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XXVII Ireland and Party Politics, 1885–7 : an unpublished Conservative Memoir (II)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

A. B. Cook  and
J. R. Vincent
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Extract

Thus ended Lord Salisbury’s first administration. The division was followed by an impromptu supper of about a hundred M.P.s at the Carlton Club. I sat beside Lord Randolph who was in high spirits. He told me that there had been a similar gathering on the night Gladstone was defeated in the previous June and he hoped we should soon have another.

The house adjourned to enable the new ministers to be re-elected; and I spent the interval in Ireland. As I did not share Lord Randolph’s sanguine view of the situation, I thought it prudent to be prepared for years spent in the cool shade of opposition. & We gave up our horses and coachman, and put an end to all unnecessary personal expenditure.

Type
Select Documents
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 63 , March 1969 , pp. 321 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1969

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References

1 Ministers were defeated 331–252 on 27 Jan. 1886.

2 Holmes spoke 20 times between the fall of the conservative government and the Easter recess.

3 Churchill derived scant satisfaction from Holmes’s speech but refused to admit to mistaken tactics : ‘Holmes did not do his work well the other night and I am inclined to think will never be a parliamentary success. His voice and manner ruin his matter. But I am firmly of opinion that what is called “our tactical blunder” was perfectly right, & that the protest was amply supported by the party, & will turn out afterwards to have been a valuable one ’ (Churchill to Salisbury 9 Mar. 1886, Salisbury MSS class E).

4 Beach wrote to Salisbury on 1 March proposing a meeting between them and Holmes on the following day at 3 p.m. He reported that Churchill was‘wild for an Irish row’ and ready to put up Saunderson if Holmes defaulted. Beach made no secret of his own opinion : ‘I do not like reversals of policy’ (Salisbury MSS class E).

5 See Hansard 3, cccii, 1917 ff. Holmes stated that the policy of discontinuing coercion in Ireland had ‘proved totally and entirely unsuccessful’ and went on to draw a gloomy picture of Ireland as not ‘a single nation, but two distinct nations or nationalities’. In his view the worst problem was represented by the invisible and secret authority of the National League, rather than the statistics of outrages, and this authority had never seemed to him greater than in the current winter. Hence, Holmes went on to claim, coercion had been in the forefront of tory ministers’ minds—a claim hardly borne out by the action they took or by his later admissions as an elderly judge. Coercion ‘had received as serious consideration as any subject ever received at the hands of any government, not, as had been stated again and again, within a day or two of parliament meeting, but at a considerable period before that. It was fully discussed… and the remedies… were reduced to writing. There was no want of elaboration and care, and the only reason why a measure was not announced before the 4th day of the session was because a change in the person responsible… took place at that period.

Although [W. H. Smith]… had seen the provisions which were suggested as a remedy to counteract the evils, it was natural that the new official should say he must personally see the most important persons in Ireland before he gave his sanction’ (ibid., col. 1929). Holmes, in fact, in his speech attributed to tory Irish policy in December 1885-January 1886 a lucidity and deliberateness his memoir shows it to have conspicuously lacked. Holmes’s only strong point was that liberal ministers had in May 1885 come out for a renewal of coercion at a time when the level of agrarian crime was much lower than in the winter of 1885–6.

6 Pease’s diary for 4 March 1886: ‘…Holmes led off in a long speech in a loud denunciatory voice to the accompaniments of thumps on the boxes in front of him. The house laughed loudly as he screamed out such fictions as that they had their coercion bill ready to place on the table the first day of this parliament… Gladstone’s reply was alive with reason, and, taking Holmes’s illustrations of the evil results of liberal rule, placed them convincingly on conservative shoulders ’ ( SirPease, A.E., Elections and recollections (1932), p. 107).Google Scholar The effect of Holmes’s intervention was to demonstrate, by a vote of 364 to 204, that the liberals were able still to act as a united party, and that Gladstone maintained his iron grip on debate.

