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Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842 1885

S >> Stuart J. Reid, ed. >> Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842 1885




Mr. Gladstone's speech at the dinner was the famous one in which he
discussed the Irish question, warned Mr. Parnell of the dangers of the
course upon which he had embarked, and declared emphatically that the
resources of civilisation were not exhausted. He did not take his seat at
the high table in the hall where Sir James Kitson presided until dinner
was over and the speeches were about to begin. I observed that when he
did so, after having gazed with admiration upon the brilliant scene, he
leant forward, and, covering his face with both hands, remained for some
time in that attitude. On the following evening I sat next to Mrs.
Gladstone at dinner at Sir John Barran's house. She asked me if I had
observed this action of her husband's, and on my answering in the
affirmative, she said to me, "He was praying. You know, he always prays
before he makes an important speech, and he felt that speech very much.
What do you think he said to me last night after he had gone to his
dressing-room? 'My dear, if I were twenty years younger, I should go to
Ireland myself as Irish Secretary.'" The speech was a great oratorical
success, and at the close of the banquet, as I have said, an immense
torchlight procession, which had been carefully organised by the local
committee, conducted the Premier and his wife from the banqueting hall to
the residence of Kitson at Headingley. The procession had to pass across
Woodhouse Moor, and I do not think I ever witnessed a more effective
spectacle of the kind.

The speech which, to my mind, ranked next in importance and interest to
this at the dinner was that which Mr. Gladstone delivered on the
following day to the mass meeting of Leeds working men. Fully thirty
thousand persons attended this meeting, which, like the dinner, took
place in a temporary building. It was crowded to suffocation--literally
to suffocation. When I arrived, shortly before the proceedings began, I
found that the whole thirty thousand people were gasping for breath, and
that many were fainting. We had quite forgotten to arrange for the
ventilation of the vast hall! Things looked very serious. The hubbub was
indescribable, and the sufferings of the crowd were so great that it was
clearly impossible that, under the conditions prevailing, any meeting
could be held. Fortunately, there were active and willing workers on the
spot, and a band of young men was organised who, mounting to the
temporary roof of the hall, tore the planking open, and quickly relieved
the pressure upon the sufferers beneath. But even when they had been
supplied with air the thirty thousand were anything but comfortable. They
were tightly packed together in a sweltering mass, and in no condition to
listen patiently to speeches. The noise and hubbub was little short of
deafening.

The Chairman, having briefly addressed the meeting in dumb show, called
upon one eminent Liberal after another to move the preliminary
resolutions. Not a word that any one of these gentlemen said could be
heard a yard beyond the limits of the platform. It seemed that nothing
could be done to reduce the vast audience to silence, and we were in
despair at the thought that Mr. Gladstone would have to face so severe an
ordeal. When at last his turn came, and he stepped to the front of the
platform, thirty thousand throats sent up such a shout that it seemed to
shake the building. Again and again for a space of some minutes it was
renewed, whilst the orator stood, pale and motionless. What could one
voice have done against thirty thousand? Then, just as the cheering
seemed to be subsiding, someone started "For he's a jolly good fellow,"
and the whole thirty thousand joined in the song. After that it took some
minutes for them all to settle down again, and still there went on that
undercurrent of murmuring talk which seemed to make the attempt of anyone
to address the gigantic meeting hopeless. But suddenly Mr. Gladstone
raised his hand, and it was almost as if a miracle had happened. In an
instant there was a deathlike silence in the hall, and every man in it
seemed to be holding his breath. The speaker's voice rang out, clear and
musical as of old, and it reached to the furthest corners of the mighty
apartment. But he had not got further than the conventional opening words
when his audience seemed to go mad with delight. A frenzied burst of
cheering, far exceeding that which had welcomed him on his first
appearance, proclaimed the joy with which they had heard the voice of the
man they adored.

