Chapter 9: Member for Noncomformity
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The Life-Story of Sir Robert W. Perks, Baronet, by Denis Crane.
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Chapter IX: Member for Nonconformity
‘As a Christian layman his influence in the cause of righteousness and liberty rivals that of any living minister. In the House of Commons there is no member better qualified than he to be the nucleus of a powerful Non-conformist party; while on the Opposition benches there is no man who represents more widespread and powerful financial and commercial interests. Mr. Perks may therefore be appropriately considered from this three-fold point of view — not as the ideal Christian layman, Nonconformist M.P., and commercial representative — no man is that ; but as the most successful and obtainable approximation.’
So wrote the author of what is probably the best sketch of Sir Robert that has yet appeared, in the columns of The British Monthly, just six
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years ago.[1] The claim, so far as it relates to his character and influence as a layman, few are likely to deny. How far it is justified in regard to his position in the House of Commons the present chapter will perhaps help to show.
At a congratulatory dinner to the Methodist members of Parliament included in the King’s Birthday List, in July last year. Sir Robert declared that he had never been ‘a very passionate politician.’ Almost in the same breath he stated that he had never been ‘a very pacific Methodist’, but had always been in the fighting ranks of Nonconformity’; adding, that if Nonconformity was to be effective in the House of Commons it must be almost aggressively militant. Nonconformists could only gain their chief ends, he said, by cohesion, by a firm assertion of their demands, and even by the exercise of a little mild terrorism over their leaders.[2]
In these utterances we have the secret of Sir Robert’s political life. Politics, as such, touch no chord and awaken no emotion in his breast. Perhaps his shrewdness as a lawyer has something to do with this; perhaps he penetrates too readily the charlatanry of political place-seekers, and knows how slender,
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in many cases, is the connexion between political harangues and personal convictions. The late Baron Brampton used to say that the House of Commons dislikes lawyers. If so, may it not be because it feels uneasy under the hard, penetrating, often Cynical eye of the man of law?
Moreover, Sir Robert’s important business interests have necessarily left him little enthusiasm to expend on purely party matters. ‘A man who has to be at his work in the City shortly after nine every morning,’ he says, ‘cannot go to the House at two and sit there till midnight. Furthermore, the methods of procedure and the habits of the House of Commons cannot be congenial to business men accustomed to act promptly, to economize time, and to push aside trivialities and delegate details.’ He thinks that men shine in Parliament who would make no progress in commercial and City life, and who would never be trusted with serious financial and mercantile responsibilities. ‘The House of Commons,’ he once declared, ‘is the place for talkers rather than for workers.’ As to office, this he thinks can have few attractions for men who do not need a salary and who have looked behind
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the scenes. Parliament has changed greatly during the last forty years, much of its power having passed into the hands of the great administrative departments and out of the hands of the rank and file. ‘The Empire,’ he says, ‘is governed, not by the popular assembly, but by a bureaucracy consisting of permanent officials.’[3]
Holding these views, as Sir Robert does, it is not remarkable that his position in Parliament is somewhat isolated. To this condition his financial independence also has doubtless largely contributed. Said Macaulay, when discussing with Lord Lansdowne the difficulties of the politician: ‘Without a competence it is not very easy for a public man to be honest: it is almost impossible for him to be thought so.’ Sir Robert has all along been free from this disability. ‘I am not a paid member of Parliament,’ he said, a short time ago; ‘nor am I under any financial obligations to the Liberal Whips. I can therefore afford to be independent.’
Even among his fellow religionists in the House he has sometimes ploughed a lonely furrow; nor is this surprising in view of the notorious difficulty of compromise where
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‘principle’ or ‘conscience’ is thought to be at stake. Yet has he never failed to command the respect of those with whom he has most widely disagreed. One gentleman who has had occasion , to differ from him on many vital matters speaks of him as at all times ‘independent, straightforward, and remarkably courageous.’ Few politicians could claim, or covet, even from their friends, a higher encomium.
A story is told of his early days in the House which shows at once his pluck and his determination not to be sat upon. In the interests of his constituency he on one occasion spoke in support of a Tory measure. Sir William Harcourt, his leader, was much incensed at this independent attitude on the part of a new recruit,[4] and in the lobby afterwards determined to administer a severe rebuke. He was standing amid a group of followers when Sir Robert approached. Frowning ominously, Sir William waited until there was silence, and then exclaimed in his pompous way: ‘Young man, you have a great deal to learn in politics.’ As Sir Robert was well enough advanced in life to be above the charge of excessive youth-
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fulness, the snub was particularly offensive, and might easily have silenced one of less mettle.
Sir Robert, however, was not the person to take it lying down. ‘Well, Sir William,’ he retorted, with a smile, ‘there is one thing I can teach even you.’
‘Oh! and what is that?’
‘How to keep your seat.’
This hit, which derived its force from the fact that the Liberal leader had just been defeated at the polls, and had only been returned through the courtesy of another candidate, elicited a titter from the bystanders and established Sir Robert’s reputation as a man not to be trifled with.[5]
The interests of his electors and the rights of Nonconformity may be said to sum up pretty completely Sir Robert’s Parliamentary enthusiasms. In few other matters has he shown any ‘passion.’ The nearest approach thereto has been when the purely business aspect of some measure has called him to his feet. Such was the case in 1896, for example, when he opposed the vote of three million pounds for the reconstruction of the Uganda Railway, and severely criticized the method
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proposed by the Government for building the line.[6] His strictures on that occasion were as trenchant and convincing as though he had been dealing with an education difficulty or a case of religious intolerance. It has been complained — as though he were a sinner in this respect above all men that sit in Parliament! — that his voice is seldom heard in debate, and that he is sometimes absent when the House divides. It is enough to say that few members when called away are more punctilious about pairing with some other absentee, so that on matters of importance, at least, his vote may never be lost to his party.