7 Hansard 3, cccii, 1977–97.

8 Arthur Bower Forwood, M.P. (Cons.) S.W. Lancashire.

9 Chamberlain and Trevelyan both sent letters tendering resignation on Monday, 15 March 1886, following Gladstone’s outline of his Irish land proposals at the cabinet of 13 March. Gladstone persuaded them to postpone action till a fuller statement of his proposals was available. Their departure was finally settled by the cabinet of 26 March 1886.

10 Naish, when shown a draft of the bill by Sir R. Hamilton, said that if it passed he could no longer live in Ireland (Hamilton to Spencer, 28 Mar. 1886, Spencer MSS).

11 Beach wrote along these lines to Salisbury on 27 March 1886.

12 M.P. (Cons.), Preston, 1865: secretary for war, 1878–80: for colonies, 1885–6: later 16th earl of Derby and governor-general of Canada. Salisbury and North-cote had wanted to place him at the exchequer in June 1885.

13 On 19 April 1886.

14 The meeting was held at the Foreign Office on 27 May- Gladstone announced that a vote for the second reading would be a vote for a principle, and not for the provisions of his bill. 260 liberals heard him promise to reconstruct the bill so as to admit Irish M.P.s at Westminster ‘when any proposal for taxation is made which affects the condition of Ireland’.

15 M.P. (Cons.) Midhurst 1874–85, and Hampstead from 1885: Holland’s second wife was the sister of G. O. Trevelyan, the liberal minister.

16 The best printed account of the negotiations between Chamberlain and Gladstone at this time is probably in Lucy, H.W., Sixty years in the wilderness (London, 1911), pp 117–27,Google Scholar who heard of them direct from Labouchere, Gladstone’s intermediary. Chamberlain required not the tactical withdrawal, but the political humiliation, of Gladstone.

17 Meetings of Chamberlain’s supporters were held on 12, 20, 27, and 31 May. Bright’s letter (torn up by Chamberlain) was read on the last occasion.

18 Robert Bannatyne Finlay, Q.C., M.P. (Lib.), Inverness District : Edward Aldam Leatham, Quaker banker, M.P. (Lib.), Huddersfield 1859–65 and from 1868: and Edward Macnaghten, Q.C., M.P. (Cons.), Antrim 1880–5 and Antrim North from 1885.

19 Rt Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bt, G.C.B., M.P. (Cons.), Blackburn: eldest son of the prime minister: M.P. Tamworth 1850-80, Huntingdon 1884-5: chief secretary for Ireland, 1861–5, parting company with the liberals thereafter.

20 Aretas Akers Douglas, first Viscount Chilston : conservative whip, 1883–95.

21 On 26 June.

22 Result: Plunket (Cons.) 1871, Holmes (Cons.) 1867, Johnston (Nat.) 57, Counsell (Nat.) 56.

23 It was held on 27 July. Salisbury explained his attempts to form a coalition under Hartington, and Hartington’s refusal to form a government.

24 In the caretaker ministry of 1885–6, Ashbourne had held the same office with a seat in the cabinet.

25 ‘He [Ashbourne] argues that no one could, especially under present conditions, join a govt, outside the cabinet, having sat in it 6 months before, without unendurable loss of position. . . . Another chancellor could be found. But in that case, he should have a most unpleasant row over Ashbourne’s pension ’ (Beach to Salisbury 28 July 1886, Salisbury MSS class E). Beach wanted Ashbourne permanently in Dublin, an arrangement that would be facilitated by his exclusion from the cabinet (Curtis, op. cit., pp 122–3). Fitzgibbon in a graceful letter to Churchill on 27 July declared Ashbourne to be the ‘inevitable chancellor’ (St Aldwyn MSS PCC/82).

26 In opposition the tory hierarchy valued Ashbourne for the felicity of his oratory and his expert knowledge of Irish affairs. With the formation of the govern-ment his qualities lost their premium. His independence in cabinet alienated Carnarvon, his aptitude for judging the Irish situation too optimistically and too bleakly by turns displeased Salisbury and Churchill. The boldest and most seriously debated tory decisions seem to have been kept from him. For example the possibility of Wolseley as viceroy and Carnarvon’s negotiations with catholics were deliberately concealed.