Again it was some minutes before Mr. Gladstone was allowed to proceed,
but once more his uplifted hand ensured silence, and from that moment
until he had reached the end of an hour's speech, every syllable that he
uttered was heard distinctly by his thirty thousand listeners. It was, I
think, the passionate eagerness of the audience to hear his voice, and
their outburst of delight when its notes first fell upon their ears, that
formed the most striking feature of that great meeting. Perhaps there was
something almost idolatrous in the reception given to the statesman. It
would have turned the heads of most men. The wonder is that it affected
Mr. Gladstone so slightly. Yet I must say again that one must have been
present at scenes like this in order to appreciate the real position of
this remarkable man at this the very zenith of his political career. I
remember that this speech, which was received with so intense an
enthusiasm by all who heard it, contained the speaker's defence of what
is known as the Majuba Hill policy. To those of us who were under the
wand of the magician it seemed that no other defence was needed.

I had an opportunity, when the meeting was over, of seeing what effect
the physical effort of making an hour's speech to an audience of thirty
thousand had upon Mr. Gladstone. When I went into the committee room he
was half reclining in an armchair, wrapped in a large cloak. His eyes
were closed, his face was deathly pale, his whole aspect that of a man
who was absolutely exhausted. Mrs. Gladstone brought him a cup of tea,
but even as he drank his eyes were shut. To me, who had never seen him in
this state before, it was alarming to observe him in a condition of
positive collapse. Yet a few hours later he was the life and soul of a
large dinner party. That dinner is memorable to me, because it was the
first occasion on which I met Mr. Gladstone in private. I had a good
opportunity of seeing that charming personal courtesy which distinguished
him in all his social relationships. I was introduced to him by our host
across the dinner-table, and he immediately plunged into a discussion
about newspapers and distinguished journalists who were known to me
personally. I remember he paid a great compliment to the _Standard_,
saying that it was a newspaper he always liked to read because he always
found it to be fair and honest. "When I read a bad leader in the
_Standard_," he said, "I say to myself, Mr. Mudford must be taking a
holiday." I duly reported this saying to Mudford afterwards, and I know
that this praise from one whom he had often criticised so severely
afforded that distinguished editor intense pleasure.

When Mr. Gladstone left Leeds after his stay of little more than
forty-eight hours, he might safely have used the words of Julius Caesar.
He had conquered everybody. Even his political opponents were for the
moment subdued by the magic of his eloquence; whilst those who, like
myself, had for the first time enjoyed direct personal intercourse with
him were completely subjugated by the fascination of his manner, and
those remarkable social and intellectual gifts which made him so long the
foremost figure in English society. Of course, to one who had been a
Gladstonian ever since those early days in the 'sixties at Newcastle of
which I have spoken in a previous chapter, the joy of knowing the great
man in the flesh was very great. Yet not even the strength of my
admiration for one so supremely gifted, so ardent in his faith, and so
strenuous in his actions made of me a blind follower of his leadership.
Not many months after that meeting with him at Leeds I found myself
sharply separated from him in a political controversy of which I shall
soon have to speak.

I found refreshment after the fatigues connected with the Leeds
gatherings in an excursion to Tunis. In 1881 the French, upon a
distinctly fraudulent pretext, had invaded the territories of the Bey of
Tunis. Their professed purpose was to punish a certain tribe of
"Kroumirs," who, it was alleged, had committed outrages in Algeria. The
Kroumirs, as it turned out, were a product of the imagination of M.
Roustan, the diplomatic agent of France in Tunis. No such tribe was known
to the Tunisians, but the pretext served, and Tunis was invaded. The
truth, as the world now knows, was that France was resolved to have some
compensation for our ill-starred acquisition of Cyprus. She dared not
move in the direction of Morocco, because of the jealousy of the other
Powers of Europe; but she had obtained the tacit consent of Prince
Bismarck to the Tunisian expedition. Of the pledges she gave as to the
objects and the limitations of that expedition I need not speak. Yet one
is entitled to remember that if the force of circumstances has compelled
our neighbours to break their word with regard to Tunis, we are equally
justified in alleging the same reason for the breach of our own promises
concerning Egypt.

