A FISCAL PANTOMIME. ²

This playlet—and three others co-written by B. Fletcher Robinson and P. G. Wodehouse—was republished in 2009 in a collection compiled by Paul R. Spiring under the title Bobbles & Plum: Four Satirical Playlets. In that book, the date of the original publication of “A Fiscal Pantomime” is given incorrectly as 25 December 1903; it actually appeared three days later, on Monday, 28 December 1903.

This playlet is a sequel to the Parrot poems and deals with aspects of the same topic, though the action is set on 1 October 1903, nearly three months before the last of the poems. A fortnight earlier, Joseph Chamberlain had resigned from the Cabinet in order to pursue a campaign for tariff reform; three other Cabinet ministers, all free traders, had been manoeuvred into resigning at the same time. A fourth minister, the Duke of Devonshire, also a free trader, had submitted his resignation but the Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, had persuaded him to withdraw it. On 2 October, the day following the ostensible action of “A Fiscal Pantomime”, Devonshire re-submitted his resignation and left the government.

The Cobden Club, founded in 1866, was a London gentlemen’s club devoted to the principles of free trade: its motto was “Free Trade, Peace, Goodwill Among Nations”. It was one of the most vigorous opponents of tariff reform.

Since the repeal of the Corn Laws some 60 years earlier, Britain had followed a policy of free trade. In the intervening period, other countries, most notably the United States and the newly united Germany, had developed their industries to the extent that they now threatened Britain’s position as a major trading nation. The US and Germany followed free trade principles within their federated borders but had erected stiff tariff barriers to protect their industries from imports from Britain and elsewhere, while threatening to dump their products at less than cost in Britain’s markets.

The Cobden Club was unusual among London clubs in that it sponsored the publication of numerous essays, pamphlets and speeches. It did not, however, publish these works itself—most were published on its behalf by Cassell & Co, London—and the “Cobden Press” here almost certainly refers to that section of the London press that aligned itself with the Cobden Club in supporting free trade.

Chatsworth House, in Derbyshire, has been the country seat of the Dukes of Devonshire since 1549. In 1896, when theatre-going was particularly fashionable, the 8th Duke had a banqueting hall at Chatsworth converted into an auditorium, in which concerts and theatrical performances were presented for the enjoyment of guests, house staff and local villagers. “A Fiscal Pantomime” appeared in the Daily Express alongside a social column which reported that on 4 January 1904 the King and Queen would be visiting Chatsworth where “amateur theatricals will be the chief evening amusement”.

Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire, was the leader of the Liberal Unionist party. In 1886, when still known as Marquess of Hartington (he did not succeed to the dukedom until 1891), he and Joseph Chamberlain led a group of some 60 Liberal MPs who split from the party because of their opposition to Irish Home Rule. From 1895 to October 1903 he served as Lord President of the Council in the governments of Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour. As at the date on which the playlet takes place (1 October 1903), Devonshire was still a member of the government. He resigned on 2 October and, at the invitation of Sir Michael Hicks Beach, joined the Unionist Free Food League a few weeks later.

When bored, Devonshire frequently adopted an abstracted air, which gave the impression that he was dozing, and caricaturists and satirists regularly depicted him as being asleep, which is why he is cast here as the Sleeping Beauty.

The Standard was founded in 1827 as an evening newspaper in the Tory interest. In 1857 it became a morning paper and the following year it announced that it would adhere to no party but would follow a policy of “enlightened amelioration and progress”. Under G. Byron Curtis, its editor from January 1900, the Standard took a strong line against tariff reform and this was its position at the time of the playlet. In November 1904, however, the paper was aquired by Arthur Pearson, owner of the Daily Express and a strong supporter of Joseph Chamberlain, and under a new editor, H. A. Gwynne, it changed its position to one of support for tariff reform.

Sir Michael Hicks Beach was a prominent Conservative politician. From 1895 until his retirement, in July 1902, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Salisbury’s last administration. Hicks Beach was one of the founders of the Unionist Free Food League and it was he who, in mid-October 1903, persuaded the Duke of Devonshire joined the League.

Between 1899 and 1902, Hicks Beach had the task, as Chancellor, of finding the means to finance the Boer War in South Africa. Even though he believed in low taxation and free trade as the basis of British prosperity, the rising costs of the war forced him to adopt a combination of fresh borrowings, annual increases in the income tax and the introduction of duties on coal, sugar and, in 1902, corn. These measures made him unpopular on all sides: his own party viewed the increases in income tax as an electoral liability, while the Liberal opposition viewed the additional duties as a betrayal of Britain’s longstanding free trade policy.

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (C.-B.) was the leader of the Liberal party and of the Opposition in the House of Commons, and subsequently served as Prime Minister. Contrary to what might be implied in this playlet, he made no direct attempt to secure the return of the Duke of Devonshire to the Liberal party, nor, so long as Irish Home Rule remained a Liberal party policy, is it likely that the Duke would have entertained such a move.