27 The first outbreaks lasted from 3 to 4 and 8 to 10 June, 1886. There was recurrent trouble throughout July, August and September. Beach proclaimed martial law on 22 July, sent 1,200 troops in August and finally, by act of parliament, 25 September, set up a commission of inquiry on Holmes’s advice (Beach to Salisbury, 19 Aug. 1886, Salisbury M s s class E). Altogether 32 were killed, 377 police were injured, 31 public houses were wrecked and 442 arrests were made (D. C. Savage, loc. cit., pp 206–7).

28 The plan was first published in United Ireland on 23 October though the idea had been formulated as early as the preceding January. It was first imple-mented on Clanricarde’s estate at Portumna in Galway on 19 November. By the spring of 1887 it had spread to most of the 116 estates ultimately involved (F. S. L. Lyons, ‘John Dillon and the Plan of Campaign’ in I.H.S., xiv, 319). But as early as the end of August 1886, organised resistance to evictions was formidable.

29 In fact on 19 August 1886.

30 Beach and Ashbourne were both confident during the early autumn of their ability to control the situation without resorting to exceptional measures. Beach wrote to Salisbury reporting a sharp decline in the number of outrages and ridiculing the suggestion of an autumn session of parliament (Beach to Salisbury 20 Oct., Salisbury MSS class E). Ashbourne’s spirits were even higher: ‘with care & energy we shall get thro’ the winter reasonably well’ (Ashbourne to Salisbury, 31 Oct., Salisbury MSS class E). A cabinet memorandum dated 5 November (a fortnight after the publication of the plan) contained no hint of foreboding. It confidently predicted that ‘the improvement in the state of the country shown by the returns of October will continue’ (St Aldwyn MSS PC/PP/53). Thus the Plan of Campaign caught Beach and Ashbourne off balance. Their difficulties were further complicated by inconsistent advice from the law officers who oscillated between three suggestions : inactivity, suppression of the plan by proclamation, and legal proceedings against the leaders (Beach to Salisbury 30 Nov. and 15 Dec, Salisbury MSS class E). Clearly delay in taking action against the League (which Beach was prepared for on 30 November) was largely due to the insistence of Holmes and Gibson on the need to exhaust legal provision first.

31 Buller arrived in Kerry at the end of August and sent his first report to Beach on the 30th (in it he recommended a proclamation of the League). The object of the mission, as defined by Beach, was a reorganization of the police in Kerry and Clare to provide an example that ‘would tell all over Ireland’ and give ‘a valuable lesson in the art of using the ordinary law with energy and fearlessness before asking to have it changed’ ( Melville, C.H., Buller, 1, 303).Google Scholar

32 Holmes’s strictures are primarily significant, not on account of their justice, but because they illustrate existing tension between law officers and administrators. Salisbury and Ashbourne (in addition to Beach) were entirely satisfied : ‘the results of the Redvers Buller policy have been more successful than the most sanguine could have expected’ (Salisbury to Ashbourne, 25 Oct., Salisbury MSS D/24/329). Buller did nothing to lessen the bad relations which threatened to split the Castle and occasionally opposed legislation on the ground that it would increase the government’s dependence on judicial decision (Buller to Balfour, 16 Mar. 1887, Balfour MSS, B.M. Add. MS 49807, unfoliated). Clearly Buller was successful in obtaining the legislative acceptance of many of his ideas because they happened to coincide with a decisive trend in tory policy. The law officers on the other hand earned nothing but contempt: ‘You have the stupidest lot of lawyers in Ireland any govt, was ever cursed with. There is nothing for it but for you to form your own judgement upon every question’ (Salisbury to Balfour, 14 Oct. 1887, Balfour MSS, B.M. Add. MS 49688, unfoliated).