My friend Mudford gave me a commission to act as special correspondent of
the _Standard_ in Tunis, and I went there accordingly to spend a few
interesting weeks in studying on the spot one of the burning questions of
the day. I shall not inflict upon my reader the story of my trip. I feel
the less inclined to do so because I was ill-advised enough after my
return to publish that story in a volume called "The Land of the Bey."
The most interesting fact connected with that volume is one that happened
in quite recent years. A gentleman from the Inland Revenue Office called
upon me, and in a most courteous manner drew my attention to the fact
that I had not, in my income-tax returns, included the profit I had
received from this book. It had taken the department just nineteen years
to discover the existence of this precious volume. The discovery, though
belated, did great credit to the zeal and industry of somebody connected
with the Inland Revenue, for I am convinced that he is the only person,
myself excepted, who knew that the book had been written. I had clean
forgotten its existence myself when it was recalled to my memory in this
amusing fashion. My visitor from the Inland Revenue Office smiled sweetly
when I explained to him why no profits from this publication had ever
swelled my meagre income-tax returns. It was a case of the Spanish Fleet
over again. I had never seen those literary profits even to the amount of
sixpence, and I could not therefore be expected to cause the collectors
of her Majesty's Revenue to succeed where I had failed.

My stay in Tunis was not only interesting but somewhat adventurous. There
was only one Englishman besides myself resident in the city of Tunis
while I was there. This was Mr. A. M. Broadley, who was at that time
acting as the correspondent of the _Times_, and whose ability had
enabled him to create a diplomatic question, which he called the Enfida
Case, out of a trumpery lawsuit in which he acted for a rich Arab,
called, if I remember aright, General Benayid. Mr. Broadley subsequently
became known to fame for the active part he took in defending Arabi Pasha
at Cairo. I only mention him now because of the remarkable forecast which
he made on the first evening on which I met him in his house in Tunis.
Producing a map of the Eastern Hemisphere he pointed out to me what he
called the zone of disturbance, and assured me that within the next ten
years the eyes of the world would be riveted upon that zone. Roughly
speaking, the zone was the belt of the Mahommedan races, extending from
Morocco in the west to India in the east. The disturbances which he
predicted would come he traced in the first instance from our annexation
of Cyprus, and the consequent invasion of Tunis by France. He foretold
with great precision the rise of the Mahdi, and the growth of religious
fanaticism in the Soudan; and he indicated that through Asia Minor,
Persia, and Afghanistan a wave of unrest was running which must have
serious consequences for the Christian Powers in the near future. Many
times in later days I had occasion to remember the wonderfully clear and
precise predictions of Mr. Broadley, as he delivered them to me in his
old Arab house in Tunis.

One charming friend I made during my visit. This was the English
Consul-General, Mr. Reade, who entertained me in his beautiful house at
the Marsa, close to the site of Carthage. A pleasant, rather grave, and
thoughtful man, Mr. Reade was a mine of information regarding earlier
days in Tunis, when the Bey was a real ruler and the slave-market in the
old Bazaar was still the scene of a merchandise in flesh and blood. His
father had been Consul-General in Tunis when the influence of Great
Britain was supreme, and he had inherited his father's popularity and
personal prestige. Too clearly he foresaw that the result of the French
foray upon the unoffending principality must be its absorption into
French territory, and the consequent loss of England's position and
influence in that part of the Mediterranean. All his fears have been more
than realised. In 1881 it was the English Consul-General who was the most
important person in Tunis--more important in many respects than the Bey
himself. In the Bazaars every shop was filled with English goods, whilst
many wealthy Tunisians had found protection by securing their recognition
as English subjects. In the old Consulate at the gates of the city an
English, or at least a Maltese, judge administered justice under the red
ensign daily. The travelling Englishman hardly seemed to have left the
shelter of his own flag when he found himself in the land of the Bey. All
this is changed now. France has elbowed England out of Tunis. Our
Consul--he is no longer Consul-General--is a subordinate official.
English commerce has dwindled away to comparative insignificance. French
shops supply the residents with all they require, and Great Britain has
become of no account. This is the direct result of Lord Beaconsfield's
action in taking possession of Cyprus in 1878. Would to Heaven that this
were the whole of the price we have had to pay for that fatal piece of
folly!

Whilst I was in Tunis I went to the little English graveyard, which lies
enclosed by houses in the heart of the old city. Here are the graves of
some Englishmen who were the captives of Tunisian pirates in the old days
when Barbary rovers were still the curse of the Mediterranean. I found
there also, in that lonely and neglected spot, the grave of Howard Payne,
the author of "Home, Sweet Home." It seemed cruel that he, who had
touched so deep and true a chord in the hearts of millions, should
himself be fated to rest so far from home. I wrote to the newspapers to
draw attention to this fact. Whether my letters had in themselves any
effect I do not pretend to say, but I am glad to know that since then
Payne's body has been removed to America and buried in his native place.

