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Kitabı oku: «Recollections of a Busy Life: Being the Reminiscences of a Liverpool Merchant 1840-1910», sayfa 6

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Lord Mayor

For six weeks in 1903 I again occupied the civic chair. In January of that year the Lord Mayor, Mr. Watson Rutherford, was anxious to become a candidate for Parliament, a vacancy having arisen in the West Derby Ward. As Lord Mayor he could not act as his own returning officer, and it became necessary that he should resign his office for a time. Both political parties in the Council were good enough to invite me to accept the position, and thus I became Lord Mayor for the brief period I have mentioned. Mr. Rutherford, on retiring, informed me that he had already spent all the allowance, and all he could offer me were a few cigars. The duration of my reign was too short to admit of much entertaining, but I welcomed the opportunity of showing hospitality to many of my old colleagues and friends.

CHAPTER VI.
THE FENIAN TROUBLES

My year of office as Mayor was made very anxious by the aggressive tactics of the Fenian agitators. A bomb was placed at the side door of the Town Hall, and exploded, breaking in the door, destroying the ceiling and window of the mayor's dressing-room and doing considerable damage to the furniture. The bomb consisted of a piece of iron gas piping about 3 inches in diameter and 18 inches long, filled with explosives and iron nails. The miscreants, after lighting the fuse, ran away; but the Town Hall was watched by a double cordon of police; the first took up the chase, the second joined in, and the two men eventually jumped into a canal boat filled with manure, and were then secured. They were tried, and sentenced to fourteen years' penal servitude. They were two Irish stokers, mere tools in the hands of an Irish-American, who had planned the blowing up of all our public buildings, but managed to get away. An attempt was also made on the Custom House, but failed.

The Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, was much exercised by the position of things in Liverpool, and telegraphed to me enquiring how many troops were available in Liverpool. I replied fifty, of whom twenty-five were raw recruits. Next morning the General in command at York called at the Town Hall, and stated that he had been instructed to send 2,000 infantry, and two squadrons of cavalry, and wished me to arrange for their accommodation. He startled me by adding, "I should like to send you a Gatling gun; they are grand things for clearing the streets." I felt this was getting serious. I assured him that we did not apprehend any grave trouble, or disturbances, and if it was known that I had consented to a Gatling gun being sent for the purpose he mentioned, I should make myself most unpopular, and that I hoped that the troops would be sent down gradually so as not to cause alarm. We arranged to place some of the troops at Rupert Lane, and some in volunteer drillsheds, but several hundred had to be quartered in the guard ship on the Mersey. All this was carried out so quietly that no notice of it appeared in the newspapers. We were congratulating ourselves upon the success of our scheme, when I received a note from Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, then presiding at the assizes, requiring my presence at St. George's Hall. I immediately obeyed the summons, and was ushered into the judge's private room. The Chief Justice at once stated that he was informed that a large number of troops had been brought into the town, without his sanction as the Judge of Assize. In vain I pleaded my ignorance that his Lordship's permission was necessary, that the troops had not been requisitioned by me, but had been sent by orders of the Home Secretary. His Lordship was much annoyed and said I ought to have known that a Judge of Assize was the Queen's representative, and no troops could be moved during an assize without the judge's sanction. His anger was however short-lived; he came to dine with me at the Town Hall the same evening, and made a capital speech, as he always did, and the morning's episode was not again mentioned.

Things in Liverpool continued very unsettled and anxious, and to add to the difficulty a strike began. We were obliged to show the troops; the cavalry paraded the line of docks for two or three days, producing an excellent effect.

The Home Secretary was very anxious, and wrote to me long letters. The chief constable, Major Greig, was away ill, and this threw much responsibility upon the mayor. We were able to collect much information, which led to the arrest of many notable Fenians, and we stopped the importation of several consignments of infernal machines. An amusing incident occurred in connection with one of these. We were informed that a consignment of thirty-one barrels of cement was coming from New York by a Cunard steamer, each barrel containing an infernal machine. We placed a plain clothes officer in the Cunard office to arrest whoever might claim the cement, which, however, no one did, and we took charge of the casks as they were landed. Several casks were sent up to the police office and were there opened and the machines taken out. I was asked to go down to see the machines, and found them lying on a table in the detective office, several police officers being gathered round. I lifted the cover of one; a rolled spill of paper was inserted in the clock work; this I withdrew, and immediately the works started in motion, and with equal rapidity the police vanished from the room. I simply placed my hand on the works and stopped them, and invited the police to return. On unrolling the spill of paper I found it to be one of O'Donovan Rossa's billheads; he was at that time the leader of the Fenian brotherhood in America.