Before speaking of some of the measures and movements to which Sir Robert, as a Protestant and a Nonconformist, has lent his support, brief reference must be made to his position during two of the greatest Parliamentary crises of recent years — the Home Rule split and the stormy period which culminated in the South African War.
At the beginning of his political career, he was a firm Home Ruler and a consistent supporter of Mr. Gladstone’s Irish policy. The Irish leaders, however, shortly after the
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Liberal defeat in 1895, abandoned the old Gladstonian position and declared for an Irish Parliament, with an Irish executive independent of Great Britain. Hence, in 1898, availing himself of ‘ the delightful advantages of the private member,’ who ‘ can say what he thinks best in the interests of his constituents and his country,’ Sir Robert broke with the Irish party and abandoned Home Rule as so defined, as outside the sphere of practical politics. He saw that there had been a great revulsion of feeling in England, especially on the part of Nonconformists, against Home Rule and the Irish alliance, and he felt that to emblazon this policy on the Liberal banners in the coming struggle would be to court defeat. And defeat would mean that the Tory party, pressed by the Roman hierarchy, would, among other reactionary concessions, give Ireland out of public funds a Catholic university — a proceeding calculated greatly to alarm English Protestants.
Another cause for dissatisfaction with the Irish was their failure to support their friends on purely English questions. Time after time had they trooped in a body to vote down some cherished Liberal reform. Furthermore, their
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internal dissensions, and their ostentatious and unpatriotic declarations of sympathy with the enemies of England abroad, had not tended to increase the respect of the Liberal electors. In these circumstances Sir Robert thought that the extension to Ireland of a wise system of autonomy in local affairs was as far as any Government could prudently go, and indeed all that was for the time being possible. ‘I claim to be a practical politician,’ he said. ‘I do not want to spend the best years of my in Parliament in beating the air, or whistling to the north wind.’[7] Bigots might characterize such an attitude as treason or apostasy; he regarded it as common sense. ‘If I find myself travelling, possibly in the dark, on the wrong road,’ he said, ‘am I for the sake of “consistency” to journey on, and on, and on; or am I, guided by common sense, to turn back, take the right path, and reach home?’[8]
During the critical times prior to the Boer War, when the Liberals were divided into two camps. Sir Robert entered the Rosebery ‘tabernacle.’ He ventured openly to criticize Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who, after struggling bravely, if vainly, to hold the party together, first professed his willingness to
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follow Lord Rosebery’s lead and then repudiated the Liberal peer for not following him.[9] However this episode may have affected Sir Robert’s political fortunes, there can be no doubt that his loyalty to his chosen chief forms not the least honourable page in his record.
In 1900 Sir Robert assisted in founding, together with Dr. Heber Hart, Mr. A. C. Forster-Boulton, M.P., Mr. J. W. Greig, and a few more, the Imperial Liberal Council. He and the present Attorney-General, Sir W. S. Robson, were two of the Vice-Presidents. At the inaugural meeting at the Westminster Palace Hotel[10] he indicated, from the chair, the objects of the organization. These were — to provide a centre for Liberals who were desirous of advancing sound Imperial principles within the Liberal party; to assist in forming local councils for the advancement of such principles in the constituencies; to promote social intercourse and the interchange of opinions between colonists and British Liberals; and to promote the consolidation and ultimate federation of the Empire.
This Council, which possessed considerable vigour, paved the way for the Liberal League, founded in 1902, with Lord Rosebery as
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President, and Mr. Asquith, Lord Wolverhampton, Sir Edward Grey, and subsequently Mr. Haldane, as Vice-Presidents. Sir Robert, who was its first Treasurer and who holds that office to-day, is credited with having taken a leading part in its formation.[11] It was formed to bring together for common action all those who approved of Lord Rosebery’s Chesterfield policy[12], and one of its professed objects was to show that no party has a monopoly of patriotism. While British Naval supremacy and drastic Army reform were fundamental planks in its platform, it gave first place to such vital problems as education, temperance, and the housing of the people.
As regards the South African War, Sir Robert held the view, in common with many other earnest Liberals, that the war was forced upon Great Britain, and that while more careful diplomacy might have postponed and more skilful military action and foresight might have shortened it, yet the surest way to abiding peace was the success of the British arms. Jingo ‘Imperialism,’ involving reckless expansion and disregard of the rights of other nations and of native tribes, he, like every other Methodist, abominates; nor has he a
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shred of sympathy with capitalists who live only for plunder, and whose yoke in South Africa would have been as intolerable as the yoke of the Boers. At the Methodist Oecumenical Conference of 1901, in one of the best speeches he ever delivered, he pleaded earnestly against ‘the causes that make for war’; the chief of which, he said, were ignorance, corrupt and unlicensed journalism, and untrue and un-Christian conceptions of glory and heroism. In justice it should be said that, notwithstanding his Imperialist views, he did his utmost at the critical election of 1900 to prevent the running of Liberal Imperialist candidates in opposition to Liberals who denounced the war.
I have said that the one really passionate note of Sir Robert’s political life is his championship of the rights of Nonconformity. In this cause he has toiled as few politicians have. At a meeting of the National Liberal Federation, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, as early as 1891, while yet but a candidate for Parliament, he outlined some of the reforms with which his name has been so honourably connected.
He had seen, he said, in some of the villages of Lincolnshire, little children arrive at the
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school door on a wet, and sometimes winter morning, and be compelled to stand outside, taking, forsooth, the benefits of the conscience clause, while the religious instruction was going on inside, and then be permitted to enter in their damp clothing. To remedy such grievances the village school must be placed under effective popular control, free from denominational tests and atmospheres. Then there was that curious rural archaism — the clerical magistrate. This must be reformed. In the county of Lincoln sixty per cent of the people were Nonconformists, but ninety per cent of the magistrates were Churchmen. He did not altogether complain of that, although it was a very serious difficulty. But he objected to have upon the bench gentlemen who would be far better engaged in attending to their ecclesiastical duties, and who, he regretted to say, were as remarkable for the ferocity of their sentences as for their ignorance of law.
