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Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842 1885

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




After this, I heard a good deal from Stead during his remarkable
editorship of the _Northern Echo_, nor was I long in discovering
that he was really determined to put what I regarded as his wild theories
of journalism into practice. Of course, it took time to enable him to
make his personality felt in the little paper he edited, but he took care
to keep me acquainted with all that he was doing. Whenever an article of
special interest appeared in the _Echo_ I received a copy of it,
marked with a blue pencil by Stead. At the end of twelve months from his
first engagement as editor, he wrote to me asking if I would give him my
opinion in writing of his work during the year, and the capacity he had
shown as a journalist. With great willingness I wrote to express my high
opinion, not only of his ability, but of his growing aptitude as an
editor. Back in a few days came a reply from this extraordinary man. It
was to tell me that he had shown my letter to the proprietor of the
_Northern Echo_, Mr. Bell, and on the strength of it had succeeded
in obtaining an increase of salary, an increase which I am sure was fully
deserved. For two years, if I remember aright, he went through this
formality. I am confident that Mr. Stead himself, if he should read these
lines, will not make any objection to my revelation of these little
episodes in his early career. I have told them because, whilst they are
so thoroughly characteristic of the man, they are not in any way
derogatory to his reputation.

By-and-by, however, a change took place in our relationship. Stead was
rapidly working his way to the front, and some of the means which he
employed did not commend themselves to my judgment. For example, he was
in the habit of sending marked copies of any article he wrote on
political questions to the statesmen or other public men to whom he had
chanced to refer. I had always been very sensitive myself as to this
practice, regarding it as an attempt to force oneself upon the notice of
public men in a way that was not consistent with an editor's
independence, to say nothing of his dignity.

I may have been wrong in my view. Certainly I have known other
journalists besides Stead who adopted his practice, and I have no right
to sit in judgment upon any of them. But my personal view was that an
editor ought to say honestly what he thought for the benefit of the
readers of his journal, and that he ought neither to obtrude his own
individuality upon those readers, nor to seek to come into close contact
with the men whose actions it was his duty to criticise. Long before this
period in my life I had laid down a rule for myself which I have
consistently observed ever since. This was that I would never seek an
introduction to any public man, or bring under his personal notice
anything that I had written. Stead took another course, and though I
could no longer regard him as a _protégé_ of my own, I did not like
it, and I daresay I did not conceal my feelings from him. But he could
well afford to treat my disapproval with contempt, for his policy
answered even beyond his own expectation. The fact that his paper was a
very small one, published in a small town, gave, I have no doubt,
additional zest to his very acute and intelligent criticisms of public
affairs. Mr. Bright, if I remember rightly, was the first public man of
eminence who drew attention to the articles in the _Northern Echo_,
and he very soon afterwards received a visit from the enterprising
editor. Then Stead, carrying still further his theory of a journalist's
duties, sought interviews with others among the foremost men of the time.
Carlyle was one of those who succumbed to his fascinations, and when
Carlyle one day referred to him in conversation as "that good man Stead,"
the fact quickly became known to the public. Mr. Forster was another of
Stead's earlier heroes and friends, and by-and-by the young editor at
Darlington became known to a considerable circle of prominent persons.
Thus was the New Journalism born. To me, as an Old Journalist, it is not
a thing with which I can pretend to have much sympathy, but I must
acknowledge its brightness, its alertness, its close grip of actualities,
and its rapid and remarkable success. I need hardly say that it was no
longer necessary for the editor of the _Northern Echo_, the friend
of many of the distinguished personages of the day, to seek my testimony
as to his value to his employer. He quickly became recognised for what he
was--a journalist of exceptional capacity and of great originality and
daring.

Differences upon political questions drove us further apart, however,
than any question of the ethics of editorial conduct. The Eastern
Question, of which I have already spoken, excited Stead greatly, and he
distinguished himself not so much by the vehemence of his attacks upon
the unspeakable Turk, as by his uncompromising championship of Russia and
her policy in South-Eastern Europe. It was not a popular line to take,
but Stead followed it with something like enthusiasm. It was at this time
that he fell under the influence of Madame Novikoff, who, whether
accredited or unaccredited, was generally regarded as the unofficial
representative of Russia in this country. She was, and is, a lady of
great talent and plausibility, and she undoubtedly exercised at one time
an extraordinary amount of influence over many distinguished British
politicians. I am not prepared to say that Stead took his inspiration
upon Russian politics solely from Madame Novikoff; but at any rate he
never wrote anything in the _Northern Echo_ in those days of which
that lady could not heartily approve, and thus he made another powerful
and enthusiastic friend in the political society of our time.