The machines were neatly made; on the top were the clock works, which could be regulated to explode at a given time the six dynamite cartridges enclosed in the chamber below.

Having taken all the machines out of the casks of cement, the difficulty arose what to do with them, and eventually we chartered a tug and threw them overboard in one of the sea channels.

An amusing incident occurred showing how excited public feeling was at the time. I was sitting one morning at the table in the Mayor's parlour in the Town Hall, when I heard a crash of broken glass, and a large, black, ugly-looking object fell on the floor opposite to me. I rang the bell and the hall porter came in; I said, "What is that?" "A bomb!" he exclaimed, and immediately darted out of the room, but he had no sooner done so than he returned with a policeman, who exclaimed, "Don't be alarmed, sir, it's only an old pensioner's cork leg." A crowd had collected in the street outside, in the centre of which was the old pensioner, who was violently expostulating. On ordering the police to bring him inside, he said he was very sorry if he had done wrong, but he was so angry at the many holes in the street pavements, in which he caught his wooden leg, that he had adopted this rather alarming method of bringing his complaint under the notice of the Mayor and the authorities. The cork leg, both in form and colour, much resembled a bomb made out of a gas pipe, of which we had seen several at the Town Hall.

At the end of my year of office I received the thanks of the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, for my assistance and, at his request, I pursued enquiries in America which had an important bearing in checking the Fenian movement at that time.

CHAPTER VII.
THE TOWN COUNCIL

The council chamber in the Town Hall has of late years undergone many alterations. In my early experience it occupied only part of the present site, and at the eastern end we had a luncheon room. It was a shabby chamber, badly heated and ventilated; the Mayor's chair was placed on a raised dais at the western end, and the members of the Council sat at long mahogany tables running lengthwise. It was a comfortless room, and very cold in winter.

The Council met at eleven in the morning, adjourned for lunch at one o'clock, and usually completed its labours by four or five o'clock in the afternoon. But we had periods when party feeling ran high, and obstructive tactics were adopted. At such times we not infrequently sat until ten o'clock at night. Most of these battles took place upon licensing questions in which the late Mr. Alex. Balfour, Mr. Simpson, of landing stage fame, and Mr. McDougal took a leading part.

It was the practice to deliver long and well considered speeches. Some of these were excellent, many very dreary. The present conversational debates would not have been tolerated. We had some very able speakers, of whom I think the most powerful was Mr. Robertson Gladstone, the elder brother of the late Premier. He seldom spoke, but when he did he gave utterance to a perfect torrent of eloquence which seemed to bear everything before it. He was a remarkable man in many ways, very tall of stature, and broad in proportion, he wore a low-crowned hat and used to drive down in a small four-wheeled dogcart. He delighted to give any old woman a lift, and every Saturday morning he visited the St. John's market, and took infinite pleasure in bargaining with the market folk. Mr. J. J. Stitt was also a very fluent and effective speaker, perhaps too much after the debating society style. Mr. J. R. Jeffery was a good speaker, so was Mr. William Earle. One of the most useful men in the Council was Mr. Weightman, who had been the Surveyor to the Corporation, and became a most efficient Chairman of the Finance Committee. One of the most laborious members was Mr. Charles Bowring, the father of Sir William Bowring, Bart. Mr. Bowring was for years Chairman of the Health Committee. He had a big and difficult work to do, but he did it well, and was always courteous and considerate. Mr. Beloe was at that time Chairman of the Water Committee, and was largely responsible for the Rivington water scheme. I think Mr. Sam Rathbone was one of the most cultured and able men we ever had in the Council. He spoke with knowledge and much elegance, and everything he said was refined and elevating. Mr. John Yates – "honest John Yates" – was a frequent speaker, and always with effect. Mr. Barkeley Smith was our best and most ready debater, Mr. Clarke Aspinall our most humorous speaker.

