VIII Mr. Jennings’ Account of His Quarrel With Lord Randolph Churchill
March, 1890.
Mr. Jennings’ Memorandum.
On Friday, the 7th of March, I called upon Lord Randolph Churchill, to tell him my opinions with regard to the Resolution proposed by the Government on the Report of the Special Commission. I told him I thought some express reference should be made in the Resolution to the emphatic acquittal of Mr. Parnell and his colleagues on what I called the ‘murder charges,’ and gave him my reasons. With these reasons he seemed to be much impressed, and after talking the matter over he urged me not to speak upon the main question, as I intended, but to embody my ideas in an Amendment, for then the Speaker could call upon me and I should have a recognised place in the debate. Otherwise I might not be called upon at all, and have no chance of speaking. I said that if any Amendment were drawn up, it should be in the most moderate terms, so that it might avoid the faults and disadvantages of Mr. Gladstone’s on the same subject. He then went to his table and drew up the Amendment, saying, when he handed it to me, ‘I think no one can object to this—there is not a single adjective in it.’ We considered it well, and at one o’clock or so I left him, asking him to turn the subject well over in his mind before we met at the House and to let me know whether he was still in favour of the Amendment. At a little after three we met in the lobby, and he assured me that he was confident the Amendment was the right thing, and that he did not see how any reasonable objection could be made to it. I then went into the House, and after Questions gave notice of the Amendment.
On Saturday night I dined with Lord R. and a party at the Junior Carlton Club, but we did not have much conversation on the subject until the end of the evening, when Lord Justice FitzGibbon came up to us and condemned the Amendment. Lord R. then asked me to go to his house the next morning, and talk the matter over with ‘Fitz.’ I said that it was rather too late to ‘talk it over’ on the line taken up by FitzGibbon, for I was committed to the Amendment and intended to move it; that I should be very busy the next day, and would rather be excused going to his house. But Lord R. pressed me very earnestly to go and accordingly I did so.
On entering his room (Sunday, the 9th), FitzGibbon having been with him some time before, Lord R. said: ‘I am sorry you put that Amendment down; it is a mistake; can’t be defended.’ I was astounded. ‘But,’ I said, ‘it is your own Amendment.’ ‘Yes,’ he said coolly: ‘but I have changed my mind.’ I was silent a minute or two, and then asked him to tell me why he had changed his mind. ‘FitzGibbon has been talking it over with me,’ he said, ‘and I am sure he is right.’ ‘Then,’ I said, ‘I am sorry Lord Justice FitzGibbon was not here last Friday morning.’ I listened to what FitzGibbon had to say—it had all been in the papers before—and as soon as I could, I left. I felt, however, much disheartened at hearing the author of the Amendment which I had been induced to move, denounce it as ‘all a mistake.’
The next evening (Monday) Lord Randolph’s brother-in-law (Lord Curzon) came to me as I was sitting in the House and said he had something important to say to me about the Amendment. We went outside into the corridor by the library, and there he told me that ‘Randolph had made up his mind to stand altogether aloof from the Amendment; he thought it would be best not to support it; he did not see his way clear to have anything to do with it’—with more to the same effect. I said: ‘What will people think of him? He has himself told one of the newspaper correspondents that he intends to speak and vote for the Amendment.’ ‘Yes,’ replied Lord Curzon, ‘that is the nuisance of his talking to those correspondents.’ I said: ‘I know what I shall think of his behaviour—first Birmingham, and now this. You cannot doubt what my opinion will be.’
I should have mentioned that earlier in the day Lord R. C. had called me to his side in the smoking-room and said: ‘I shall probably say something to-day on the main question, if I get a chance.’ I did not quite see what he meant, and when afterwards he went away (at dinner-time) without speaking I thought he had meant nothing. Afterwards came Lord Curzon’s message, just referred to. On the Tuesday, when the Amendment was to be moved, just as I was going into the House, Lord Curzon again came to me, and said, ‘Randolph will not take any part in the debate unless you are attacked.’ He added: ‘I cannot support you.’ I said but little, and went into the House, quite determined to go on.
The House was crowded, and just before Questions were over R. C. leaned back to me and said: ‘I am going to speak on the main question.’ I asked him ‘When?’ ‘Now,’ he said. ‘How can you, after one Amendment has been voted on?’ ‘It is all right,’ he said; ‘I have arranged it with the Speaker.’ There was no time for explanation or remonstrance. He was evidently quite determined, and in a few moments the Speaker called upon him.
He then delivered a violent diatribe against the Government, accusing them, in effect, of having called the forger Pigott into existence—‘the bloody, rotten, ghastly fœtus, Pigott, Pigott, Pigott’—pointing with his finger at the Ministry each time he mentioned the name. He suggested the possibility of a Pigott being employed against himself. While he was speaking several friends who had intended to support me came to me and whispered that they could not be identified with so outrageous an attack upon the Ministry. ‘You will be linked with it,’ said several of them. ‘Everybody will believe that the entire programme to-night was arranged between you.’
Smarting under the deliberate and treacherous manner in which I had been thrown over, and at the utter want of consideration shown by a leader for a follower placed by that leader in a very responsible and difficult position, I determined not to move the Amendment, and to tell the House why I adopted that course. When R. C. sat down I informed him that I should do this, and he made several attempts to dissuade me. I was quite resolved, however, and am glad that I was not induced to waver, although to throw up the Amendment was the sorest disappointment I have ever had; and—for the time, at any rate—the whole transaction has sickened me of political life.
L. J. J.
[I think it right to add to this memorandum the following note by Lord Justice FitzGibbon.—W. S. C.]
‘Mr. Jennings’ memorandum seems to me to give an unduly unfavourable impression of Lord Randolph’s action. Lord Randolph told me that when Mr. Jennings first showed him the draft of the amendment he stated plainly that he wished to take the whole responsibility for it, and intended to move it whether Lord Randolph supported it or not. Afterwards, at Connaught Place, on the day before the debate, the whole subject was fully discussed by Lord Randolph, Jennings and myself, and the conversation ended in a distinct statement by Lord Randolph to Mr. Jennings that, on fuller consideration, he thought the amendment a mistake, and that although he would not vote against it, he could not speak in favour of it, but would speak upon the main question if he spoke at all. His speech was, in substance, an examination of the constitutional position which he had adopted, and a vindication of his action in warning the Unionist leaders, two years before, of the dangers and difficulties into which the Special Commission must lead them. When I read the report of his speech in the Times, it seemed to me that, but for the sudden loss of self-control indicated in the text, which, as much by manner as by actual words, made it appear to be a bitter attack upon the Government, it was conceived in a moderate tone. But, after what had happened on the previous morning, I cannot understand how Jennings could have imagined that there was a breach of faith with him.’