Life in an English village, he continued, would not be tolerable for Nonconformists until the burial laws and the marriage laws had been reformed, and provision had been made for the compulsory sale of sites for Noncon-
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formist chapels and schools. They would like to hear the church bell tolled in the village for the Dissenter as well as for the Churchman. They would like to see the little village procession at the Dissenter’s funeral passing right through the front gate of the churchyard, and they objected to their dead being relegated to the Dissenters’ portion of the graveyard. They wanted the bier and apparatus connected with burials used for Dissenters as for Churchmen. Then, as to marriage, they wished it to be as cheap and easy for the Non-conformist to get married in his own village chapel as in the parish church, and they did not want to force him to lose a day’s pay by going off to some neighbouring market-town to be married there under the inspection of a civil officer, showing that there was a derogatory distinction between his position and that of his neighbouring Churchman.[13]
To these and similar reforms Sir Robert has devoted his best years. He was one of the introducers of Mr. Carvell Williams’s Burials Acts Amendment Bill of 1895, which provided that while burial boards might permit portions of public cemeteries to be consecrated, such consecration was only to be regarded as
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a religious rite, and was not to carry with it legal rights or disabilities or claims to fees; and which shortened the notice of burial from forty-eight hours to twenty-four, extended the operations of the Act to non-parishioners, prohibited the clergy from attaching derogatory conditions to the burial of Nonconformists, authorized the tolling of bells and the use of biers, and prohibited glebe land from being settled upon trusts for burial purposes exclusively in accordance with the rites of the Church of England.[14]
He also laboured, in association with other Nonconformist members, to abolish the payment of tolls to Anglican clergymen in connexion with Nonconformist burials in public cemeteries; and to withdraw from the clergy the practical control of inscriptions, the selection of places of burial, and the forms of service to be used in the consecrated parts of such cemeteries.
As to the disabilities under which Nonconformists laboured so long in the matter of marriage. Sir Robert, for many years prior to the introduction of the Bill with which his name will ever be associated, showed his deep interest in the question by opposing
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sundry unsuitable measures introduced from time to time, and by supporting others more or less satisfactory. This was in harmony with the standing instructions given by the Methodist Conference to its Committee of Privileges.
He at length addressed himself to the matter with special care, and in 1897, in conjunction with a committee representing the various Free Churches, drew up his famous Nonconformist Marriages Bill[15]; a measure which had the support, not only of the said Churches, but also of the Dissenting Deputies, the Liberation Society, and other kindred bodies. As is well known, the Bill provided for the solemnization of marriages in all registered places of worship, without the presence of the civil registrar. Some would have preferred a levelling-down measure which would have made the attendance of the registrar compulsory at all churches alike; but such a proposal would have deferred reform indefinitely. An easy course would have been to introduce a Bill removing the disabilities from Methodists alone; but in their desire to assist all Nonconformist Churches alike. Sir Robert and his friends conceded
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many points so that the measure might be made of wider application. The Bill was opposed by some Nonconformist ministers on the ground that it would increase both their work and their responsibility; but happily their selfish objections were overruled by its provisions being made permissive and not compulsory. Notwithstanding complaints that the measure was unduly intricate, it has, generally speaking, worked smoothly. Among other benefits, it has made Nonconformist marriages appreciably cheaper — an important consideration to the working-classes. The extent to which it satisfied Wesleyan Methodist feeling will appear from the fact that of the eleven thousand registered buildings which adopted the provisions of the Act within the first twelve months, practically one-half were Wesleyan chapels.
In 1906, at the request of the Committee of Privileges, Sir Robert once more introduced the Places of Worship Sites Bill, a measure conferring upon the Free Churches power to obtain sites for places of worship in cases where landowners are not willing to sell. This privilege the Church of England has long possessed. The Bill passed the Commons
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as early as 1893, but was destroyed by the intolerable conditions imposed by the Lords. Recent attempts to carry it have unfortunately proved no more successful, but it is still engaging its promoters’ attention. Other notable questions upon which he addressed the House were the Places of Worship Enfranchisement Bill of 1893, and the unjust Tithe Rent Charge Bill of 1899.
Not only Nonconformists in general, but also individual sufferers from clerical tyranny, have found in Sir Robert a staunch friend. Cases of intolerance brought under his notice have more than once been ventilated in the House of Commons. One such occurred in 1899. A Methodist evangelist was summoned before the local magistrates for preaching in a certain village on a spot where services had been conducted for many generations. The summons was granted, at the instance of one of his parishioners, by the resident clergyman, who himself sat on the bench to try the case, and, when the evangelist asked for an adjournment to secure legal assistance, described him, before the evidence had been heard, as a street brawler. Sir Robert called the Home Secretary’s attention
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to the matter and asked whether he would advise the reverend magistrate not to adjudicate upon a case in which he was interested and which he had so prejudged.[16]
Another incident to which he called attention was the prohibition by a certain bishop of the placing of artificial wreaths on the graves of departed friends — a right which, as Sir Robert justly pointed out, has been exercised, beyond the memory of man, without consulting the clergy. Although the case in question proved to have arisen through a misunderstanding. Sir Robert’s action in the matter was none the less chivalrous.
Throughout the long education struggle Sir Robert has played a yeoman’s part, not, indeed, always in perfect agreement with his fellow Nonconformists, nor even with his less progressive fellow Methodists, yet ever loyal to the fundamentals of the Free Church position — a complete national system of education with popular control, the abolition of religious tests for teachers, and simple Bible teaching in the schools. These legitimate demands he has striven to enforce in the House of Commons, on committees, on deputations, on the platform, in the Press,
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wherever, in short, his influence could be effectually exerted.
