an end. He sought solace in books, and relief from the craving for excitement in foreign travel and in gambling on the turf. Mr. Winston Churchill makes the reader feel the tragedy of his father’s life, — a tragedy equally dramatic whether, as he contends, it was due to a conscientious struggle for principles that could not be carried out, or whether, like the tragedies of romance, it was the fatal result of defects of character.