Years afterwards, somewhere in the 'nineties, I happened to sit beside
Madame Novikoff at a luncheon party in Mayfair. "I believe you know my
great friend, Stead?" she said, by way of opening our conversation at the
table. I told her I had known him for many years. "And what do you think
of him?" she asked, with an air of innocent curiosity that sat well upon
her guileless countenance. "Is he not wonderful? I think him, for my
part, one of the greatest men alive. What do you think?" I replied, in a
more restrained spirit, that I thought him extremely able, and that he
had certainly accomplished some wonderful achievements as a journalist.
"Ah!" said Madame Novikoff, with an air of quickened curiosity, "you
think that? Now tell me what, in your opinion, is his most wonderful
achievement." I told her that I thought it was his success in championing
the cause of a certain lady. (The story has nothing to do with this
narrative, but it was a _cause célèbre_ in which Stead employed the
methods of the New Journalism in order to secure justice for a woman who
had been gravely wronged.) No sooner had I explained myself to Madame
Novikoff than that lady's face fell. "Ah, I am sorry to hear you say
that. That was not his greatest achievement. But Stead has always been
ready to go crusading at a woman's bidding." Madame Novikoff must have
known what she was talking about.

Among the leading politicians of the North in those days was my old
friend and fellow-townsman, Joseph Cowen, of Newcastle. He had been to
some extent alienated from Mr. Gladstone and from the Liberal party by
disappointment, but he still called himself a Liberal, and there was no
reason to doubt that his political instincts were sound, and that he
might again become one of the Liberal leaders of the North. He took, as
he had always taken, a strong line with regard to Russia, which he looked
upon as the parent of Continental despotism and the traditional enemy of
human freedom. Mr. Stead, full of zeal for the cause represented by
Madame Novikoff, made a series of vehement and persistent attacks upon
Cowen because of his views regarding Russia and the Eastern Question
generally. One day he sent me one of his marked papers containing a
particularly impassioned onslaught upon the member for Newcastle. I
considered that he had invited comment by sending me this article, and I
wrote to him to expostulate with him on the line he was taking, pointing
out that Cowen, who was a very sensitive man, was not unlikely to be
driven out of the party if these attacks were persisted in, and that his
loss would be a serious one to the Liberalism of the North of England. I
don't think I said anything particularly harsh in this letter, which was
in my opinion justified by my relations both with Cowen and with Stead.

The rejoinder was not what I had expected. It came in the shape of an
immensely long article in the _Northern Echo_ entitled, if I
remember aright, "The Editor of the _Leeds Mercury_ and Mr. Cowen."
In this article something I had written about Cowen in the
_Mercury_--I forget what--was held up to ridicule, and was compared
with my private sentiments regarding the member for Newcastle as they had
been gleaned by Mr. Stead in that night-long conversation under my roof,
of which I have spoken in this chapter. Needless to say, my talk was not
faithfully remembered or accurately represented. That, in itself, was a
small matter, but the illustration thus afforded me of the practical
working of the New Journalism was not altogether a pleasant one, and for
some years after this episode there was a distinct coolness between Mr.
Stead and myself. The incident arouses no bitterness now. Mr. Stead
honestly believed that he was entitled to use my frank _obiter
dicta_ for the purpose of correcting what he regarded as my public
errors. I was not the last and by no means the greatest sufferer from
this theory on the part of the founder of the New Journalism; but, as
having been in some small degree a sufferer at his hands, I am, perhaps,
the better able to bear testimony to his absolute honesty of intention,
and to his unfailing conviction that in even his greatest indiscretions
he was acting under the justification of a high moral purpose.