33 Buller’s letters to Beach in September while ranging over the additional coercive requirements necessary to an enforcement of order (largely embodied in the 1887 crimes act), revolved around one pre-eminently essential recommendation: ‘Take powers for the government to stay evictions at will… both sides require coercion and protection. . . . To settle this country you want a species of coercive land settlement, with a coercive crime settlement’ ( Melville, , Buller, 1, 311).Google Scholar Beach in his letters to Salisbury expressed approval of the overall strategy: that the government should incline more to the tenant than the landlord. In replying to Buller on 18 September Beach made no secret of their underlying agreement: ‘there is a last resort, which you suggest : that of declining to assist the sheriff to enforce the law. I do not say this is a responsibility which the government could never assume. I can conceive circumstances which would compel me to it’ (St Aldwyn MSS PCC/17). The liberal unionists appear to have been aware of Beach’s essential agreement with Buller (Hartington to Chamberlain, 12 Sept., Chamberlain MSS, JC/5/22/19).

34 Another of Beach’s suggestions—that the government should be represented at the eviction proceedings—was flatly rejected by Holmes (Beach to Buller, 20 Sept. 1886, St Aldwyn MSS, PCC/17).

35 Beach believed the concession of a judicial revision of rents to be the most promising manner of tackling the land question (Hansard 3, cccviii, 295–304). He quarrelled seriously with Churchill over the government’s blank refusal to consider revision in 1886 (Churchill to Salisbury (copy), 22 Aug., St Aldwyn MSS PCC/82). His land bill (printed 26 January 1887) proposed that revision should be allowed three years after settlement on all holdings whose rateable value did not exceed £20 p.a. Holmes made his opinion clear in an undated memorandum (St Aldwyn MSS PC/PP/53). He thought any legislation for judicial revision would give an impression of crisis in Ireland.

36 The same sort of hostility that Holmes had for Buller seems to have also effected his judgement of Hamilton. Regarding his retirement from office at Dublin Castle to a colonial governorship, Hamilton wrote to Beach, 23 Nov. 1886, ‘I think the position is now perfectly plain in the two following respects, (1) that my removal is entirely the act of the government and (2) that in giving effect to this they have treated me with the utmost consideration, and have found for me a most desirable and personally agreeable post. I am quite satisfied…’ (St Aldwyn MSS PCC/146). Spencer later commented to Gladstone, 9 June 1888, ‘I am sure that the lawyers, knowing the strength of Hamilton and his views about lawyers, really shoved him out of office’ (B.M. Add. MS 44313 f. 137). ‘His home rule views had less to do with the action of the government about him’. Hamilton had proposed and partially effected severe economies in the payment of the law officers under Spencer (Hamilton to Spencer, 7 Feb. 1886, Spencer MSS).

37 Buller only accepted the post of under-secretary reluctantly in view of impending changes at the war office (Buller to Beach, 24 Nov. 1886, Balfour MSS, B.M. Add. MS 49807). By January he had become extremely anxious to resign and take up the vacant post of quartermaster-general (Beach to Salisbury, 4 Jan. 1887, Salisbury MSS class E).

38 Dillon was summoned to appear before the queen’s bench on 26 November 1886 to account for an incendiary speech. The government secured a favourable verdict on 14 December and Dillon gave bail for his good behaviour. Two days later, 16 December, four M.P.s (Dillon, O’Brien, Harris and Sheehy) were arrested at Loughrea while collecting rents. Earlier the same day the plan had been proclaimed ‘an unlawful and criminal conspiracy’. The trial began on 4 January 1887, the prisoners walked out of the court during its session and an acquittal was returned on 25 February.

39 In January 1887, vice Lord Randolph Churchill.

40 After the succession to Churchill had been settled, Beach sent a sharply worded letter to Salisbury complaining that he had only excluded himself in the interests of a coalition with Hartington (5 Jan. 1887, Salisbury MSS class E).

41 Used by Churchill, Winston Spencer, Lord Randolph Churchill (1906), 1, 466.Google Scholar

42 By framing a measure that would apply to England and Ireland and reproduce‘the system which has existed immemorially in Scotland’ (Robertson, Scottish solicitor-general, 13 Apr. 1887, Hansard 3, cccxiii, 850 ff), the government sought to deprive the liberals of an effective line of attack : Ireland was being treated unexceptionally and as part of a major programme for reform of criminal procedure. There was to be a clearly apparent contrast to, and improvement on the act of 1882. Beach at first insisted that these points should be firmly stresed in the Queen’s Speech (Beach to Salisbury, 18 Jan., Salisbury MSS class E) but after conversation with Hartington and Churchill (who was strong against ‘coercing England in order to govern Ireland’) advised the omission of such a statement (Beach to Salisbury, 26 Jan., Salisbury MSS class E).

