I learned that a rising young Welshman, a pro-Boer, and one of our most important bugbears, named Lloyd George, who from below the gangway was making things very difficult for the leaders of the Liberal Party, would probably be called about nine o’clock. He had a moderately phrased amendment on the paper, but whether he would move it was not certain. I gathered that I could, if I wished, have the opportunity of following him. In those days, and indeed for many years, I was unable to say anything (except a sentence in rejoinder) that I had not written out and committed to memory beforehand. I had never had the practice which comes to young men at the University of speaking in small debating societies impromptu upon all sorts of subjects. I had to try to foresee the situation and to have a number of variants ready to meet its possibilities. I therefore came with a quiverful of arrows of different patterns and sizes, some of which I hoped would hit the target. My concern was increased by the uncertainty about what Mr Lloyd George would do. I hoped that the lines I had prepared would follow fairly well from what he would probably say.
The hour arrived. I sat in the corner seat above the gangway, immediately behind the Ministers, the same seat from which my father had made his speech of resignation and his terrible Pigott attack. On my left, a friendly counsellor, sat the long-experienced Parliamentarian, Mr Thomas Gibson Bowles. Towards nine o’clock the House began to fill. Mr Lloyd George spoke from the third bench below the gangway on the Opposition side, surrounded by a handful of Welshmen and Radicals, and backed by the Irish Nationalist Party. He announced forthwith that he did not intend to move his amendment, but would instead speak on the main question. Encouraged by the cheers of the ‘Celtic fringes’ he soon became animated and even violent. I constructed in succession sentence after sentence to hook on with after he should sit down. Each of these poor couplings became in turn obsolete. A sense of alarm and even despair crept across me. I repressed it with an inward gasp. Then Mr Bowles whispered, ‘You might say “instead of making his violent speech without moving his moderate amendment, he had better have moved his moderate amendment without making his violent speech.”’ Manna in the wilderness was not more welcome! It fell only just in time. To my surprise I heard my opponent saying that he ‘would curtail his remarks as he was sure the House wished to hear a new member’, and with this graceful gesture he suddenly resumed his seat.
I was up before I knew it, and reciting Tommy Bowles’s rescuing sentence. It won a general cheer. Courage returned. I got through all right. The Irish – whom I had been taught to detest – were a wonderful audience. They gave just the opposition which would help, and said nothing they thought would disturb. They did not seem the least offended when I made a joke at their expense. But presently when I said, ‘The Boers who are fighting in the field – and if I were a Boer, I hope I should be fighting in the field –…’ I saw a ruffle upon the Treasury Bench below me. Mr Chamberlain said something to his neighbour which I could not hear. Afterwards George Wyndham told me it was ‘That’s the way to throw away seats!’ But I could already see the shore at no great distance, and swam on vigorously till I could scramble up the beach, breathless physically, dripping metaphorically, but safe. Everyone was very kind. The usual restoratives were applied, and I sat in a comfortable coma till I was strong enough to go home. The general verdict was not unfavourable. Although many guessed I had learnt it all by heart, this was pardoned because of the pains I had taken. The House of Commons, though gravely changed, is still an august collective personality. It is always indulgent to those who are proud to be its servants.
After this debate I first made the acquaintance of Mr Lloyd George. We were introduced at the Bar of the House of Commons. After compliments, he said, ‘Judging from your sentiments, you are standing against the Light.’ I replied, ‘You take a singularly detached view of the British Empire.’ Thus began an association which has persisted through many vicissitudes.
I only made two more really successful speeches from the Conservative benches in this Parliament, and both were in its earliest months. The War Office had appointed a certain General Colville to command a brigade at Gibraltar. Having done this, they became dissatisfied about his conduct in some South African action fought nearly a year before, but the facts of which they had only just found out. They therefore dismissed him from his command. The Opposition championed the General and censured his belated punishment. There was a row at Question time, and a debate was fixed for the following week. Here was a country with which I was familiar, and I had plenty of time to choose the best defensive positions. The debate opened ill for the Government, and criticism was directed upon them from all sides. In those days it was a serious matter for an Administration, even with a large majority, to be notably worsted in debate. It was supposed to do harm to the party. Ministers were quite upset if they felt that Harcourt, Asquith, Morley or Grey had broken their front in any degree. I came in well on this, with what everybody thought was a debating speech; but it was only the result of a lucky anticipation of the course of the debate. In fact I defended the Government by arguments which appealed to the Opposition. The Conservatives were pleased and the Liberals complimentary. George Wyndham, now Irish Secretary, with whom I became increasingly intimate, told me that nice things were said in the highest ministerial circles. I really seemed to be finding my footing in the House.