In the spring or summer of 1880 I received a note from John Morley, who
had by this time become editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. It was to
inform me that he had secured a notable man from my part of the world to
assist him in his editorial duties. He was Mr. Stead of Darlington, and
Morley wished to know my opinion of him. My reply did not please Mr.
Morley; for while I told him how highly I admired Mr. Stead's abilities,
I warned him that he would need to be watched closely, as he was a man of
such extreme views and of such daring originality in his manner of
conducting a journal that, if he were not kept under strict control, he
might at any moment seriously commit the newspaper with which he was
connected. At the time Morley took this warning with a very bad grace,
plainly implying that he thought that my feeling with regard to Mr. Stead
was founded on the fact that he was a more real Liberal than myself. But
there came a time when the distinguished politician and man of letters
acknowledged that my hint had been only too fully justified.

One day in 1879 William Edward Forster came into my room at the
_Mercury_ office. For some time he had been in the habit of calling
at intervals to have a chat with me. I believe that each of us was
secretly rather afraid of the other. I had for years regarded him with a
strong feeling of admiration, and I looked confidently to him as the man
who, when Mr. Gladstone in the fulness of time retired from public life,
would take his place and become the recognised leader of the great forces
of English Liberalism. I had supported him with unfaltering loyalty both
in his educational policy and at the time when his name was put forward
in the candidature for the leadership of the party in 1875, and I found
myself in strong sympathy with his views on those foreign and colonial
questions on which I could take sides neither with the Little England nor
with the Jingo school. Forster's visit was chiefly for the purpose of
chatting over the prospects of the Liberal party, but incidentally our
conversation turned upon Mr. Stead. "He has one great fault," said
Forster, "and that is that he does not mix with other people." Certainly
Forster had every reason to think well of Mr. Stead, for he was his loyal
friend and admirer in those dark days when few were found to speak well
of the member for Bradford.

It was in 1881 that Forster became the target of the missiles of that
section of the Liberal party which in those days followed Mr.
Chamberlain. Mr. Chamberlain's followers were naturally anxious that
their hero should arrive at the summit of his ambition, and Mr. Forster
was the man who stood most directly in his path. I do not wish to allege
that there were not real differences of opinion between Mr. Forster and
Mr. Chamberlain, though when one remembers the subsequent history of the
latter it is difficult to understand his constant antagonism to Forster,
the founder of the Imperial Federation movement, and the first Liberal
Imperialist. But whatever his motives might be, Mr. Chamberlain's dislike
of Forster was obvious to everyone. He had powerful means of making that
dislike felt. The caucus in those days was absolutely under his thumb,
and at a sign from him more than half the Liberal Associations in the
country were inclined to pass any resolution that he was pleased to
suggest to them. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ became virtually his
mouthpiece, and one read it as much in those days to ascertain the
thoughts of Mr. Chamberlain as those of its distinguished editor. In the
Cabinet he had secured one or two valuable allies, over whom, by virtue
of his great abilities, he exercised an extraordinary influence. In the
House of Commons the most active wing of the Radical Party was, with
certain notable exceptions, devoted to him. He was the man to whom they
looked as their leader, and as the future chief of a Radical
Administration.

In the winter of 1881-2 all the forces controlled by the caucus were
employed in the work of disparaging and weakening Mr. Forster. The latter
was engaged in his almost hopeless struggle with the disaffected classes
in Ireland--in other words, with four-fifths of the nation. I have told
elsewhere the story of Mr. Forster's public career, and it is not
necessary that I should enter into any defence of his Irish
administration here. But this I must say, that at a time when he was
beset with difficulties of the most formidable and distressing kind, and
when he had a right to expect the loyal support at least of his own
colleagues in the Cabinet, he found himself exposed to intrigues and
cruel side-attacks that still further embarrassed him, and that fatally
weakened his hands. As the winter passed the storm artificially raised
against him increased in violence. All the animosities of Birmingham were
let loose upon his head. The old cries of trimmer and traitor were again
raised against him. The Liberal Press, with hardly an exception, took its
cue from the _Pall Mall Gazette_, whilst the organs of the
Conservative party naturally felt under no obligation to defend him from
the misrepresentations and innuendoes of his formidable foes in his own
party.

