CHAPTER VIII.
THE ADDRESS.
Before the 11th of November, the day on which Parliament was to meet,the whole country was in a hubbub. Consternation and triumph wereperhaps equally predominant, and equally strong. There were those whodeclared that now at length was Great Britain to be ruined in actualpresent truth; and those who asserted that, of a sudden, after afashion so wholly unexpected as to be divine,--as great fires, greatfamines, and great wars are called divine,--a mighty hand had beenstretched out to take away the remaining incubus of superstition,priestcraft, and bigotry under which England had hitherto beenlabouring. The proposed disestablishment of the State Church ofEngland was, of course, the subject of this diversity of opinion.
And there was not only diversity, but with it great confusion. Thepolitical feelings of the country are, as a rule, so well marked thatit is easy, as to almost every question, to separate the sheep fromthe goats. With but few exceptions one can tell where to look for thesupporters and where for the opponents of one measure or of another.Meetings are called in this or in that public hall to assist or tocombat the Minister of the day, and men know what they are about. Butnow it was not so. It was understood that Mr. Daubeny, the accreditedleader of the Conservatives, was about to bring in the bill, butno one as yet knew who would support the bill. His own party, to aman,--without a single exception,--were certainly opposed to themeasure in their minds. It must be so. It could not but be certainthat they should hate it. Each individual sitting on the Conservativeside in either House did most certainly within his own bosom cryIchabod when the fatal news reached his ears. But such privateopinions and inward wailings need not, and probably would not, guidethe body. Ichabod had been cried before, though probably never withsuch intensity of feeling. Disestablishment might be worse than FreeTrade or Household Suffrage, but was not more absolutely opposed toConservative convictions than had been those great measures. And yetthe party, as a party, had swallowed them both. To the first andlesser evil, a compact little body of staunch Commoners had stoodforth in opposition,--but nothing had come of it to those trueBritons beyond a feeling of living in the cold shade of exclusion.When the greater evil arrived, that of Household Suffrage,--a measurewhich twenty years since would hardly have been advocated by theadvanced Liberals of the day,--the Conservatives had learned toacknowledge the folly of clinging to their own convictions, and hadswallowed the dose without serious disruption of their ranks. Everyman,--with but an exception or two,--took the measure up, some withfaces so singularly distorted as to create true pity, some with anassumption of indifference, some with affected glee. But in thedouble process the party had become used to this mode of carrying onthe public service. As poor old England must go to the dogs, as thedoom had been pronounced against the country that it should be ruledby the folly of the many foolish, and not by the wisdom of the fewwise, why should the few wise remain out in the cold,--seeing, asthey did, that by so doing no good would be done to the country?Dissensions among their foes did, when properly used, give thempower,--but such power they could only use by carrying measures whichthey themselves believed to be ruinous. But the ruin would be ascertain should they abstain. Each individual might have gloriedin standing aloof,--in hiding his face beneath his toga, and inremembering that Rome did once exist in her splendour. But a partycannot afford to hide its face in its toga. A party has to bepractical. A party can only live by having its share of Garters,lord-lieutenants, bishops, and attorney-generals. Though the countrywere ruined, the party should be supported. Hitherto the party hadbeen supported, and had latterly enjoyed almost its share of starsand Garters,--thanks to the individual skill and strategy of thatgreat English political Von Moltke Mr. Daubeny.
And now what would the party say about the disestablishment of theChurch? Even a party must draw the line somewhere. It was bad tosacrifice things mundane; but this thing was the very Holy of Holies!Was nothing to be conserved by a Conservative party? What if Mr.Daubeny were to explain some day to the electors of East Barsetshirethat an hereditary peerage was an absurdity? What if in some ruralnook of his Boeotia he should suggest in ambiguous language to thefarmers that a Republic was the only form of Government capable ofa logical defence? Duke had already said to Duke, and Earl to Earl,and Baronet to Baronet that there must be a line somewhere. Bishopsas a rule say but little to each other, and now were afraid tosay anything. The Church, which had been, which was, so trulybeloved;--surely that must be beyond the line! And yet there creptthrough the very marrow of the party an agonising belief that Mr.Daubeny would carry the bulk of his party with him into the lobby ofthe House of Commons.