The first important debate which took place in the Council after I entered it was on the proposal to purchase land from Lord Sefton for the purpose of making Sefton Park. It was a prolonged discussion and the decision arrived at shows that the Council in those days was long sighted and able to take large views and do big things. Not only was power taken to purchase land for Sefton Park but also to make Newsham and Stanley Parks, costing in all £670,000; and this movement to provide open spaces has continued to this day, and has been supplemented by private munificence, until Liverpool is surrounded by a belt of parks and open spaces containing upwards of 1,000 acres, and in addition many churchyards have been turned into gardens, and small greens have been provided in various parts.

I have often been asked if the work of the city was as well done with a Council of 64 as it is now with a Council of 134. I think the smaller Council took a more personal interest in the work. The Committees were smaller and better attended, and the Council more thoroughly discussed the subjects brought before them. With the larger Council and larger Committees more work and more responsibility falls upon the chairman and the permanent officials. I fear the larger and more democratic Council scarcely appreciates this fact, also they fail to see that if you want good permanent officials you must pay them adequately. We have fortunately to-day an excellent staff who do their work well with a full sense of their responsibility.

One peculiarity of the larger Council is the time given to the discussion of small matters, and the little consideration given to large questions of policy and finance. This I attribute to the fact that the Council contains many representatives who have not been accustomed to deal with large affairs, and who refrain from discussing what they do not fully understand. In this respect I think the present Council shows to some disadvantage.

An immense work has been done municipally during this period in re-modelling and re-making Liverpool. In the 'sixties the streets of Liverpool were narrow and irregular, the paving and scavenging work was imperfectly done, the system of sewerage was antiquated, and the homes in which her working people had to live were squalid and insanitary; cellar dwellings were very general. To change all this demanded a great effort and a large expenditure of money, but in the 'seventies and 'eighties we had men in the Council capable of taking large views.

Although the improvement of Liverpool has been so remarkable, it is difficult to say to whom it is mainly due; there have been so many active public-spirited men who have given the best of their time and thought to the promotion of municipal undertakings. Liverpool has been fortunate in possessing so many sons who have taken an active interest in her welfare, and have done their work quietly and unobtrusively. The re-making of Liverpool has been accomplished in the quiet deliberation of the committee room, and not in the council chamber.

The Town Hall – Its Hospitality

The hospitalities of the Town Hall were in my early years limited to dinners, and most of these took place in the small dining room, which will only accommodate about forty guests. When the fleet visited Liverpool the Mayor gave a ball, but these occasions were rare. To Dowager Lady Forwood, who was Mayoress in 1877, the credit belongs of introducing the afternoon receptions, which have proved so great an attraction. The Town Hall and its suite of reception rooms are unique, and although built over 100 years ago, are sufficiently commodious for the social requirements of to-day. The late King, when Prince of Wales, on his visit to Liverpool in 1881, remarked to me that next to those in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg he considered them the best proportioned rooms in Europe.

The Lord Mayor receives an allowance of £2,000, and is in addition provided with carriages and horses. In olden time this allowance was ample, but it is no longer so, and it is impossible to maintain the old traditional hospitality of the Town Hall unless the Lord Mayor expends a further £2,000 out of his own pocket, and many Lord Mayors have considerably exceeded this sum. It has often been urged that the allowance should be increased. I doubt if this is desirable. The invitations to Town Hall functions might be more strictly limited to representative people, or the entertainments might, as in Manchester, be placed in the hands of a Committee, but it must not be forgotten that more is expected of the Lord Mayor in Liverpool than in other places. He is not only the head of the municipality, but of all charitable and philanthropic work. The initiation of every undertaking, national as well as local, emanates from the Town Hall. All this throws upon the Lord Mayor duties which directly and indirectly involve the dispensing of hospitality, and I do not think the citizens would wish it should be otherwise.