Meanwhile, however, I found myself in marked reaction from the dominant views of the Conservative party. I was all for fighting the war, which had now flared up again in a desultory manner, to a victorious conclusion; and for that purpose I would have used far larger numbers, and also have organised troops of a higher quality than were actually employed. I would also have used Indian troops. At the same time I admired the dauntless resistance of the Boers, resented the abuse with which they were covered and hoped for an honourable peace which should bind these brave men and their leaders to us for ever. I thought farm-burning a hateful folly; I protested against the execution of Commandant Scheepers; I perhaps played some part behind the scenes in averting the execution of Commandant Kruitzinger. My divergences extended to a wider sphere. When the Secretary of State for War said, ‘It is by accident that we have become a military nation. We must endeavour to remain one,’ I was offended. I thought we should finish the war by force and generosity, and then make haste to return to paths of peace, retrenchment and reform. Although I enjoyed the privilege of meeting in pleasant circles most of the Conservative leaders, and was always treated with extraordinary kindness and good-nature by Mr Balfour; although I often saw Mr Chamberlain and heard him discuss affairs with the greatest freedom, I drifted steadily to the left. I found that Rosebery, Asquith and Grey and above all John Morley seemed to understand my point of view far better than my own chiefs. I was fascinated by the intellectual stature of these men and their broad and inspiring outlook upon public affairs, untrammelled as it was by the practical burden of events.
The reader must remember that not having been to a University, I had not been through any of those processes of youthful discussion by which opinion may be formed or reformed in happy irresponsibility. I was already a well-known public character. I – at least – attached great importance to everything I said, and certainly it was often widely published. I became anxious to make the Conservative Party follow Liberal courses. I was in revolt against ‘jingoism’. I had a sentimental view about the Boers. I found myself differing from both parties in various ways, and I was so untutored as to suppose that all I had to do was to think out what was right and express it fearlessly. I thought that loyalty in this outweighed all other loyalties. I did not understand the importance of party discipline and unity, and the sacrifices of opinion which may lawfully be made in their cause.
My third speech was a very serious affair. Mr Brodrick, Secretary of State for War, had announced his scheme for reorganising the Army on a somewhat larger scale. He proposed to form all the existing forces, regulars, militia and volunteers, into six army corps by what would in the main b
e a paper transaction. I resolved to oppose this whenever the Army Estimates should be introduced. I took six weeks to prepare this speech, and learnt it so thoroughly off by heart that it hardly mattered where I began it or how I turned it. Two days were assigned for the discussion, and by good fortune and the favour of the Speaker I was called at eleven o’clock on the first day. I had one hour before a division after midnight was taken on some other subject. The House was therefore crowded in every part, and I was listened to throughout with the closest attention. I delivered what was in effect a general attack, not only upon the policy of the Government, but upon the mood and tendency of the Conservative Party, urging peace, economy and reduction of armaments. The Conservatives treated me with startled consideration, while the Opposition of course cheered generously. As a speech it was certainly successful; but it marked a definite divergence of thought and sympathy from nearly all those who thronged the benches around me. I had sent it off to the Morning Post beforehand, and it was already in print. What would have happened if I had not been called, or had not got through with it, I cannot imagine. The worry and anxiety of manufacturing and letting off a set-piece of this kind was harassing. I was much relieved when it was over. But certainly to have the whole House of Commons listening as they had seemed to me a tremendous event, and to repay both the effort and the consequences.
Meanwhile we had formed our small Parliamentary society nicknamed ‘The Hooligans’. It consisted of Lord Percy, Lord Hugh Cecil, Mr Ian Malcolm, Mr Arthur Stanley, and myself. We dined every Thursday in the House and always invited one distinguished guest. All the leading men on both sides came. Sometimes we entertained well-known strangers like Mr W. J. Bryan. We even asked Lord Salisbury himself. But he replied by bidding us dine with him at Arlington Street. The Prime Minister was in the best of humours, and conversed majestically on every subject that was raised. As we walked out into the street Percy said to me, ‘I wonder how it feels to have been Prime Minister for twenty years, and to be just about to die.’ With Lord Salisbury much else was to pass away. His retirement and death marked the end of an epoch. The new century of storm and change had already embraced the British Empire in its fierce grip.
The world in which Lord Salisbury had reigned, the times and scenes with which these pages have dealt, the structure and character of the Conservative Party, the foundations of English governing society, all were soon to be separated from us by gulfs and chasms such as have rarely opened in so brief a space. Little could we foresee how strong would be the tides that would bear us forward or apart with resistless force; still less the awful convulsions which would shake the world and shiver into fragments the structures of the nineteenth century. However, Percy had a premonition of events he was not destined to see. When I walked with him in the autumn at Dunrobin, he explained to me the Irvingite religion. There had, it appeared, been twelve apostles sent to warn mankind; but their message had been disregarded. The last of them had died on the same day as Queen Victoria. Our chance of safety was therefore gone. He predicted with strange assurance an era of fearful wars and of terrors unmeasured and renewing. He used the word Armageddon, of which I had only previously heard mention in the Bible. It happened that the German Crown Prince was staying at Dunrobin. I could not help wondering whether this agreeable young man, our companion in pillow-fights and billiard-table fives, would play any part in the realisation of Percy’s sombre prophecies.