Towards the end of 1901 an important deputation of the National Council of the Free Churches waited upon the Liberal leader at Lord Spencer’s house in London to submit their views upon Mr. Balfour’s Education Bill. Sir Robert Perks was one of the spokesmen. Lord Rosebery, who had retired the previous year from the leadership of his party, in replying to the deputation used these striking words: ‘If the country is prepared to submit to the principle enunciated in this Bill you may give yourselves up to an interminable reign of the principles associated with Lords Eldon and Sidmouth; you may hope for an era of great military, naval, and diplomatic supremacy abroad, but you have very little to hope for in the development of free institutions at home. I confess that were the Nonconformists of England tamely to submit to the enactments of this Bill, I will not say that they would be weakened religiously, but I will say this — that, in my opinion, politically they would cease to exist.’[17]
Referring to this important declaration a
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few weeks subsequently, in a speech in Lincolnshire, Sir Robert said:
‘Is it surprising that politicians who stand outside the charmed circles of Nonconformity wonder how the militant forces of religious freedom intend to act? Are we going without a struggle to see the educational fabric patiently reared during the last thirty years levelled to the ground? Who is it that complains of the great School Boards? Certainly it is not the parents of the children. Whatever town in our land you enter, wherever there is a choice between a public school and a sectarian school, the parents choose the former. Church schools are dying. School Board schools flourish. Will any rational and fair-minded man deny that the Non-conformists have a very real grievance? We number more than half the nation. In multitudes of schools our children are in a vast majority. And yet what do we find? The teaching profession in twelve thousand denominational schools is closed to Nonconformists. No matter how accomplished they may be, they can be neither head nor assistant teachers. Not only so, but our children are either compelled to learn creeds and catechisms repugnant to their faith and often at variance with the Protestant religion, or they are compelled to stand shivering outside the school doors till the religious teaching is
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over: and woe betide parents in rural districts who claim the benefits of the conscience clause. Surely the old Liberal doctrine that the man who pays must rule should extend to every elementary school in the land.’
When the 1902 Bill drove thousands of God-fearing people to refuse payment of what they regarded as an iniquitous rate, Sir Robert expressed his approval of their action. ‘I am now, and have always been,’ he subsequently wrote, ‘in favour of the Passive Resistance movement. I entirely approve the course which Dr. Clifford, Dr. Robertson Nicoll, Mr. Meyer, and other trusted leaders of the Free Churches have taken; and I believe that the Christian men and women who have suffered the despoiling of their goods rather than pay a sectarian rate, have rendered, and are daily rendering, an untold service to the cause of British liberty and the Protestant faith’.[18] On this point he differed from a large body of his fellow Wesleyans. Although the Conference abstained from expressing either approval or disapproval of the movement, he moved and carried a resolution of sympathy with those who had suffered for conscience’ sake.
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Like other leading Nonconformists, he was bitterly disappointed with Mr. Birrell’s Bill in 1906, and when it was discharged, owing to the mutilation it received at the hands of the Lords, he shared the general feeling of relief.[19] Mr. McKenna’s Bill, a year later, he regarded with no more favour, believing that it would have strengthened enormously the Anglican and clerical party, especially in rural districts and single school areas.
Mr. Runciman’s Bill, last year, was a task of admitted difficulty, following as it did two abortive efforts. Moreover, the popularity of the Government was already waning, and there was a growing determination in the country to clear the education controversy out of the way. Therefore, although the Bill was one over which, he said. Nonconformists could hardly be expected to go into raptures, he set the gains against the losses and fell in with the compromise. It must, however, be said that he was one of the last to yield over the contentious ‘contracting out’ clause, believing that such a concession was thoroughly odious to the majority of Free Churchmen. Nonconformity, he thinks, lost her golden opportunity three years ago,
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when, flushed with victory, the Liberal party went to Westminster with a clear mandate from the electors. Her leaders failed to act with unity and decision; they refused to make their voices heard; they allowed an unsympathetic Cabinet committee to bring in a Bill which Mr. Birrell himself admitted the nation did not want. And, since the Government’s latest attempt to solve the difficulty has also proved abortive, they are still paying the penalty.[20]
In order to hasten the emancipation of the Free Churches, Sir Robert, aided by his friends, founded in 1898 the Nonconformist Parliamentary Council. The inaugural meeting was held at St. Martin’s Town Hall, on May 3, and was both representative and influential. In the following month the constitution of the Council was drawn up, and at a great conference of Nonconformists, held in November, was formally adopted, Sir Robert being elected President, Mr. Lloyd George Vice-President, and the Rev. J. Hirst Hollowell Secretary.[21] This organization, formed to consider questions really outside the purview of what may be called evangelistic Christian work, has proved of immense service in many ways. Being —
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unlike the Church Parliamentary Committee — of a representative character, it has enabled the party leaders to gauge Nonconformist feeling on any matter before the House.
The utility of such a committee was illustrated in connexion with the Nonconformist Marriages Bill, previously referred to. ‘I should never have got that Bill through,’ said Sir Robert on one occasion, ‘if it had not been for a sort of united action of the governing bodies of the Free Churches on the second reading, and, more than that, an organized system whereby the local members, particularly Tory members, representing towns in which Nonconformity was very strong, were appealed to through the local Nonconformist agents to support the Bill. The result was that, if the Government had resisted the second reading, they would have been helplessly beaten, because there were scores of Conservative members in the House pledged to their Nonconformist friends and constituents to vote for it.’[22]
In the more distinctly evangelistic side of Free Church life Sir Robert has shown his interest by the part he took in the establishment of the National Free Church Council,
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of which from the first he has been one of the Treasurers.[23] Both at its annual congresses and on its various committees he has taken an influential part. With its federation movement, its stand on social purity and temperance, its promulgation of Protestant principles, he has been in deep sympathy; and there was a time, before he felt the necessity of dropping some of his public engagements, when a gathering under the Council’s auspices was thought to be hardly complete unless at one of the sessions he occupied the chair.