I do not think I exaggerate when I say that it was only in the columns of
the _Leeds Mercury_ that he was consistently and steadily defended.
It was a labour of love on my part thus to stand by a man for whom I
entertained so great and affectionate an admiration, and who was, as I
conceived, being so cruelly ill-treated by those of the same political
household as himself. It was said at the time that Forster inspired the
_Leeds Mercury_, and that the articles defending him which I
published were really written by himself. In the interests of honourable
journalism, and of Mr. Forster's reputation, I must state the actual
facts. I was, as I have already said, on terms of personal friendship
with him, and I was in the fullest sympathy with his Irish policy; but
from the moment when he became Chief Secretary until he retired from that
office, Forster held no communication with me, either direct or indirect.
I never saw him, and he never wrote to me, nor did I address a single
word to him. This was characteristic of Forster's high sense of public
duty. He was too proud and too high-spirited to try to enlist any man's
sympathies, or to secure any newspaper advocacy. Men spoke of him as a
clever wire-puller who could manufacture a spurious public sentiment in
his own favour. How little they knew him! If he had chosen to resort to
those arts with which his assailants were so familiar he might have won
the support of many tongues and pens. He preferred, then as always in his
public career, to devote himself with a single-minded purpose to the
performance of his duty, leaving the consequences to take care of
themselves. It was in this way that it came to pass that his only
defender in the Press in those dark and troublous days was a little-known
journalist in Yorkshire.

For my part, I look back with pride and deep satisfaction to the line
which I then took, and from which I never swerved. It was not a
successful line. Mr. Forster's enemies were too powerful for him, and, as
everybody knows, he became their victim. But there are better things in
this world than success, and I am more content to have been Forster's
associate in his unmerited fall than I would have been to share in the
personal triumph which Mr. Chamberlain gained over him. Although
complaint was made, when my "Life" of Forster appeared, that I had made
too full a revelation of Cabinet secrets, the fact remains that a good
deal of truth has still to come out with regard to his resignation of
office in 1882. I do not propose to lift the veil here, but it is well
known that an ingenious trap was laid for him, and that, with
characteristic confidence in the good faith of his fellow-men, he walked
unsuspectingly into it. His resignation, it will be remembered, was due
to his refusal to accept as satisfactory a letter written by Mr. Parnell,
in which he undertook, if he were released from Kilmainham, to give
certain assistance to the Government in putting down outrages in Ireland.
Forster would willingly have accepted Mr. Parnell's word as a gentleman
that he would exert himself to this end, but he was not prepared to
accept the skilfully framed words in which Mr. Parnell sought to convey
the impression that was desired whilst avoiding all personal
responsibility in the matter. Those who wish to know how Mr. Forster was
jockeyed out of office must learn the history of Parnell's letter, and
how and by whom the sentences were devised which seemed acceptable to the
sanguine temperament of Mr. Gladstone, but which Forster, with his closer
knowledge of the situation, regarded as wholly unsatisfactory. The time
has not yet come for the story to be told, but when the precise facts are
revealed they will be found to throw a curious light upon this episode.

Forster's resignation was a great personal blow to me. It was a blow also
both to his personal friends and admirers in Yorkshire, and to a large
section of politicians who knew him to be an upright and single-minded
man, struggling with all his might to maintain order in Ireland and to
preserve the unity of the United Kingdom. There was, however, one further
step that was possible that would have immeasurably increased our
mortification. This was the appointment of Mr. Chamberlain as Forster's
successor. Mr. Chamberlain's friends confidently expected that the
appointment would be made, and for a day or two it seemed certain that
this would be the case. I saw a member of the Government who was the
confidential friend of Mr. Gladstone, and told him that if Mr.
Chamberlain were to be appointed, the _Leeds Mercury_, and all whom
it could influence in Yorkshire would at once enter upon a most strenuous
and thorough-going opposition to the new Irish policy. I was told in
reply that, whatever Mr. Chamberlain himself might have expected, Mr.
Gladstone had not for a single moment contemplated his appointment to the
vacant post, and that his choice had fallen in another quarter.

