208 



The Review of Reviews. 



February 90, 1°06. 



iggle. They were cartooned together in Vanity 

 I lir, and Mr. Balfour travelled from Scotland in 

 • r to be painted sprawling on the Bench dis- 

 playing his long l.-gs. which had exercised so de- 

 cisive an influence upon the fortunes of the Fourth 

 Party. They always spoke of Sir Stafford North- 

 - as the "Goat," \Y. H. Smith and Sir Richard 

 ss as Marshall and Snelgrove, and the) carried 

 the business of Parliament as a tremendous lark. 



EGYPT. 

 Mr. Winston passes lightly over the opposition 

 offered b) Lord Randolph to the whole Egyptian 

 polic) of Mr. Gladstone. Lord Randol] s an 



lusiastio support, r ol Arabi Pasha, and a fiei 

 opponent of the English ascendencj in the Nile 

 Valley. It happened in these days thai Mr. Ball 

 began to weaken in his allegiance to the Fourth 

 Party. H<- loved his party much, but he loved his 

 uncle more. Lord Randolph liked him as a friend, 

 hut thought wry little of him as a politician. When 

 the war broke out between Lord Rand< Iph and Sir 

 Stafford Xonhe, t . Lord Randolph publicly assailed 

 his leader in the columns of the Times, and c 

 tinned his attack in the Fortnightly A'.; eu in th< 

 famous article - Elijah's Mantle." I ie i lements of 

 L r\ Democracy onh required to be col and 



the work would be done b\ the man. whoever he 

 might be, upon whom the mantle of Elijah has de- 

 d. 



first gnat Parliamentary achievement i [ 

 Randolph was the rejection of the Affirmation Pill 

 in i88_^. in which he posed as the champion 

 Christian morality, and declared, in the words 

 Lord Erskine, that the religious ami moral sense of 

 people of Great Britain is the sheet-anchor 

 which alone can hold the vessel of State amid the 

 storms that agitate the world. 



THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE. 



His next achievement was to give effect to a - 

 - si n Sir Drummond Wolff, who, on the un\ 

 ing of Lord Beaconsfield's statue, remarked 



Lord Randolph, "What a show of primroses! Why 

 ■start a Primrose League?" Lord Randolph im- 

 m< diately jumped at the notion, and the two of 

 them, with the assistance of Sir John Gorst and Sir 

 Altred Slade. met together to form the new political 

 society which should embrace all classes and all 

 creeds, except atheists and enemies of the British 

 nation. In the first twelve months only 957 persons 

 had enrolled themselves, but the earlv Primrose 

 Knights and Dames wore their badges evVrvwhere in 

 public, and faced the keenest ridicule. Year bv 

 year they grew in strength, and to-day the League 

 claims to have 1.70^.708 knights, dames, and asso- 

 ciates upon its rolls. All this while Lord Randolph 

 was worrying Mr. Gladstone in public, as a pug- 

 nacious terrier might yap and snap at a lion. " You 

 will kill Mr. Gladstone one of these davs." said 

 someone to Lord Randolph. " Oh. no." he re- 

 joined, • he will long survive me. T often tell my 



wife what a beautiful letter he will write her, pro- 

 posing my burial in Westminster Abbey." 



HIS RELIGIOUS STRAIN. 



About midsummer, 1883, his father died, and 

 Lord Randolph, who was profoundly affected by his 

 loss, quitted Parliament, and refused to return for 

 the rest of the session. Mr. Winston says that the 

 strong religious strain In his nature, to which refer- 

 ence has alreadj been made, afforded him conso- 

 lation in this time of trouble, and, though always a 

 devout man. he became much more regular in de- 

 votional exercises than at any other period in his 

 life. After a tour on the Continent, however, he n - 

 gained his nerve, and when Parliament re-assembled 

 in 1884 he flung himself with all his energ) into the 

 work of collecting the elements of Tory Democracy 



ch he saw existed among the masses of the 



pie. 



THERSITES RANDOLPH. 



Nothing could exceed the violence of his invec- 

 tive. Mr. Gladstone was "the Moloch of Mid- 

 lothian," Mr. Chamberlain "the pinchbeck Robes- 

 pierre." A- earlj as tin- spring of 1881 the Morn- 

 ing Post began to reprint his speeches verbatim. 

 This example was speedily followed In tin- Times. 



earl) speech always written out befi 



hand and learned bj heart. < Ince written, his 

 memorj was such that he could repeat them aim 

 without notes, and quite without alteration. His 

 applies to him the description which Tacitus 

 made to Mucianus : " He had the showman's knack 

 of ('rawing public attention to everything he said 

 or did." In some respects he boldlj set at defiance 

 the established principles and prejudices of his 

 part\. He denounced the domination exercised bj 

 England in Egypt, and declared that it was a ter- 

 rible and widespread delusion that Egypt was the 

 high-road to India. \'.,<- more violently he de- 

 nounced Mr. Gladstone the more enthusiastically 

 was he cheered by the Tories, and it soon became 

 evident that he. more than any other man. was the 

 mouthpiece of the Tory rank and file. 



THE APOSTLE OF TORY DEMOCRACY. 



In 1884 he became Tory candidate in opposition 

 to Mr. Bright in Birmingham, and propounded for 

 the first time the programme of Tory Democracy. 

 It is amusing to read the speech he delivered at 

 Blackpool, in which he described the desperate con- 

 dition of British industry in terms as extravagant as 

 any of those used by Mr. Chamberlain. His .■> n 

 remarks sardonically that the Fair Traders were not 

 unnaturallv inclined to complain when, three years 

 afterwards. Lord Randolph, having acquired a 

 responsible position, having reflected upon the 

 voting of the countries at the General Election, sur- 

 veyed the problems of finance from the Treasury 

 chambers, poured buckets of cold water on th^ir 

 cherished schemes and declined to make any exer- 

 tions in their support. Tory Democracy, he de- 

 clared, " involves the idea of a Government who in 