He has given whole-hearted support to measures of licensing reform, as well as to various agencies for the encouragement of temperance. To his life-long efforts on behalf of the Sunday closing of public-houses and the promotion of Sunday observance generally, must be added, in concluding this account of Sir Robert’s many public services, his pleas for Church disestablishment and his intense hostility — amounting at times almost to zealotry — to sacerdotal pretensions and Romish practices in the Established Church.
The question may perhaps be asked: Were the ideals which he set before his future
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constituents in 1887 abandoned after he had seen more of Parliamentary life? The answer is found in a speech he gave at Binbrook, up on the Lincolnshire Wolds, in September 1901. Concluding a long deliverance of an hour and twenty minutes’ duration, he said:
‘We sometimes ask in our despondent moments: Is England a dying nation? I think not, because I know what national faith and national determination mean to a race and to a people. You ask a man: Upon what does the prestige and the power of a nation rest? He will tell you that money is the backbone of a nation; that wealth is its vital force, and that national credit will carry us through every trouble and help us to surmount every social danger. I do not think that can be the view of those of you who have studied the history of this nation, still less of you who have grasped the principles of the Christian faith. You meet another man and again you say: What is prestige? upon what does the power and strength, the vitality and progress, of a people depend? He says to you: It depends upon physical force. Force is the ultimate tribunal. What a nation is physically that will it become eventually. Keep your powder dry. See that your army is well organized, well equipped, and
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well controlled; build massive ironclads and keep abreast with other nations in the invention of engines of destruction and wholesale murder; train your athletes in the football match and the cricket field; keep your race strong, and your country will grow in power, because its prestige rests not on money, not on the dross of temporary wealth, but upon physical force. That is how not a few men speak. Go to another and he says: Perish gold and force and physical strength — these are not the life of a nation. The secret of our strength is humanity, justice, and righteousness. Administer justice, be equitable, place upon the benches of your courts of law and on your magistracy men of probity and mercy. Humanity and sympathy are the foundation of a nation’s prestige; universal love and the federation of mankind. Love your neighbour, even though he be your rival, as yourself; try to assuage everywhere the woes of humanity; pour the oil of love into the wounded sores of oppressed people. My friends, I am not here to-night to deny that some of the powerful motives I have named are at the basis of national progress and power. Wealth, physical force, justice, and humanity are, thank God! instruments which may be used for a nation’s welfare; but I say to you as that revolutionary and mighty soldier of his country and of God, Oliver Cromwell, said two hundred and fifty years ago — if you want to fight suc-
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cessfully the battles of your country abroad on the field of battle, or if you wish to fight them in the legislature at home, and to conquer, you must not have men who worship wealth, or physical force; you must have men who fear God and love man — men who have not to seek the sanction for their actions in some mythical deity in some far-off and unknown realm, but who live day by day in the conscious knowledge of the favour of God ; men who base all their efforts, feeble and failing though they may be, upon a profound conviction that they are striving to regulate their lives by the Word of God; men who hope for favour, not from the passing passions, the floating fancies, and the fickle friendships of life, but men who base their actions upon the invincible belief that when they have done their best and fought their hardest in this struggle of life they will hear those words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”’[24]
End Notes to Chapter Nine
[1] Crane’s opening quote here is taken from the unsigned article “Mr. R.W. Perks, M.P.” published in the January 1903 edition of The British Monthly. The subtitle of The British Monthly was “An Illustrated Record of Religious Life and Work”, and the editor’s introduction to the January 1902 issue had included the statement: “This magazine was started in the hope that it might supply a useful place as an illustrated chronicle of religious events, and we are happy to say that our anticipations have been realised.” The word “minister” in the first sentence of the quote should be read as meaning “minister of religion”, and not “minister of the Crown.” The anonymous writer of the January 1903 article had commenced by postulating that three “desiderata” had been put forward in public discourse during the preceding year, namely: “England … needs not so much an increase in the number of her cultured and eloquent ministers as in the number of her fearlessly Christian laymen; secondly, the Free Churches need a stronger, more compact, more convinced, effective, and representative party in the House of Commons; thirdly, the Liberal party needs recruiting from that class which made it so powerful a humanitarian and progressive engine in the hands of Mr. Gladstone — the great and wealthy commercial middle-class.” The next sentence states that “no man in England realises each of [these three great needs] better, or indeed so well, as Mr. R.W. Perks.” And then comes the passage which Crane quotes here. I think it is worth noting that Walter Cranfield may have been the writer of the January 1903 piece — a year or so prior to his taking on the pen-name “Denis Crane”.
[2] Perks used the phrases Crane reports here at a dinner held on the 14 July 1908 in the House of Commons chaired by Walter Runciman — the then President of the Board of Education. See the report sub-titled “The Uses of Moral Terrorism” in The Retford and Worksop Herald, 21 July 1908, p. 5.
[3] It is interesting to compare this paragraph with a passage that appeared at page 84 of the unsigned article “Mr. R.W. Perks, M.P.” that was published in the January 1903 issue of The British Monthly: ‘ “A man who has to be at his work in the City shortly after nine every morning,” he says, “cannot go to the House at two and sit there till midnight. Moreover, the methods of procedure and the habits of the House of Commons cannot be congenial to business men accustomed to act promptly, to economise time, and to push aside trivialities and delegate details.” He thinks — and those concerned should take the compliment to heart — that men shine in Parliament who would make no progress in commercial and city life, and who would never be trusted with serious financial and mercantile responsibilities. “The House of Commons is a place for talkers rather than for workers” is his disheartening conviction. But her thinks even more discouragingly than this, that office can have few attractions for men who do not need a salary, and who have seen sufficiently behind the scenes of “office.” All this, if true, bodes ill for the future of England, as also does Mr. Perks’s conviction — which others beside himself have been driven to — that the House as a body is not the powerful assembly it was thirty-five years ago. Power has, unfortunately, passed into the hands of the great administrative departments and out of the hands of the rank and file. “The Empire”, he says, “is governed not by the popular assembly, but by a bureaucracy consisting of permanent officials.” ’
[4] In his Notes for an Autobiography (at pp. 129-130) Perks states that this incident occurred in the context of his supporting the Salisbury government’s Agricultural Land Rating Bill in April 1896. See note 8 to Chapter Eight.