43 Matthews (home secretary 1886–92) was one of the strongest supporters of the original Conservative proposal. In February Salisbury wrote to Halsbury asking him to intervene with Matthews who had threatened to resign unless both countries were covered by the bill (quoted Wilson Fox, A., Halsbury (London, 1929), PP 129–31).Google Scholar

44 Solicitor-general for England. M.P. (Cons.) Plymouth 1880–1900.

45 At one time Holmes evidently favoured the type of bill he here disapproves. On 27 July 1886 during a conversation with Cranbrook at the Carlton he gave as his opinion that ‘a very moderate act applicable to the United Kingdom would meet the necessities of the case’ (Cranbrook’s diary, 28 July 1886).

46 Beach’s draft bill of 22 February was briefly functional but not inadequate. Additions originally proposed by Balfour at the beginning of March included change of venue to London with the authority of privy council or high court, suppression of dangerous associations by the lord lieutenant under parliamentary restriction and the suspension of the habeas corpus act (dropped by 12 March, Balfour to Buller, B.M. Add. MS 49807). He later consider three further additions : summary punishment for seditious libel, special tribunals or commissions on the line of earlier acts and forcible bankruptcy of highly rented estates, ‘a method for compelling landlords who act like lunatics to be treated as such’ (Balfour to Buller, 15 Mar. 1887, B.M. Add. MS 49826). But the main consideration in effecting the shape of the bill was concern for liberal unionist support. On 21 May Hartington wrote to Smith intimating probable liberal unionist defection on change of venue to England and, although Balfour had previously assured Buller that even if the government ‘may be beaten on it’ they intended to stand firm, the clause was dropped on 11 June (B.M. Add. MS 49826). Another liberal unionist modification—that the act should only be brought into effect by proclamation—made the government’s idea of a permanent criminal law revision act singularly unconvincing.

47 Hicks Beach resigned as secretary for Ireland, but remained in the cabinet without office until February 1888, when he took the board of trade.

48 This could not be found in Sir Herbert Maxwell’s Life.

49 ‘I shall never see Holmes without thinking of the speech he gave us night after night in committee on the crimes bill and twenty times a night, “Mister Spayker, Sorr, the government can-NOT accept this amendment”’—Sir Alfred Pease, Edward, Elections and recollections (1932), pp 171–2.Google Scholar

50 Holmes wrote promptly to Ashbourne on 17 June requesting preferment (Ashbourne to Balfour, 17 June 1887, B.M. Add. MS 49815)• The timing of his resignation had been agreed with Balfour in April (Balfour to Buller, 26 Apr., B.M. Add. MS 49826). At one point, however, it had seemed possible that Holmes might have to vacate his seat for Goschen (Beach to Salisbury, 5 Jan. 1887, Salisbury MSS class E).

51 Holmes was particularly sensitive on this point. When Morley and Gladstone claimed that the crimes act of 1887 created new offences and quoted Holmes’s authority, Balfour was sent on 14 September 1887 a letter of categorical denial: ‘I spoke many times every night and on amendments of endless variety… and I often used loose and inaccurate language. Of one thing however, I am certain, that I never intended to convey by anything I said that the bill created any new offence.’ Smith passed on the letter to Gladstone who replied accepting the denial but pointing out that Holmes had not proved he had not used the words attributed to him (Gladstone Papers, B.M. Add. MS 44300, ff 268–75).

52 I.e. the unopposed by-election of 30 June 1885 on Gibson becoming Lord Ashbourne; the unopposed general election of 24 November 1885; the contest at the general election of 8 July 1886; and his unopposed return at a by-election on taking office, 13 August 1886.