He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (ebook reader with internet browser txt) 📖

allowed

themselves to think that he would ride his hobby harmlessly to the day

of his parliamentary death. But the drop from a house corner will

hollow a stone by its constancy, and Major Magruder at last persuaded

the House to grant him a Committee of Inquiry. Then there came to be

serious faces at the Colonial Office, and all the little pleasantries

of a friendly opposition were at an end. It was felt that the battle

must now become a real fight, and Secretary and Under-Secretary girded

up their loins.

 

Major Magruder was chairman of his own committee, and being a man of a

laborious turn of mind, much given to blue-books, very patient,

thoroughly conversant with the House, and imbued with a strong belief

in the efficacy of parliamentary questionings to carry a point, if not

to elicit a fact, had a happy time of it during this session. He was a

man who always attended the House from 4 p.m. to the time of its

breaking up, and who never missed a division. The slight additional

task of sitting four hours in a committee-room three days a week, was

only a delight, the more especially as during those four hours he could

occupy the post of Chairman. Those who knew Major Magruder well did not

doubt but that the Committee would sit for many weeks, and that the

whole theory of colonial government, or rather of imperial control

supervising such government, would be tested to the very utmost. Men

who had heard the old Major maunder on for years past on his pet

subject, hardly knew how much vitality would be found in him when his

maundering had succeeded in giving him a committee.

 

A Governor from one of the greater colonies had already been under

question for nearly a week, and was generally thought to have come out

of the fire unscathed by the flames of the Major’s criticism. This

Governor had been a picked man, and he had made it appear that the

control of Downing Street was never more harsh and seldom less

refreshing and beautifying than a spring shower in April. No other

lands under the sun were so blest, in the way of government, as were

the colonies with which he had been acquainted; and, as a natural

consequence, their devotion and loyalty to the mother country were

quite a passion with them. Now the Major had been long of a mind that

one or two colonies had better simply be given up to other nations,

which were more fully able to look after them than was England, and

that three or four more should be allowed to go clear, costing England

nothing, and owing England nothing. But the well-chosen Governor who

had now been before the Committee, had rather staggered the Major, and

things altogether were supposed to be looking up for the Colonial

Office.

 

And now had come the day of Sir Marmaduke’s martyrdom. He was first

requested, with most urbane politeness, to explain the exact nature of

the government which he exercised in the Mandarins. Now it certainly

was the case that the manner in which the legislative and executive

authorities were intermingled in the affairs of these islands, did

create a complication which it was difficult for any man to understand,

and very difficult indeed for a man to explain to others. There was a

Court of Chancery, so called, which Sir Marmaduke described as a little

parliament. When he was asked whether the court exercised legislative

or executive functions, he said at first that it exercised both, and

then that it exercised neither. He knew that it consisted of nine men,

of whom five were appointed by the colony and four by the Crown. Yet he

declared that the Crown had the control of the court, which, in fact,

was true enough no doubt, as the five open members were not perhaps,

all of them, immaculate patriots; but on this matter poor Sir Marmaduke

was very obscure. When asked who exercised the patronage of the Crown

in nominating the four members, he declared that the four members

exercised it themselves. Did he appoint them? No he never appointed

anybody himself. He consulted the Court of Chancery for everything. At

last it came out that the chief justice of the islands, and three other

officers, always sat in the court, but whether it was required by the

constitution of the islands that this should be so, Sir Marmaduke did

not know. It had worked well; that is to say, everybody had complained

of it, but he, Sir Marmaduke, would not recommend any change. What he

thought best was that the Colonial Secretary should send out his

orders, and that the people in the colonies should mind their business

and grow coffee. When asked what would be the effect upon the islands,

under his scheme of government, if an incoming Colonial Secretary

should change the policy of his predecessor, he said that he didn’t

think it would matter much if the people did not know anything about

it.

 

In this way the Major had a field day, and poor Sir Marmaduke was much

discomfited. There was present on the Committee a young Parliamentary

Under-Secretary, who with much attention had studied the subject of the

Court of Chancery in the Mandarins, and who had acknowledged to his

superiors in the office that it certainly was of all legislative

assemblies the most awkward and complicated. He did what he could, by

questions judiciously put, to pull Sir Marmaduke through his

difficulties; but the unfortunate Governor had more than once lost his

temper in answering the chairman; and in his heavy confusion was past

the power of any Under-Secretary, let him be ever so clever, to pull

him through. Colonel Osborne sat by the while and asked no questions.

He had been put on the Committee as a respectable dummy; but there was

not a member sitting there who did not know that Sir Marmaduke had been

brought home as his friend; and some of them, no doubt, had whispered

that this bringing home of Sir Marmaduke was part of the payment made

by the Colonel for the smiles of the Governor’s daughter. But no one

alluded openly to the inefficiency of the evidence given. No one asked

why a Governor so incompetent had been sent to them. No one suggested

that a job had been done. There are certain things of which opposition

members of Parliament complain loudly, and there are certain other

things as to which they are silent. The line between these things is

well known; and should an ill-conditioned, a pigheaded, an underbred,

or an ignorant member not understand this line and transgress it, by

asking questions which should not be asked, he is soon put down from

the Treasury bench, to the great delight of the whole House.

 

Sir Marmaduke, after having been questioned for an entire afternoon,

left the House with extreme disgust. He was so convinced of his own

failure, that he felt that his career as a Colonial Governor must be

over. Surely they would never let him go back to his islands after such

an exposition as he had made of his own ignorance. He hurried off into

a cab, and was ashamed to be seen of men. But the members of the

Committee thought little or nothing about it. The Major, and those who

sided with him, had been anxious to entrap their witness into

contradictions and absurdities, for the furtherance of their own

object; and for the furtherance of theirs, the Under-Secretary from the

Office and the supporters of Government had endeavoured to defend their

man. But, when the affair was over, if no special admiration had been

elicited for Sir Marmaduke, neither was there expressed any special

reprobation. The Major carried on his Committee over six weeks, and

succeeded in having his blue-book printed; but, as a matter of course,

nothing further came of it; and the Court of Chancery in the Mandarin

Islands still continues to hold its own, and to do its work, in spite

of the absurdities displayed in its construction. Major Magruder has

had his day of success, and now feels that Othello’s occupation is

gone. He goes no more to the Colonial Office, lives among his friends

on the memories of his Committee, not always to their gratification, and

is beginning to think that as his work is done, he may as well resign

Killicrankie to some younger politician. Poor Sir Marmaduke remembered

his defeat with soreness long after it had been forgotten by all others

who had been present, and was astonished when he found that the

journals of the day, though they did in some curt fashion report the

proceedings of the Committee, never uttered a word of censure against

him, as they had not before uttered a word of praise for that pearl of

a Governor who had been examined before him.

 

On the following morning he went to the Colonial Office by appointment,

and then he saw the young Irish Under-Secretary whom he had so much

dreaded. Nothing could be more civil than was the young Irish

Under-Secretary, who told him that he had better of course stay in town

till the Committee was over, though it was not probable that he would

be wanted again. When the Committee had done its work he would be

allowed to remain six weeks on service to prepare for his journey back.

If he wanted more time after that he could ask for leave of absence. So

Sir Marmaduke left the Colonial Office with a great weight off his

mind, and blessed that young Irish Secretary as he went.