[5] Crane is correct in stating that Sir William Harcourt had been defeated in the 1895 general election when he stood for re-election in the seat he had held since 1880 (Derby), and was able to continue to lead the Liberal party in the House of Commons only through the courtesy of the member for the very safe Liberal seat of West Monmouthshire standing aside in his favour. But the force of Perks’s “hit” on Harcourt was stronger than Crane suggests here. In 1880 Gladstone had appointed Harcourt to be Home Secretary, which required Harcourt to resign and re-contest his seat. He was defeated (at Oxford) by 54 votes, and another seat had to be found for him, viz Derby. In that case, it was Samuel Plimsoll who had “retired” from a safe Liberal seat to allow Harcourt to re-enter Parliament and maintain his Cabinet status. Perks was clearly referring to Harcourt needing to be bailed-out twice, rather than ‘merely’ the once.
[6] It is not clear why Crane uses the word “reconstruction” here. The vote of £3 million was for the construction of a new railway, over 600 miles long, from Mombasa on the coast to Kisumu on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria. The Salisbury cabinet had decided that the British government should find the required capital, construct and work the line on what was called in India and Britain’s colonies: “the departmental system” — i.e. by its own officials, without using either a public works contractor or a company structure (St James’s Gazette, 16 August 1895, p. 15). In the House of Commons on 30 July 1896 in the Committee stage of the Bill for the railway, Perks made a series of criticisms of this. According to Hansard: “He thought the Committee should be informed how the Government had arrived at £3,000,000 as the probable cost of the railway. Then he would like to know who was in control — who was responsible? A sort of nebulous Government authority had been created. Men had been selected from various Departments to form a composite body who were entrusted with the expenditure of this huge sum. But who was responsible? Who was going to present to Parliament the detailed Reports of the progress of the work and its cost which ought to be presented to Parliament … In dealing with public money they ought to see that it was as carefully expended as their own money in connection with their own private commercial ventures. Again, they had no security as to the time this railway would be finished. … He thought the railway one of the wildest commercial ventures ever submitted to the consideration of the House.” Perks participated in a second heated House of Commons debate over the Uganda Railway in April 1900 when the government sought authorisation to inject a further £2 million into the scheme — the original £3 million having been spent, and construction having only reached about mid-way between Mombasa and Lake Victoria. And during the interval between July 1896 and April 1900, Perks periodically asked Parliamentary questions raising various concerns about the venture.
[7] The words quoted by Crane here were part of a speech Perks gave at Bardney in Lincolnshire on 11 January 1898. Earlier in the same speech Perks stated: “I hold now as strongly as I did in 1886, 1892, and 1895 that the only permanent remedy for the political grievances of Ireland is to confer upon the Irish nation such a measure of Home Rule or Local Self-Government as Great Britain can safely grant, and as the reasonable rights of the religious and commercial minorities in Ireland will allow” (The Methodist Times, 20 January 1898, p. 36).
[8] This sentence does not appear to have been part of the speech Perks gave on 11 January 1898, cited in note 7 above. I have not so far been able to locate Crane’s source for these words.
[9] Harcourt resigned as leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons in December 1898 and Henry Campbell-Bannerman was elected to replace him in that capacity. The Earl of Kimberley, who had succeeded Rosebery as leader of the Liberal party in the House of Lords after Rosebery had resigned from that position in October 1896, continued to hold that post until his death in 1902. In the words of George Bernstein: “When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was elected leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons in January 1899, the party already was divided … By the end of the year, the Boer War had accentuated that division” (George L. Bernstein, “Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman And the Liberal Imperialists”, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Autumn 1983), pp. 105-124).
[10] At a preliminary meeting held on 1 March 1900 at the chambers of Dr. Heber Hart (1865-1948), a committee was appointed to prepare the draft constitution of this body. Perks presided at the first general meeting, held on 10 April 1900 at the Westminster Palace Hotel. At this inaugural meeting the title “The Imperial Liberal Council” was agreed upon (The Daily News, Wednesday 11 April 1900, p. 6). At a meeting held on 22 October 1901, it was resolved to alter this title to “The Liberal Imperialist League” (The Times, 23 Oct 1901, p. 7). Crane mis-spells the surname of one of those he cites as involved in the founding of the Council: Alexander Claude Foster-Boulton (1862-1949), who was elected to the House of Commons in 1906. James William Greig (1859-1934) was elected M.P. for Western Renfrewshire in January 1910. For more on the Imperial Liberal Council (I.L.C.) and the Liberal Imperialist League (L.I.L.), see pages 50-88 of H.C.G. Matthew, The Liberal Imperialists: The ideas and politics of a post-Gladstonian élite, Oxford University Press, 1973.
[11] The Liberal League was formally founded at a meeting held in Rosebery’s London house on 24 February 1902. But it was at an earlier meeting, held on 14 January 1902 that Rosebery met with Grey, Haldane and Perks: “drew up the main lines of the ‘Liberal League’, and decided upon its name” (H.C.G. Matthew, op. cit., p. 84). At meetings held on 3 March and 10 March 1902, the predecessor body — the Liberal Imperialist League (L.I.L.) — resolved to dissolve itself and to invite its members to transfer to the Liberal League (The Daily Chronicle, 4 March 1902, p. 3; and St. James’s Gazette, 11 March 1902, p. 8). These changes were not popular with all the predecessor body’s members, with Heber Hart and W.S. Robson in particular expressing dissent (The Daily Chronicle, 26 February 1902, p. 4; St. James Gazette4, 26 February 1902, p. 8; and The Westminster Gazette, 8 March 1902, p. 7).