In April 1902 a breeze arose in the House of Commons about a certain Mr Cartwright. This man was a newspaper editor who had courageously published a letter criticising the treatment of Boer women and children in concentration camps. He had been tried for sedition and imprisoned for a year in South Africa. He had served his sentence and wished to come to England. The military authorities in South Africa refused him leave, and when Ministers were interrogated upon this in Parliament, the Under-Secretary for War replied ‘that it was undesirable to increase the number of persons in England who disseminated anti-British propaganda’. Thus an abuse of power was defended by the worst of reasons: for where else could anti-British propaganda be less harmful at this time than in Great Britain? John Morley moved an adjournment. In those days such a motion was discussed forthwith. All the Opposition leaders spoke with indignation, and I and another of our small group supported them from the Conservative benches. The matter was trumpery, but feeling ran high.
That night we were to have Mr Chamberlain as our dinner guest. ‘I am dining in very bad company,’ he observed, surveying us with a challenging air. We explained how inept and arrogant the action of the Government had been. How could we be expected to support it? ‘What is the use,’ he replied, ‘of supporting your own Government only when it is right? It is just when it is in this sort of pickle that you ought to have come to our aid.’ However, as he mellowed, he became most gay and captivating. I never remember having heard him talk better. As he rose to leave he paused at the door, and turning said with much deliberation, ‘You young gentlemen have entertained me royally, and in return I will give you a priceless secret. Tariffs! There are the politics of the future, and of the near future. Study them closely and make yourselves masters of them, and you will not regret your hospitality to me.’
He was quite right. Events were soon to arise in the fiscal sphere which were to plunge me into new struggles and absorb my thoughts and energies at least until September 1908, when I married and lived happily ever afterwards.
Index
Africa, South. See South Africa
Afridis, 1
Amery, L. S., 1, 2
Ardagh, Sir John, 1
Arthur, Prince, Duke of Connaught, 1, 2
Ascroft, Robert, 1
Asquith, H. H. (Lord Oxford and Asquith), 1, 2, 3, 4
Atkins, J. B., 1
Balfour, Earl, 1, 2letter to Mr Churchill on his
defeat at Oldham, 1
message to Buller on relieving
of Ladysmith, 1
remark on Mr Churchill, 1
remark on Sir George White, 1
Ball, Major, 1
Bangalore, 1, 2
Baring, Hugo, 1, 2
Barnes, Reginald, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Beaconsfield, Lord, 1
Beatty, Lord, 1, 2
Benzo, Lieut.-Col., 1
Beresford, Lord Marcus, 1
Beresford, Lord William, 1, 2
Birkenhead, Lord, 1
Blood, Sir Bindon, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Boer War, 1
Boers’ treatment of white prisoners, 1
Bombay, 1
Borthwick, Oliver, 1, 2, 3
Botha, General, 1, 2 predicts the Great War, 1
takes Mr Churchill prisoner, 1
Bowles, Thomas Gibson, 1
Brabazon, General, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Brindle, Bishop, 1
Brockie, Lieut., 1, 2
Brodrick, St John (Lord Midleton), 1
Buller, General Sir Redvers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6cable on relieving of Ladysmith, 1
sketch of, 1
Burgener, Mr, 1, 2
Burke, T. H., 1
Butterflies, 1
Byng, Lord, 1, 2
Cambon, Paul, 1
Campos, Marshal Martinez, 1, 2
Cartwright, Mr, 1
Cassel, Sir Ernest, 1, 2
Cecil, Lord Hugh, 1
Chamberlain, Sir Austen, 1, 2
Chamberlain, Joseph, 1, 2, 3, 4 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 at Oldham, 1
Chant, Mrs Ormiston, 1
Chaplin, Henry, 1
Chermside, Sir Herbert, 1
Chetwode, General, 1
Churchill, Jack, 1, 2, 3
Churchill, Lady Randolph, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; equips hospital ship for Boer War, 1
Churchill, Lord Randolph, 1, 2, 3, 4; death, 1
Churchill, Winston,
American author, 1
Churchill, Winston Spencer, accident when 1
and Mrs Ormiston Chant, 1
as w
riter of fiction, 1
at Cuba, 1
at Harrow, 1
at Hounslow, 1
at Pretoria, 1
at Sandhurst, 1
back to the Army, 1
Balfour’s remark, 1
Boer War experiences, 1escape from the Boers, 1
escape, newspaper criticisms, 1
childhood, 1
criticises Army Chaplain’s sermon, 1
cycles through Johannesburg, 1
difficulty with Lord Kitchener, 1
dislocates shoulder, 1
education at Bangalore, 1
feels the desire for learning, 1
first speech at a gathering of the Primrose League at Bath, 1
first speech in the House of Commons, 1
gazetted to the 1th Hussars, 2
gives flesh to be grafted, 1
his first book, 1
in a cavalry charge, 1
in India, 1
interview with Lord Salisbury, 1
leaves the Army, 1
lecturing tours, 1
letter to Mr Winston Churchill, 1
Malakand Field Force, 1
Mamund Valley expedition, 1
Oldham, contest at, 1
ordered to Soudan, 1
prisoner with the Boers, 1
receives commission in South
African Light Horse, 1
school days, 1
speeches in House, 1, 2, 3
surrenders to General Botha, 1
telegram on Boer War, 1
thoughts of going to Oxford, 1
Tirah Expedition, 1
Clemens, S. L., ‘Mark Twain,’ 1
My Early Life Page 36