In returning from Tunis I came by way of Malta and Naples, where I got an
Orient steamer which brought me to Plymouth. It was in sailing through
the Straits of Messina on my way to Naples that I met with one of those
strange--but by no means rare--coincidences that prove the smallness of
the world, or, at least, of that part of it with which any one man is
acquainted. I was sitting on the upper deck of the steamer, gazing at
Etna, as its snow-shrouded peak was revealed in the brilliant moonlight,
when a chance fellow-traveller began to talk about the coincidences so
common in foreign travel. I told him that one of my strangest experiences
of the kind was the following. In the previous September I was staying at
the Hotel Belle Vue at The Hague, and after dinner one evening went into
the reading room to get a peep at the _Times_. A pleasant-looking
elderly gentleman was reading it when I entered. Perhaps he saw the look
of disappointment on my face when I found that the coveted journal was
engaged. At any rate, he very courteously offered it to me, and by way of
opening a conversation drew my attention to an article it contained about
the Liverpool docks. When I had glanced through the paper he resumed the
conversation about Liverpool, and asked if I knew many persons in that
city. I was compelled to admit that I knew only one, a Liverpool
clergyman named Postance, my acquaintance with him being of the
slightest. "Ah," said my friend, "if you know the Reverend Henry
Postance, you have possibly heard him speak of his son Alfred?" I replied
that I knew Alfred Postance better than I knew his father, and that I
had, as a matter of fact, travelled to Malta with him shortly before his
death, which took place in that island. "Then," pursued my interlocutor,
"since you knew Alfred Postance, you might like to read a little sketch
of his life that has been written by a friend. I think I could procure
the loan of a copy for you." I thanked the gentleman for his offer, but
explained that it was not necessary that I should avail myself of it, as
Mr. Postance senior had already sent me a copy of the work in question.
The old gentleman's eyes glistened when I said this, and with an air of
some pride he said: "Since you have read that little book, you will, I am
sure, be interested to know that it was I who published it." "Well, I am
rather interested," I replied, "because it was I who wrote it."

This was the story which I chanced to tell on the deck of the steamboat
to my unknown fellow-traveller. I had no sooner finished it than he said,
"Then you are Mr. Wemyss Reid. Your account of Alfred Postance was the
last thing I read before leaving my home in Malta." The double
coincidence was certainly rather startling, and it was increased when I
found that I and this second stranger had on the same day visited the
grave of Alfred Postance at Valetta for the same purpose--to pluck a
spray of flowers to send to his father in Liverpool. Yes, the world
_is_ small!



CHAPTER XIV.

CONCERNING W. E. FORSTER AND OTHERS.

The Beginning of Mr. Stead's Journalistic Career--His Methods--Birth of
the New Journalism--Madame Novikoff and Mr. Stead--Mr. Stead's Attacks
upon Joseph Cowen--How he dealt with a Remonstrance--W. E. Forster--Mr.
Chamberlain's Antagonism--The _Leeds Mercury's_ Defence of
Forster--How he was Jockeyed out of the Cabinet--Forster's
Resignation--News of the Phoenix Park Murders--Forster's Reflections--Mr.
Gladstone's Pity for Social Outcasts--Mr. Chamberlain's Brothers
Blackballed at the Reform--Failure of an Attempt to Crush the _Leeds
Mercury_--Forster's Gratitude.


I now approach an episode in my life which not only had a strong and
permanent influence on my own career, but is of interest in its bearing
on the politics of my time. I refer to my intimate friendship with
William Edward Forster, and to my close association with him in the
stormy episodes which attended the close of his career as a Minister of
the Crown. But before I enter into the story of my relations with this
truly great and noble-minded man, I may say something about another
distinguished person who shared my regard for Mr. Forster, though we had,
perhaps, few other tastes in common. One day in 1871 or 1872--that is to
say, soon after I became editor of the _Leeds Mercury_--I was told
on returning home that a gentleman was waiting to see me who had brought
a letter of introduction, which my servant placed in my hands. The letter
was from my father, and its object was to introduce to me the son of his
old friend, the Rev. William Stead, of Howden, near Newcastle. I need not
say that an introduction from my father would in itself have sufficed to
ensure for the bearer a warm reception; but in any case the story which
young Mr. Stead had to tell me at once enlisted my interest and sympathy.
Like myself, he was the son of a Nonconformist minister, and on leaving
school he had entered upon a business career as a clerk on the quayside
at Newcastle. But he had been irresistibly drawn towards journalism, just
as I myself had been a dozen years earlier, and after contributing
articles to various newspapers, he had received the offer of the
editorship of the _Northern Echo_, a halfpenny newspaper which had
been recently established at Darlington.