[12] Rosebery delivered his Chesterfield speech on 16 December 1901 to an audience of 5,000 in the newly-constructed goods and carriage shed of the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway Company, which Perks was a director of. Perks had organised a special train to transport reporters and Members of Parliament to the event from London.
[13] From the words “He had seen” at the bottom of page 203 to “Churchman” here, this is (with some slight editing) the passage headed “Religious Intolerance” from Perks’s speech on The Condition of the Rural Population, delivered on 2 October 1891 at the 14th annual meeting of the National Liberal Federation in Newcastle-on-Tyne. See pp. 84-85 of http://handle.net/2027/mdp.39015027429334
[14] Crane describes here what Carvell Williams’s Bill of 1895 sought to achieve, but does not point out that it was not passed by Parliament. Perks was one of the six M.P.s who supported Carvell Williams’s introduction of the Bill on 8 February 1895, and he spoke in favour of the Bill in the debate on its second reading on 6 March 1895. Although the Bill passed its second reading, it lapsed when the Liberal government fell. It was re-introduced in the following session, but was accorded too little timetable priority to make it to a second reading. Re-introduced again in 1897, its second reading debate took place on 24 February 1897. Perks spoke in favour of the Bill, as did his legal partner H.H. Fowler. But the Bill was defeated by 194 votes to 150. In 1900, it was the Unionist government’s Burial Grounds Act that ended the principal grievances of the non-conformists. See pp. 31-32 of D.W. Bebbington, The Nonconformist Conscience, George Allen & Unwin, 1982.
[15] The House of Commons second reading of the Nonconformist Marriages (Attendance of Registrars) Bill was proposed on 23 March 1898 by Perks, and seconded by his brother-in-law Mark Oldroyd. Perks stated that the Bill had been: “prepared some years ago by a Joint Committee representing all the leading Nonconformist churches in this country, including the Methodists, Congregationalists, Independents, Baptists and Presbyterians.” Both Perks and Oldroyd had served on the House of Commons Select Committee appointed to look into this matter in May 1893. It was on Perks’s initiative that that Select Committee had been established. Perks wrote the draft report, and then arranged for sufficient compromises to be made for the final report to be agreed to unanimously by the Committee, which was comprised of four members of the Established Church and five members representing Dissenting communities. Following that success in 1893, it was essentially a matter of waiting (and pressing) for the Parliamentary timetable to provide the Bill with the “space” required for it to be able to progress through the required stages. Perks’s role in these processes was discussed by Professor Olive Anderson in her “The Incidence of Civil Marriage in Victorian England and Wales: A Rejoinder”, Past and Present, No. 84 (August 1979), pp. 155-162.
[16] The case Crane refers to here was that of Roderick Morris Kedward (1881-1937) who was summoned before Chipping Campden magistrates on 4 July 1899. Canon Bourne was the chairman of the three-man bench. The hearing was reported in The Oxfordshire Weekly News of 12 July 1899 (at p. 6). Perks put his question to the Home Secretary (Sir M. White Ridley) on 11 July 1899. Ridley’s response was that he did not believe it was consistent with his duties “to interfere by advice or otherwise, which I cannot enforce.” Nevertheless, when Kedward’s case came before the Chipping Campden magistrates on 19 July 1899, it was stated that a letter had been received from Canon Bourne stating that “a sudden engagement prevents his attendance at the Petty Sessions today” (Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 22 July 1899, p. 5). Kedward’s troubles were not, however, over. He was found guilty, fined 5 shillings with costs (of £2.3s), and upon his refusal to pay was sent to Worcester gaol for one month. Kedward was only eighteen at this stage. He later became an esteemed Wesleyan minister and served as the Liberal M.P. for Ashford in Kent from 1929 to 1931. His obituaries state that when he refused to leave Worcester gaol “voluntarily” after his fine had been paid on his behalf, the Home Secretary did intervene, and made an order for his release (The Kentish Express, 12 March 1939, p. 7).
[17] It is hard to read this paragraph without concluding that Crane is confused. The visit “by the … important deputation” he refers to here was an event that occurred not in 1901, but on 8 December 1902. The Balfour government’s Education Bill had been approved by the House of Commons and forwarded to the House of Lords. The National Council of Evangelical Free Churches arranged to meet with the Liberal party members of the House of Lords to explain their objections to the Bill. The meeting was scheduled to be held in the house of Earl Spencer who had become the Leader of the Liberal party in the House of Lords following the death of the Earl of Kimberley in April 1902, After the arrangements had been made, King Edward VII decided he would attend an event at the Agricultural Hall on the same day, which it would have been ‘impolite’ for Lord Spencer not to have been present for. Lord Rosebery therefore stood-in for Lord Spencer at the meeting with the Free Churches deputation. Rosebery had resigned from his leadership roles in the Liberal party in October 1896. Rosebery, in essence, told the deputation that the Liberal Peers would not be able to obtain any significant amendments to the Bill in the House of Lords in the face of the government’s apparent determination to ignore the Free Churches Council’s objections to the Bill. In the course of his comments, Rosebery made the statements Crane quotes here — but with the sentence commencing “I confess” appearing at an earlier stage in those comments than the words Crane presents here as preceding it. See the report in The Methodist Times of 11 December 1902 (p. 895) headed: “The Lords and the Education Bil: Lord Rosebery’s Advice to Nonconformists: Free Church Deputation to Liberal Peers.”