Although Mr. Alderman Livingston was always supposed to have a candidate ready for the office of Mayor, and loved to be known as the "Mayor maker," the finding of a candidate for the office has not been always easy. I remember in 1868 we had some difficulty. The caucus decided to invite Mr. Alderman Dover to accept the office. I was deputed to obtain Mr. Dover's consent. I found him at the Angel Hotel smoking a long churchwarden clay pipe; when I told him my mission he smiled and replied that his acceptance was impossible, and one of the reasons he gave was that if his wife once got into the gilded coach she would never get out of it again. However, after much persuasion he accepted the office, and made a very good and a very original Mayor. In those days we had a series of recognised toasts at all the Town Hall banquets:

"The Queen,"
"The Prince and Princess of Wales, and the other Members of the Royal Family,"
"The Bishop and Clergy, and Ministers of other denominations,"
"The Army and Navy and Auxiliary Forces,"

and very frequently

"The good old town and the trade thereof."

This was a very serious list, as it involved two or three speakers being called upon to reply for the church and the army. Mr. Dover prepared three speeches for each toast, which he carefully wrote out and gave to the butler, with instructions to take a careful note of those present, and to hand him the speech which he considered had not been heard before by his guests. So the butler, after casting his eye over the tables, would hand a manuscript to the Mayor, saying "I think, your Worship, No. 2, 'Royal Family,' will do this evening." At the close of his mayoralty he offered to sell his speeches to his successor, and he handed to the charities a cheque for £500, which he had saved out of his allowance as Mayor.

Work in the City Council

On entering the Council in 1868 I was placed upon the Watch Committee, and remained on that committee for fifteen years. The work was of a very routine character; we had, however, an excellent chairman in Mr. F. A. Clint, and I have never forgotten the lessons I received from him in the management of a committee, and how to get the proceedings of a committee passed by the Council. "Never start a hare" was his motto, "you never know how it will run, and the amount of discussion it may provoke." Another lesson which he taught me was always to take the Council into your confidence. "Tell them everything, and if you make a mistake own up to it;" and there can be no doubt that there is great wisdom in adopting this course. Deliberative assemblies are naturally critical and suspicious: but treat them with confidence and they will return it; once deceive them, or keep back what they are entitled to know, and your task thereafter becomes very difficult.

Mr. Alderman Livingston was the deputy-chairman, and was quite a character in his way. In personal appearance he resembled Mr. Pickwick, and his ways were essentially Pickwickian. In the selection of Mayors he was always very much in evidence, and he was before everything a Tory of Tories. Politics were his delight, and even when quite an old man he did not shirk attending the November ward meetings, where his oracular and often amusing speeches were greatly enjoyed by the electors.

At one period during the agitation against licensees of public-houses, the Watch Committee was composed of all the members of the Council with Mr. S. B. Guion as chairman; and the committee met in the Council Chamber, but a committee of this size was too unwieldy for administrative business, and the arrangement did not last long.

The Burning of the Landing Stage

The original George's Landing Stage was replaced by a new one in 1874, and this was connected with the floating bridge and the Prince's stage, the whole forming one floating stage, 2,200 feet in length. On the 28th July, a few days after the completion of this work, I was attending the Watch Committee when word reached us that the landing stage was on fire. We could scarcely believe the report, as it was about the last thing we thought likely to be burnt. We hurried down to find the report only too true; huge volumes of dense black smoke enveloped all the approaches. The fire, commencing at the foot of the northern bridge leading to the George's stage, spread with great rapidity. The fire engines were brought on the stage and immense volumes of water were poured upon the burning deck, but the woodwork was so heavily impregnated with tar that the flames were irresistible. We worked all afternoon and all night, and in the end only succeeded in saving the centre of the stage at the foot of the floating bridge, for a length of about 150 feet. And this was only done by cutting a wide gap at either end, over which the fire could not leap. It was very arduous, trying work, as the fumes from the tar and creosoted timber were very nauseating. The portion salved was very valuable in preserving a place for the Birkenhead boats. The other ferries had to land and embark their passengers from temporary platforms and the adjacent dock walls.

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28 eylül 2017
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