Strange to say, when this post was offered to and accepted by him, he was
not only absolutely without editorial experience, but, as he himself told
me, had never seen the inside of a newspaper office in his life. With
that remarkable promptitude and directness of action which, as I
afterwards discovered, was one of his great characteristics, he had no
sooner accepted the editorship than he sought to qualify himself for it
by making the acquaintance and obtaining the advice of someone who had
actual experience in editorial work. It happened that I was the only
editor to whom he could get a personal introduction, and so he came to me
at Leeds to get what guidance and help I could afford him at the outset
of his journalistic career. Remembering to what a height of fame he has
since risen as a journalist, I confess that I look back upon the days
when he thus approached me as a neophyte with some amusement. No doubt I
was already, in his eyes, one of the old fogeys of the Press, and it must
be admitted that there was something of the ugly duckling about his first
appearance in my comparatively tame editorial establishment.

Stead interested me immensely during this first visit that he paid me. He
was pleasingly distinguished by an entire lack of diffidence, and from
the first made no concealment of his own views upon any of the subjects
we discussed together. It is true that when I took him down to the
_Mercury_ office that evening, and wrote my leader whilst he sat at
my desk beside me, he regarded me with the admiring eyes of the novice;
but he had, even then, his own ideas as to how leaders ought to be
written and newspapers edited, and he did not affect to conceal them.
There was something that was irresistible in his candour, his enthusiasm,
and his self-confidence. The Press was the greatest agency for
influencing public opinion in the world. It was the true and only lever
by which Thrones and Governments could be shaken and the masses of the
people raised. In all this I was in strong sympathy with his opinions.
But I was staggered by the audacity of the schemes for revolutionising
English journalism which he poured into my ears on this the first evening
on which he had ever entered a newspaper office. For hour after hour he
talked with an ardour and a freshness which delighted me. If he had come
to me in the guise of a pupil, he very quickly reversed our positions,
and lectured me for my own good on questions of journalistic usage which
I thought I had settled for myself a dozen years before I had met him.

Often I thought his ideas ridiculous: once or twice I thought that he
himself must be mad; but even then I admired his splendid enthusiasm and
his engaging frankness. Occasionally I said to him, "If you were ever to
get your way, you would make the Press a wonderful thing, no doubt; but
you would make the Pressman the best-hated creature in the Universe." At
this he would burst into a roar of laughter, in which I was constrained
to join. "I see, you think I'm crazy," he said once. "Well, not crazy,
perhaps, but distinctly eccentric. You will come all right, however, when
you have had a little experience." Thus, in my blind belief in my own
superior experience and wisdom, I thought and spoke. Many a time since
then I have recalled that long night's talk when I have recognised in
some daring development of modern journalism one of the many schemes
which Stead then flashed before my eyes. We had talked--or, rather, he
had talked--for hours after getting home from work. I was far from being
weary of his conversation, but I knew that the night had passed, and I
rose and drew aside the curtains. Never shall I forget the look of
amazement that overspread Stead's face when the sunshine streamed into
the room. "Why, it is daylight!" he exclaimed, with an air of
bewilderment. "I never sat up till daylight in my life before."

This was my first knowledge of one of the most remarkable and brilliant
journalists of my time. We parted with, I think, mutual feelings of
regard and goodwill, feelings which I, at least, have never lost. I
recognised my visitor from the first as a man of remarkable gifts, of
something that came near to genius. I recognised, too, his honesty and
sincerity, though I had, even then, forebodings as to what might be the
consequences of his impetuous ardour and reckless defiance of old customs
and conventions.

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