But if such was the dismay of the Conservatives, how shall any writerdepict the consternation of the Liberals? If there be a feelingodious to the mind of a sober, hardworking man, it is the feelingthat the bread he has earned is to be taken out of his mouth. Thepay, the patronage, the powers, and the pleasure of Government wereall due to the Liberals. "God bless my soul," said Mr. Ratler, whoalways saw things in a practical light, "we have a larger fightingmajority than any party has had since Lord Liverpool's time. Theyhave no right to attempt it. They are bound to go out." "There'snothing of honesty left in politics," said Mr. Bonteen, declaringthat he was sick of the life. Barrington Erle thought that the wholeLiberal party should oppose the measure. Though they were Liberalsthey were not democrats; nor yet infidels. But when Barrington Erlesaid this, the great leaders of the Liberal party had not as yetdecided on their ground of action.
There was much difficulty in reaching any decision. It had beenasserted so often that the disestablishment of the Church was only aquestion of time, that the intelligence of the country had graduallyso learned to regard it. Who had said so, men did not know and didnot inquire;--but the words were spoken everywhere. Parsons withsad hearts,--men who in their own parishes were enthusiastic, pure,pious, and useful,--whispered them in the dead of the night to thewives of their bosoms. Bishops, who had become less pure by contactwith the world at clubs, shrugged their shoulders and wagged theirheads, and remembered comfortably the sanctity of vested interests.Statesmen listened to them with politeness, and did not deny thatthey were true. In the free intercourse of closest friendships thematter was discussed between ex-Secretaries of State. The Pressteemed with the assertion that it was only a question of time. Somefervent, credulous friends predicted another century of life;--somehard-hearted logical opponents thought that twenty years would put anend to the anomaly:--a few stout enemies had sworn on the hustingswith an anathema that the present Session should see the depositionfrom her high place of this eldest daughter of the woman of Babylon.But none had expected the blow so soon as this; and none certainlyhad expected it from this hand.
But what should the Liberal party do? Ratler was for opposing Mr.Daubeny with all their force, without touching the merits of thecase. It was no fitting work for Mr. Daubeny, and the suddenness ofthe proposition coming from such a quarter would justify them now andfor ever, even though they themselves should disestablish everythingbefore the Session were over. Barrington Erle, suffering under a realpolitical conviction for once in his life, was desirous of a positiveand chivalric defence of the Church. He believed in the twenty years.Mr. Bonteen shut himself up in disgust. Things were amiss; and, as hethought, the evil was due to want of party zeal on the part of hisown leader, Mr. Gresham. He did not dare to say this, lest, whenthe house door should at last be opened, he might not be invited toenter with the others; but such was his conviction. "If we were alla little less in the abstract, and a little more in the concrete, itwould be better for us." Laurence Fitzgibbon, when these words hadbeen whispered to him by Mr. Bonteen, had hardly understood them;but it had been explained to him that his friend had meant "men,not measures." When Parliament met, Mr. Gresham, the leader of theLiberal party, had not as yet expressed any desire to his generalfollowers.
The Queen's Speech was read, and the one paragraph which seemedto possess any great public interest was almost a repetition ofthe words
which Mr. Daubeny had spoken to the electors of EastBarsetshire. "It will probably be necessary for you to review theconnection which still exists between, and which binds together,the Church and the State." Mr. Daubeny's words had of course beenmore fluent, but the gist of the expression was the same. He hadbeen quite in earnest when addressing his friends in the country.And though there had been but an interval of a few weeks, theConservative party in the two Houses heard the paragraph readwithout surprise and without a murmur. Some said that the gentlemenon the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons did not look to becomfortable. Mr. Daubeny sat with his hat over his brow, mute,apparently impassive and unapproachable, during the reading ofthe Speech and the moving and seconding of the Address. The Housewas very full, and there was much murmuring on the side of theOpposition;--but from the Government benches hardly a sound washeard, as a young gentleman, from one of the Midland counties, ina deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who had hitherto been known for noparticular ideas of his own, but had been believed to be at any ratetrue to the Church, explained, not in very clear language, that thetime had at length come when the interests of religion demanded awider support and a fuller sympathy than could be afforded under thatsystem of Church endowment and State establishment for which thecountry had hitherto been so grateful, and for which the countryhad such boundless occasion for gratitude. Another gentleman, inthe uniform of the Guards, seconded the Address, and declared thatin nothing was the sagacity of a Legislature so necessary as indiscerning the period in which that which had hitherto been goodceased to be serviceable. The status pupillaris was mentioned, andit was understood that he had implied that England was now old enoughto go on in matters of religion without a tutor in the shape of aState Church.
