It's hardly necessary to say that he didn't want to see me again for many a day. But another incident occurred some time later which explains, I think, my early misjudgement of the man. The gist of Forbes's article appeared in Truth, Labouchere's weekly paper. I asked Escott had he given it to Labouchere but he denied it, saying that it must have been given by Chamberlain himself. I wrote of it as false and foolish and made fun of it in the Evening News and Lord Salisbury's agent wrote thanking me for my defence, at the same time telling me that Lord Salisbury had forbidden him to write any correction to the press; and had added finely, "It's impossible for us to praise each other." But my defence of the truth stood me in good stead with Lord Salisbury much later, as I may tell when I come to the Venezuelan difficulty.
Now I had to read Chamberlain's "Unauthorized Programme" as it appeared month by month in the Fortnightly Review, for all this time I was in close touch with Escott and his family. I found it difficult to explain Chamberlain's extraordinary success. He had no idea that Bismarck's work in nationalizing the German railways was the best way of lifting the labouring classes to a higher level; he preferred the old individualistic lenitives: for years he believed in unrestricted free trade; he didn't even know that joint-stock management of industry had every fault of state management and none of its virtues; from a continental point of view he was extraordinarily ignorant; he had read practically nothing and was curiously uneducated.
He had driving force of will and for years I saw little more in him. All this, I think, accounts for Gladstone's dislike of the man, as was shown by the low position he gave the Radical leader when forming his Cabinet in 1886, though Chamberlain was even then absolute master of six seats in Birmingham alone.
Kimberley and Granville, old worn out war horses, became Indian and Colonial Ministers respectively, whereas Chamberlain had only a minor appointment as head of the Local Government Board. This Ministry showed curious weaknesses and justified my sneer that there was "a screw loose in the Cabinet." Everyone knew of course that Chamberlain's great fortune lay in his monopoly of the trade in screws. But Gladstone should have taken him into his confidence and given him whatever place he wanted, for he was undoubtedly at this time the head of the Radical party and the most influential member of the majority after Gladstone himself. When the Home Rule Bill came before the House, pressed forward, as Randolph Churchill said aptly, by "an old man in a hurry," Gladstone must have realized his blunder in underrating Chamberlain, for Chamberlain and Hartington both resigned, and their resignation, or rather Chamberlain's, made the bill Impossible. Gladstone nicknamed the rebels "dissentient Liberals," but the name didn't stick; they soon came to be known as "Liberal-Unionists," and no one could deny that Chamberlain had given up the succession to the leadership of the party rather than sacrifice his principles. But if Gladstone had handled him to the height of his deserving in 1886, some Home Rule Bill would have passed the House and the history of "the distressful country" would have been different.
I could not even account for Chamberlain's extraordinary influence in Birmingham till I made up my mind to go and visit it. Then I was soon convinced; everyone in Birmingham knew his work and spoke in warmest admiration of him. In the very first year he was Mayor, in 1874, he bought up the gas works on behalf of the Corporation; he increased the efficiency of the services public and private in the most extraordinary way and transferred the growing profits into the pockets of the taxpayers. A year or so later he dealt with the water supply in the same spirit and with even more wonderful results, while showing himself a really democratic English statesman of the best. In the gas business he used all the growth of revenue in relief of the rates, while in the water service he ordained a minimum of profit in order that the continually growing supply should be distributed throughout the community and should especially benefit the poorest classes. In his third term he did even better at a greater personal cost. There were slums in Birmingham of unimaginable foulness, where long continued poverty had festered into disease. One or two facts will give some idea of the situation: infant mortality in the slum was three times as high as in the more decent quarters, the length of life was not one half as long, and the ratio of crime was tenfold higher. Chamberlain conceived the idea of cleansing this Augean stable, and in order to judge him fairly, it must be remembered that his powers were severely limited; and a certain resentment, based on the overgrown love of Englishmen for individual liberty, and hatred of authoritative interference or molly-coddling, made itself felt unpleasantly from the beginning. Yet he triumphed over every difficulty: bolder than Haussmann in Paris, he drove a great boulevard through the heart of slumland and called it Corporation Street. Today Corporation Street has the best shops in Birmingham, and he leased out the sites for only seventy years, so that when the leases fall in before the middle of this century, the Birmingham rates will be relieved to the tune of over?. 100,000 a year.
On my return from Birmingham I couldn't help asking Chamberlain one day how he had managed it. "Your gas and water improvements were easy," I began. "Indeed, in Germany they would be merely usual, but how did you manage your street through slum-land? Didn't some slum owners object to selling and ask extortionate, extravagant prices for their houses?"
"Some," he replied laughing. "Dozens held me up as boldly resolved as highway robbers. But I had various ways of dealing with them. I had obtained powers over more than the slum area, so, if they were determined, I said, 'All right, my friend, I'll alter the direction of my avenue and leave you in the slum you prefer. You'll not profit by my improvement, that's all.' To another I'd say, 'Look here, if you won't come in, I'll leave your tumbled down old shack in the middle of my avenue and I'll take care you don't get permission from the Corporation to rebuild on the site for many a year.' And yet another I'd influence by an appeal to his sense of fair play, and that's very
strong in Englishmen. I showed them that I dealt out even-handed justice: no one should profit more than his neighbour, and that finally was my most persuasive argument; but on the whole I had to pay twice or thrice the value of the land to the individual owner."
He told it all with such laughing good humour, showed besides such a rich human sympathy, even with the meanest and most grasping, and such unconquerable resolution to boot, that he won me completely. I had tears in my eyes when he finished and I murmured, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"
He took my words up seriously, and putting his hand on my shoulder said, "I love my house here and my ease, but if I could blot out the shameful, criminal poverty of these islands as I have in Birmingham, I'd consent to go penniless into the streets tomorrow. And yet I've no imitators even. The slums of Glasgow are worse than the worst in Birmingham, but no Scot takes the matter in hand and solves it as I have in Birmingham-and more, much more could be done. One spends half one's life before one comes to realize the problem and understands how easy it would be to solve it; and how important! But oh! the time's so short; one can do so little!" And he sighed deeply.
As he sat down again at his writing-table I noticed for the first time his extraordinary likeness to the younger Pitt: I was carried away by sympathy and had to say something. "I'm very glad I went to Birmingham," I began. "I misjudged you; I'm heart-glad to see that a Bismarck is also possible in England. At any rate, your spirit shows that the problem will be tackled sooner or later and brought to a noble issue."
"That's the hope," he said, smiling. "I'm glad we feel alike on the chief thing," he added.