[18] This statement by Perks on the Passive Resistance movement was reproduced in The Lincolnshire Echo, 30 July 1903, p. 2, with a note indicating that it was Perks’s response to The Methodist Recorder having stated that he was an “abstainer” on the issue. It should be noted that Crane had been a participant in the Passive Resistance movement during this period. In July 1903 he was elected one of the two secretaries of the Clay Cross and District Citizens League of Passive Resisters. On 14 September 1903 he was one of twelve Clay Cross passive resisters to have belongings seized by bailiffs — in his case a “gentleman’s safety bicycle” which was later auctioned for 12 shillings (The Derbyshire Courier, 1 August 1903, p. 8; Belper News and Derbyshire Telephone, 18 September 1903, p. 5, and 25 September 1903, p. 5. Crane (or the Rev. Walter Cranfield, as he then was) went through the same procedure the following March/April, but this time with a cased set of four silver salt cellars and four silver spoons as the bailiff’s target (Alfreton and Belper Journal, Friday 25 March 1904, p. 5; Belper News and Derbyshire Telephone, 15 April 1904, p. 8). Later in 1904, he went through the procedure again in East Ham (The Morning Leader, 30 September 1904, p. 5).
[19] For a summary of the events surrounding the failure of Birrell’s Bill of 1906, see page 148 of D.W. Bebbington, The Nonconformist Conscience: Chapel and Politics 1870-1914, George Allen & Unwin, 1982.
[20] As Crane Notes here the Runciman Bil of 1908 also proved abortive. Although Runciman had succeeded in negotiating a “concordat” to which both the Nonconformist M.P.s (with “half a dozen dissentients”) and the Archbishop of Canterbury had agreed, an eleventh-hour rebellion by sections of the Church of England led to a rejection of the “concordat”, and the government then withdrew the Bill. See pp. 150-51 of D.W. Bebbington, op. cit. This meant that: “Free churchmen went into the January 1910 election with the [1902] Balfour Education Act still on the statute book.” (D. W. Bebbington, “The Free Church M.P.s of the 1906 Parliament”, Parliamentary History, Volume 24, No. 1, 2005, p. 138).
[21] The May 1898 meeting Crane refers to here was held at St. Martin’s Town Hall on Tuesday 24 May 1898 (The Nonconformist, 26 May 1898, p. 375). It voted unanimously that “a Nonconformist Parliamentary Council” should be established, and a preliminary committee was appointed to draw up a constitution. A follow-up meeting chaired by Perks was held at the same venue on 20 July 1898 which discussed the draft constitution and resolved that the title of the body should be changed to “the Nonconformist Political Council” (Manchester Courier, 21 July 1898, p. 9). The “great conference of Nonconformists” that Crane refers to was held in the same venue on 15 November 1898 (The Standard, 15 November 1898, p. 4). According to David Bebbington, when that conference commenced “only four or five rows of seats were occupied” (The Nonconformist Conscience, p. 75). The Council’s Secretary, the Rev. James Hirst Hollowell (1851-1909) was a Congregationalist minister. In 1903 he took a leading part in organising with the Rev. John Clifford the passive resistance movement in response to the Balfour Education Act of 1902 (see note 18 above).
[22] It seems peculiar that Crane should cite as evidence of “the utility” of the Nonconformist Political Council this quote of Perks talking about the second reading of the Nonconformist Political Council this quote of Perks talking about the second reading of the Nonconformist Marriages (Attendance of Registrars) Bill. In a letter published in The Methodist Times of 17 February 1898 (at p. 101) Perks had stressed the importance of supporters of the Bill writing to their M.P.s requesting that they vote for the Bill at its second reading — scheduled for 23 March 1898. The Bill passed its second reading on that date, without a division (The Methodist Times, 24 March 1898, p. 184). This was two months before the preliminary meeting to establish the Nonconformist Political Council was held (see note 21 above) and almost four months before that body’s constitution had been determined. Perks’s Nonconformist Marriages Bill passed its House of Commons Committee stage on 15 June 1898, and its third reading on 3 August 1898 (The Morning Post, 4 August 1898, p. 6; The Methodist Times, 11 August 1898, p. 581). Perks invited the members of the Nonconformist Political Council to a reception at 11 Kensington Palace Gardens held on 17 February 1899 (The Methodist Times, 23 February 1899, p. 114). And the Council held a series of conferences including one at Leeds in May 1899 and one at Birmingham in July 1900. Following the latter, according to David Bebbington, “no more was heard of the organisation” (The Nonconformist Conscience, p. 75).
[23] The National Free Church Council was formed in 1892 and changed its title to “The National Council of Evangelical Free Churches” in 1896.
[24] This chapter concludes without Crane having made any mention of Perks’s role as chairman of the executive of the Nonconformist Parliamentary Committee formed shortly after the 1906 general election. Some 180 or so Nonconformist M.P.s had been returned at that election, and at a meeting held in the House of Commons on 13 March 1906 they agreed to establish a twenty-member executive committee “to watch and take any action which may in their judgement be necessary in Parliament” for a range of purposes — including organising deputations to the Departments, arranging the introduction of any motions or putting of questions, and so on. See The Morning Post, 14 March 1906, p. 7; The Standard, 14 March 1906, p. 5; and The Daily News, 14 March 1906, p. 8. During the time Perks was away in North America in 1907, the meetings of this executive committee were chaired by George White (1840-1912). Perks was unhappy with a number of the decisions made and actions taken by the committee in his absence. On his return to the U.K. he publicly described his colleagues as “a weak-kneed lot” (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 10 October 1907, p. 3; and The Yorkshire Post, 10 October 1907, p. 9). At the beginning of the 1908 session of Parliament, White was elected chairman of the Nonconformist Parliamentary Committee in place of Perks. See pp. 146-148 of D.W. Bebbington, “The Free Church M.P.s of the 1906 Parliament”, Parliamentary History, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2005, pp. 136-150.