Who makes the speeches, absolutely puts together the words, whichare uttered when the Address is moved and seconded? It can hardly bethat lessons are prepared and sent to the noble lords and honourablegentlemen to be learned by heart like a school-boy's task. Andyet, from their construction, style, and general tone,--from theplatitudes which they contain as well as from the general safetyand good sense of the remarks,--from the absence of any attempt toimprove a great occasion by the fire of oratory, one cannot but beconvinced that a very absolute control is exercised. The gorgeouslyapparelled speakers, who seem to have great latitude allowed them inthe matter of clothing, have certainly very little in the matter oflanguage. And then it always seems that either of the four mighthave made the speech of any of the others. It could not have beenthe case that the Hon. Colonel Mowbray Dick, the Member for WestBustard, had really elaborated out of his own head that theory ofthe status pupillaris. A better fellow, or a more popular officer,or a sweeter-tempered gentleman than Mowbray Dick does not exist;but he certainly never entertained advanced opinions respecting thereligious education of his country. When he is at home with hisfamily, he always goes to church, and there has been an end of it.
And then the fight began. The thunderbolts of opposition wereunloosed, and the fires of political rancour blazed high. Mr. Greshamrose to his legs, and declared to all the world that which he hadhitherto kept secret from his own party. It was known afterwards thatin discussion with his own dearly-beloved political friend, LordCantrip, he had expressed his unbounded anger at the duplicity, greedfor power, and want of patriotism displayed by his opponent; but hehad acknowledged that the blow had come so quick and so unexpectedlythat he thought it better to leave the matter to the House withoutinstruction from himself. He now revelled in sarcasm, and beforehis speech was over raged into wrath. He would move an amendment tothe Address for two reasons,--first because this was no moment forbringing before Parliament the question of the Church establishment,when as yet no well-considered opportunity of expressing itself onthe subject had been afforded to the country, and secondly becauseany measure of reform on that matter should certainly not come tothem from the right honourable gentleman opposite. As to the firstobjection, he should withhold his arguments till the bill suggestedhad been presented to them. It was in handling the second that hedisplayed his great power of invective. All those men who then sat inthe House, and who on that night crowded the galleries, remember histones as, turning to the dissenters who usually supported him, andpointing over the table to his opponents, he uttered that well-wornquotation, _Quod minime reris_,--then he paused, and began again;_Quod minime reris,--Graia pandetur ab urbe_. The power and inflexionof his voice at the word _Graia_ were certainly very wonderful. Heended by moving an amendment to the Address, and asking for supportequally from one side of the House as from the other.
When at length Mr. Daubeny moved his hat from his brow and rose tohis legs he began by expressing his thankfulness that he had notbeen made a victim to the personal violence of the right honourablegentleman. He continued the same strain of badinage throughout,--inwhich he was thought to have been wrong, as it was a method ofdefence, or attack, for which his peculiar powers hardly suited him.As to any bill that was to be laid upon the table, he had not as yetproduced it. He did not doubt that the dissenting interests of thecountry would welcome relief from an anomaly, let it come whenceit might, even _Graia ab urbe_, and he waved his hand back tothe clustering Conservatives who sat behind him. That the righthonourable gentleman should be angry he could understand, as thereturn to power of the right honourable gentleman and his party hadbeen anticipated, and he might almost say discounted as a certainty.
Then, when Mr. Daubeny sat down, the House was adjourned.