Asquith by Roy Jenkins Page A

practice.

    One of his first and most striking successes of this sort was at the Nottingham meeting of the National Liberal Federation in October, 1887. The issue within the party at the time was the possibility of Liberal reunion, and Asquith came out firmly against making too many concessions to the dissidents. “ It was a very good thing to do what they could to recover the lost sheep. Henry IV had said that Paris was worth a Mass. But they might pay too high a price even for the capitulation of Birmingham.” e And he went on, speaking in the presence of Gladstone, to pay a tribute to him which showed that, when necessary, he could indulge fully in the art of rhetorical peroration. “ (His) presence at our head,” Asquith said, “ is worth a hundred battalions. To the youngest it is an inspiration, to the oldest an example, to one and all a living lesson of devotion, hopefulness and vitality.

    Let us rejoice that one survivor of the heroic age of English politics has entered on the last struggle of a life spent on the battlefields of freedom; and let us, lesser men of a later day, be proud that in such an enterprise and under such omens we are permitted to obey his summons and follow when he leads. ” f The applause was naturally tumultuous, but the more critical minds were also impressed. “ Eloquent and powerful,” was Morley’s comment.
    In Parliament at this time Asquith worked closely with a group of five or six near contemporaries. These included Haldane, Edward Grey and Arthur Acland, who had all come into the House in 1885, and Tom Ellis and Sydney Buxton, who had arrived at the same time as Asquith. Although Asquith was by no means the senior, either in age or in parliamentary experience, it was under his leadership, Haldane testifies, that the group drew together. Its members shared a common outlook on most questions of the day, and tried to fill in some of the gaps in Liberal policy which resulted from Gladstone’s pre-occupation with Ireland. Occasionally this brought them into mild conflict with the leadership. Haldane and Grey, in particular, were inclined to pursue a very independent course in the division lobbies, but Asquith was usually more cautious, partly, Haldane rather felinely suggested, because “ he had fewer views of his own than most of us.” g However, he abstained from voting in support of the Opposition’s attack on the Attorney-General in March 1889 for his activities as advocate for The Times before the Parnell Enquiry, 1 and, together with the other Liberal lawyers who had done the same, incurred another portion of Harcourt’s wrath. “ These are the gentlemen,” the latter wrote, “ who call out for ‘ more vigour.’ The truth is, what they like is to stand by with their hands in their pockets and order the front bench to do all the fighting and then abuse them for their pains.”

1 See infra , pp. 48-50. Asquith may have been influenced by his own involvement in the case (although on the other side), as well as by professional solidarity.

    With Harcourt the group never had very close or easy relations. He was too much of a Parliamentary “ bruiser,” always more interested in tactics than in ideas, for their tastes. But with Morley, whose more intimate contact with Gladstone gave him much of the status of first lieutenant, they felt a greater affinity. In many ways, indeed, they looked to him as their political mentor, and he was a frequent guest at the dinners which (rather obscurely calling themselves the “ Articles Club ”) they began to hold in 1888, sometimes at the Savoy Hotel and sometimes at the National Liberal Club. “ We young Liberals looked up to him with deep respect,” Haldane wrote.
    This respect helped to keep the group from getting too far out of touch with the official leadership of the party. But in many ways the affinity upon which the group thought it to be based was a false one. Morley had the glamour of a great literary reputation and