Part 12 (1/2)

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 pa.s.sed, and I rose and drew aside the curtains. Never shall I forget the look of amazement that overspread Stead's face when the suns.h.i.+ne 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.

After this, I heard a good deal from Stead during his remarkable editors.h.i.+p 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 apt.i.tude 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 relations.h.i.+p. 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 _protege_ 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 succ.u.mbed 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 champions.h.i.+p 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 celebre_ 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 impa.s.sioned 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_ ent.i.tled, 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sist 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociations in the country were inclined to pa.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 embarra.s.sed him, and that fatally weakened his hands. As the winter pa.s.sed 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sailants 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 pa.s.s that his only defender in the Press in those dark and troublous days was a little-known journalist in Yorks.h.i.+re.

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 a.s.sociate 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 a.s.sistance 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 Yorks.h.i.+re, 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 Yorks.h.i.+re 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 a.s.surance that there was one great city, at least, in which he retained the confidence and grat.i.tude 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 a.s.sailants, 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 a.s.sa.s.sinated. 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 pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.semblage 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 cl.u.s.tered 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.