The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

Next morning I related the incident to one of my most enthusiastic supporters in the place.

"'Tis a disgrace," said I, "throwing stones in the dark. And as for that boy who made a good shot, if I could get hold of him I would scatter his features."

"Ye would not," said he.

"And why wouldn't I?" said I.

"Because," says he, "it was myself that threw that brick. An' didn't I get ye grand!" says he. "But ye're not hurted. Sure ye're not hurted, or I wudn't have told ye annything about it."

It wasn't disloyalty on his part. It was simply that he couldn't resist what he considered a joke.

The result of the polling was: Beresford, 1767; Esmonde, 1390; Longbottom, 446.

A salient characteristic of the Irish race is that they will not endure condescension towards them. They admire resolution and determination, and will submit to the sternest discipline if it is enforced upon them by a man who understands them and whom they respect. Conversely, they will yield nothing to weakness, and will return any assumption of superiority with hatred and contempt. Hence it is that the English have so often failed in their dealings with the Irish. In spite of the violence the Irish often exhibit in politics, their pride of race and pride in one another remain their notable characteristics.

I recently overheard a remark which illustrates the Irish master sentiment. During the debates upon the Home Rule Bill which took place in the House of Commons in 1912, one of his Majesty's Ministers, having made a long and an eloquent speech in support of that measure, punctuated by enthusiastic cheers by the Nationalist members, had it knocked to smithereens by Sir Edward Carson. Afterwards, I heard one Nationalist member say to another, "Wasn't that grand, now, to see the Irishman knocking spots out of the Saxon!" Yet it was the Saxon who was fighting for the Nationalist cause, which the Irishman, Sir Edward Carson, was strenuously opposing.

CHAPTER XVI

MEMBER FOR WATERFORD, AND COMMANDER, ROYAL NAVY

I shall never forget my first impressions, when, in 1874, I entered Parliament. There was a discussion upon a matter of Local Government. I listened to the speeches made on both sides of the House, each speaker taking a different point of view, and I became more and more doubtful concerning the solution of the problem in hand. At last a Radical member, whose name I forget, drew all the yarns into one rope, making what appeared to me to be a clear, concise and reasonable proposal.

Sitting among my friends, several of whom had been at school with me, I said:

"That is the only man who has solved the difficulty, and if he divides I shall vote with him."

My innocent remark was received with a volley of expostulations. I was told that I had only just joined political life, and that I did not understand it; that the Radical speaker's plan was excellent, but that the other side could not be allowed to take the credit of producing a good scheme, because it would do our side harm in the country; that the scheme would be thrown out for the time, in order that our side might be able later on to bring in the same scheme and reap the credit of it, and so forth.

"Well," I said, "if this kind of tactics is required in politics, it is no place for me. I had better go back to sea."

Whereupon I was told that I should shake down to political methods when I had been a year or two in the House. But I have spent years in politics and I have never shaken down to political methods. A thing is either right or wrong. I have never scrupled to vote against my own party when I thought they were in the wrong.

Upon one occasion, someone told Disraeli that I was intending to vote against the party. He put his arm on my shoulder, and said in his orotund, deliberate enunciation:

"My boy, don't you know that it's your first duty to vote with your party? If everyone voted according to his convictions, there would be no party system. And without a party system the Government could not be carried on, as you will discover in time."

I have also discovered that when politicians think only of issues as affecting themselves and not as affecting the State, party politics fall to a very low level, and those who believe in great national and Imperial ideas are regarded as freaks and faddists.

Disraeli was very friendly both to my brother Waterford and myself. Upon the first occasion of a division in which I took part, he walked through the lobby with his arm on my shoulder, rather to the surprise of the old members.

"Who the devil is that young man to whom Dizzy is talking?" I heard them murmur.

I sat immediately behind Disraeli; and one night, Lord Barrington, a great friend of his, hurried into the House, and squeezing himself in between me and the next man, leaned over and said to Disraeli in a whisper:

"Poor Whyte-Melville has been killed!"

Disraeli turned slowly round, fitting his glass into his eye.

"Dear, dear," said he deliberately; "and pray, how did that happen?"

"Killed in the hunting-field!"

"How very dramatic!" said Disraeli solemnly.

We stayed at Sandringham, and went for long walks together, during which Disraeli talked and laughed with the greatest enjoyment. But I remember how, in the pauses of the conversation, he would stand still, and, glass in eye, dreamily surveying the landscape, would make some such observation as "The air is balmy … and serene!" or "The foliage is stunted … but productive!" with the most weighty and measured emphasis, as though these were prophetic utterances. I was quite bewildered; for I did not then know whether he were serious, or were indulging a recondite wit. He was a visionary, dwelling much in a world of his own; and I know now that he was perfectly natural and serious on these occasions.