The Leeds Liberal Club resolved to invite Forster to a complimentary
dinner, in order that he might have the assurance that there was one
great city, at least, in which he retained the confidence and gratitude
of his party. I wrote to Forster to convey this intimation to him, and
had a reply, in which he asked me to meet him in London. On Friday, May
6th, 1882, the appointment of Lord Frederick Cavendish as Irish Secretary
was announced in Parliament, and the writ moved for his re-election after
taking office. The next night, about 11 o'clock, I was sitting in the
morning-room at the Reform Club, talking to the late Mr. William Summers,
then member for Huddersfield. There were but few men in the room, though
amongst those few were one or two Irish members, including Mr. Shaw, who
had been Chairman of the Home Rule party in the House of Commons until he
was superseded by Mr. Parnell. We had all been reading the telegrams on
the board in the hall announcing the enthusiastic reception of the new
Lord Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, and the new Secretary, Lord Frederick
Cavendish, in Dublin. I was discussing with Summers the meaning of the
new departure and of the success of Forster's assailants, when the old
hall-porter of the club burst into the room, and in a state of great
agitation announced to us that a message had been received at the Carlton
Club stating that the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary had been
assassinated. I cannot describe the mingled amazement, horror, and
incredulity with which the news was received, but I remember well the
extreme distress shown by Mr. Shaw and the other Irish members. "This is
the end of Ireland!" cried Mr. Shaw, with tears in his eyes. For some
time most of us steadily refused to believe the story, for no authentic
news could be gathered respecting it; but, as time passed, the Reform
Club was besieged with inquiries from the other clubs in Pall Mall, the
members of which naturally supposed that authentic news would be
procurable at the Ministerial club. At last someone came in who had been
at Lord Frederick's house in Carlton House Terrace, and he brought the
dreaded confirmation of the story. The Lord Lieutenant, it is true, had
not been attacked, but Lord Frederick had been killed, and with him Mr.
Burke, the Under-Secretary. A shudder ran through the crowd when we were
told that the vile deed had been done with knives.

Inside the club there was now a large assemblage of members, although it
was past midnight. Men came into the club, too, on that eventful night
who were not members, but who were moved by an irrepressible anxiety to
learn the truth as to what had happened. Among these I remember Abraham
Hayward, Q.C., the essayist and Society rattle, who, characteristically
enough, proclaimed to us all the fact that the gentleman who accompanied
him was my Lord So-and-so. But it was outside the club that I witnessed
the most extraordinary scene I ever saw in London. Rumours of the tragedy
had spread through the clubs, but the tidings had not reached the
streets. The clubs, as by a common impulse, emptied themselves, and the
members with one accord flocked to the Reform. On the broad pavement in
Pall Mall some hundreds of men, nearly all in evening dress, were
clustered together, discussing in low tones the horrible event, of which,
as yet, the details were wholly unknown. On the roadway a hundred cabs
were gathered, their drivers evidently bewildered by the unwonted
spectacle, and wondering what had brought together in the stillness of
the early Sunday morning this unwonted crowd.

Suddenly, as I looked upon the scene from the steps of the club, I saw
the crowd fall back on either hand, opening a narrow lane through it.
Along this lane, with bent head, came Lord Hartington, brother of one of
the murdered men, passing from the newly-made house of mourning in
Carlton House Terrace to his home at Devonshire House. No one ventured to
speak to him, but every hat was lifted in token of silent sympathy. It
was a memorable, never-to-be-forgotten night. Years afterwards I heard
from Sir William Harcourt himself an account of how the news first
reached London. There was a big Ministerial dinner party, if I remember
rightly, at Lord Northbrook's; Mr. Gladstone was there, and so was Sir
William Harcourt, then Home Secretary. Dinner was nearly over when Mr.
(now Sir) Howard Vincent, who at that time held a high post at Scotland
Yard, arrived and demanded an immediate interview with the Home
Secretary. To Sir William he showed the official telegram that had just
been received, all other messages having been stopped by the authorities
in Dublin. It was decided, after a consultation, that nothing was to be
said until the ladies had left the dinner table, and that then the news
was to be broken to Mr. Gladstone, who, apart from all other reasons for
feeling the tragedy, had the additional one of a close relationship with
Lady Frederick Cavendish. Mr. Gladstone, though deeply moved, was then,
as always, master of his emotions, and it was he who at once went to
Carlton House Terrace to break the dreadful tidings to his niece, Mrs.
Gladstone accompanying him on the errand.

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