He and his wife were devotedly attached to each other. Having taken Lady Beaconsfield in to dinner one evening, I noticed some red marks upon her arm and her napkin. She was wearing red roses, and at first I thought some petals had fallen from them. Then I saw that she was wearing a bandage on her arm, and that blood was oozing from under it. I told her that her arm was bleeding.

"Please don't say a word, Lord Charles," she said hastily, "it would distress Dizzy so much." And she furtively twisted her napkin about her arm. Lord Beaconsfield, who was sitting opposite to us, stuck his glass in his eye and stared across the table – I was afraid for a moment that he had overheard what his wife had said. Poor lady, she died shortly afterwards.

When I entered Parliament in 1874 it was still the day of the great orators: of Disraeli, Gladstone, Bright, David Plunkett, O'Connor Power; whose like, perhaps, we shall not see again. There was a tradition of eloquence in the House of Commons of that time; members declined to listen to a bore; and debate was conducted almost entirely by the two Front Benches. It was in my first Parliament that Disraeli touched the zenith of his extraordinary and splendid career; during which he formulated the principles of a national policy, a part of which himself carried into execution, but whose complete fulfilment remains to be achieved. Disraeli established a tradition; and like all those who have a great ideal – whether right or wrong is not here the question – he still lives in the minds of men, and his name still carries inspiration. His great rival, who wore him down at last, bequeathed no such national inheritance.

It was in this my first Parliament that Mr. Parnell emerged as the leader of the Irish party. He was a cold, unapproachable person; he kept his party under the most rigid control, with a tight hold upon the purse. He had great ability. I have often seen him stalk into the House in the middle of a debate, receive a sheaf of notes from his secretary, Mr. O'Brien, with whom he would hold a whispered consultation, then rise and deliver a masterly speech. He sat with me on the committee of the Army Discipline Bill; speaking seldom, but always to the point.

Lord Randolph Churchill entered Parliament at the same time as myself; and he was always a great personal friend of mine.

Although we were opposed in politics, the other four Waterford members were on excellent terms with the only anti-Home Ruler in the five. There were Dick Power, F. H. O'Donnell, J. Delahunty, and Purcell O'Gorman, who weighed twenty-eight stone or so; and they all came to my wedding. Another Waterford man was Mr. Sexton. As a boy, he manifested so brilliant a talent for oratory, that he was sent into Parliament, where, as everyone knows, he speedily made his mark. I remember, too, The O'Gorman Mahon, who, if I am not mistaken, fought the last formal duel in this country.

When I entered Parliament the automobile torpedo was a comparatively recent invention. Mr Whitehead had begun his experiments in 1864; after four years' work and at the cost of £40,000, he produced the formidable engine of war known as the Whitehead torpedo, the type from which all subsequent improvements have been evolved. I have heard it stated that the British Government could have bought the invention right out for £60,000. Whitehead invented the device of using hydrostatic pressure to regulate the depth of the immersion of the torpedo, and employed compressed air as its motive power. The new weapon was adopted by the British Navy and by other naval powers. In the year 1876 the type in use was the 14-in., length 14 ft. 6 in., weight 525 lbs.

In my view, the capabilities of the new weapon had not been fully appreciated; that opinion may or may not have been justified; but I considered it to be my duty publicly to insist upon the importance of the torpedo in naval warfare. I spoke on the subject both inside the House of Commons and on the platform, and was so fortunate as to win the approval of The Times.

The Admiralty, however, were deeply affronted. The First Lord, Mr. George Ward Hunt, informed me that the Board took great exception to my speaking in the House upon naval subjects, and desired me to understand that I must choose between the career of a sailor and that of a politician. My reply was that I considered the request to be a breach of privilege. Mr. Ward Hunt admitted the point; but argued that the employment in the House of Commons of my knowledge of the Service was prejudicial to discipline. He was of course right in so far as the conditions did undoubtedly afford opportunities for prejudicing discipline; but as there was no regulation forbidding a naval officer to sit in Parliament, a dual position which had been frequently held by members of the Board of Admiralty, the responsibility rested upon the individual.

However, it was not a case for argument; and I appealed directly to Mr. Disraeli, telling him that I regarded the request of the Admiralty as a breach of privilege; that I had no intention of relinquishing my naval career; and that I had entered Parliament solely in the interests of the Service. Disraeli listened with his customary sardonic gravity.

"What," he asked, "do you intend to do?"

I said that if the matter were pressed to a conclusion, I should resign my seat, in which event Waterford would very probably be captured by a hot Home Ruler.

"My dear boy," said Disraeli, in his deliberate way, "I am quite sure that you will do nothing heroic. I," he added, – "I will see the Secretariat."

And that was the last I heard of the affair.

Among other Service matters in which I did what I could in the House of Commons to obtain reforms, were the training of the personnel, the more rapid promotion of officers, promotion from the lower deck to officers' rank, and the necessity for building fast cruisers to protect the trade routes. I advocated more time being spent by the men upon gunnery training, and less upon polishing bright-work; and brought forward a motion to stop the men of the Fleet "doing 'orses" (as they called hauling carts laden with stores about the dockyard), instead of being trained in their proper work. These subjects no longer possess any interest save in so far as the circumstances resemble those of the present day. But I find recurring to-day many of the difficulties of thirty or forty years ago.

At that time the Admiralty had abolished the short service system under which highly efficient seamen were recruited direct from the mercantile marine, and the Board had become responsible for the whole supply and training of men for the Fleet. But the Admiralty had neglected to constitute an efficient system of training. A very large proportion of men were employed at sea upon duties which precluded them from receiving war training of any kind; another large contingent was kept idle in hulks and receiving ships while waiting to be drafted into sea-going vessels. The suggestion was that barracks should be erected for their accommodation and provided with attached vessels; and that a complete system of training should be organised; so that every man upon going to sea in a ship of war should be acquainted with his duties. Commander Noel (now Admiral of the Fleet Sir Gerard H. U. Noel, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.) kindly sent to me a most valuable memorandum upon the subject, in which he presented an admirable scheme of organisation, the principles of which were afterwards carried into execution. Of late years those principles have been infringed; but the exigencies of the Service will compel the authorities to return to the essential conditions laid down by Sir Gerard Noel, whose authority is entitled to the greatest respect. I also received a sagacious letter on the same subject from Commodore John Wilson, under whom I afterwards served as commander in the Thunderer, indicating the necessity of framing a scheme of organisation to come into force as soon as the barracks were completed.

With regard to the promotion of officers and men, the state of things nearly forty years ago finds a parallel to-day. Then, as now, a very large proportion of officers, from the rank of commander downwards, cannot hope to be promoted. It was then suggested that the retiring allowance should be increased. It is true that in 1873 Mr. Goschen, by granting an increased retiring allowance for a limited period, had done his best to effect a temporary relief. But the permanent reform, which is more necessary now than ever before, still awaits achievement. In the meantime the discontent to which I drew attention in 1875, is by no means less detrimental than it was. The whole difficulty, as usual, is financial. Government after Government, of what political complexion soever, refuse to pay the Services properly. The condition of affairs is a national disgrace.

At that time, too, the Fleet was highly deficient in cruisers; and, in consequence, the sea-borne trade of the country was exposed to great danger in the event of war, as I explained to the House of Commons. In later years the requisite ships were provided; only, in a moment of retrograde impulse, to be abolished. After a period of insecurity and uneasiness, the cruiser force is once more being slowly increased.

In later years my political opponents found great solace at elections in saying that I had objected to the abolition of flogging in the Navy. The question arose in my first Parliament. What I actually did – as a reference to Hansard will confirm – was to point out that in many cases they were the best men, the men who had the pluck to get into a row. High-tempered, full of exuberance, they were flogged for offences against discipline, and whereas a flogging was soon over and done with, the alternative proposed would break a man's heart in prison and deprive the Navy of valuable services. Which, then, was the more humane course? To-day, the circumstances and conditions have changed. Discipline is better, and flogging, thank goodness, is abolished.

But when the matter was under discussion, a certain ex-naval officer assembled a public meeting, at which he attacked me with great vehemence and impassioned eloquence. He was interrupted by an old fellow at the back of the hall, who, refusing to be silenced, was asked to speak from the platform. He did. He gave the meeting a dose of lower-deck phraseology, hot and strong; and told the audience they were not to believe a word they had heard concerning myself; that he had been shipmates both with the speaker of the evening and with myself. He devoted some complimentary remarks to me, "but," says he, "as for the other, he flogged every man in the ship three or four times." Whereupon the audience rose in its wrath and drove my opponent from the platform.

Mr. Disraeli asked me to survey the three battleships building for Turkey and the one battleship building for Chile, and to give him my opinion as to whether or not they were worth buying. Disraeli said he preferred to ask me rather than the Admiralty, as I could, if necessary, speak on the matter in Parliament. "And," said Disraeli, in his pontifical way, "I like young brains." I advised the purchase of the ships; and purchased they were, being added to the British Navy under the names of Superb, Belleisle, Orion and Neptune.