Lord Rosebery was a former Liberal prime minister and leader of the Liberal party. After resigning the Liberal party leadership in 1896, Rosebery increasingly distanced himself from the mainstream of the party, with which he disagreed over its opposition to the Boer War and support for Irish Home Rule. In July 1901, he dismissed suggestions that he might return to the Liberal party, telling his audience that

. . . for the present, at any rate, I must proceed alone. I must plough my furrow alone.

This comment—believed to be the first use of the image of “ploughing one’s own furrow”—is the reason why, in the playlet, he is cast as the Ploughman.

The death of the Parrot had been announced a week earlier, on 21 December 1903. This ghostly apparition is its last appearance. It may not be coincidence, however, that in the 1904 parody, John Bull’s Adventures in the Fiscal Wonderland, which satirises the tariff reform debate from a free trade perspective, two prominent Chamberlain supporters, Sir Howard Vincent and Henry Chaplin, are depicted as parakeets.

The Tariff Reform League was inaugurated in July 1903 for the purpose of mobilising public support for Chamberlain’s tariff reform proposals. Its president was the Duke of Sutherland, and Arthur Pearson, proprietor of the Daily Express, was elected as a member (and subsequently chairman) of the executive committee. Chamberlain’s position as a Cabinet minister prevented him from direct association with the League, but he became one of its vice-presidents within weeks of resigning his ministerial office.

In Bobbles & Plum, it is suggested that Herr Spoofheimer is a likely reference to George, Viscount Goschen, but from the ‘stage directions’—“Enter Herr Spoofheimer followed by other foreign members of the Cobden Club”—it is clear that Herr Spoofheimer is a foreign member of the Cobden Club, whereas Goschen was an Englishman (albeit of German descent).

It is, in fact, more likely, that ‘Herr Spoofheimer’ is nothing more than a generic (and mildly comic) foreign name and that, far from representing a specific English politician, he represents the generality of the foreign membership of the Cobden Club, which was the focus of criticism by some of the Club’s opponents (see Parrot poem 09, note 1).

‘Michael’ thinks that ‘Henry’ is referring to Lord George Hamilton, formerly Secretary for India, who was one of the three free traders who resigned in September 1903. The “so marked an air of resignation” may refer to Hamilton’s subsequent complaint that he would not have resigned if he had known that Chamberlain had already submitted his letter of resignation.

“Lord” George Sanger (c. 1825–1911) was a Victorian showman and impresario. Sanger, who began calling himself “Lord” in 1888, for publicity purposes, owned a large amphitheatre and menagerie south of the Thames, on Westminster Bridge Road, where, for nearly 30 years he ran a highly successful circus and menagerie and, each Christmas, put on an extravaganza that usually combined a traditional pantomime with circus acts and lavish displays of animals. Sanger’s Circus toured widely throughout Britain and the rest of Europe and on at least two occasions he was invited to give special performances at Windsor Castle for Queen Victoria and her family. Sanger, who claimed to have first gone “on the road” with his father at the age of 5 years, retired from the circus business in 1905; in 1911, one of his employees killed him with a hatchet and later threw himself in front of a train, leaving no explanation for his crime.

The Hippodrome, on the corner of Charing Cross Road and Leicester Square, opened in January 1900. It was built for theatre impresario Edward Moss as a venue for circus and variety acts. In 1909 it was remodelled as a music hall and variety theatre.

S’death: an oath, a shortened version of “By God’s death”. It is found in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Act 1 scene 1, as ’Sdeath.

On 13 October 1903 Rosebery addressed a meeting of the Liberal League, of which he was president, at the Albert Hall in Sheffield. He opened his speech with: Well, what do you think of it all? What do you think of it all—that is what I want to know? (see Parrot poem 14, note 5).

This may be an allusion to the passage of dialogue that introduces the song “A Magnet Hung in a Hardware Shop” in Act 2 of Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera Patience (1881):

Angela (wildly):  But we don’t know the fable of the Magnet and the Churn!
Grosvenor:  Don’t you? Then I will sing it to you.

The Ploughman’s song is a very close parody of Nanki-Poo’s song “A Wandering Minstrel I”, in Act 1 of Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera The Mikado (1885). The line “Oh, willow, willow!” follows the original libretto, though it was amended in later editions of the vocal score to “Oh, sorrow, sorrow!”.

As at the date of this playlet, Rosebery had already authored three political biographies, on William Pitt, Sir Robert Peel and the Emperor Napoleon.

See note 11 above.

The reference to “courtly diction” occurred in Rosebery’s speech at Sheffield on 13 October 1903. (see note 19 above and Parrot poem 14, note 5).

Rosebery was known for his tendency to adopt a jesting tone on serious matters:

   Worse still, he cannot always control a whimsical humour, and plays, with exasperating zest, round and about subjects of serious concern. His followers are awaiting a solemn pronouncement from the platform; suddenly, he withdraws, as it were, into his library, and produces an elegant essay on nothing in particular.

Samuel Henry Jeyes, The Earl of Rosebery (1906)

Rosebery often adopted a detached, ironic tone that was interpreted by his critics as sneering. It is possible that “my celebrated sneer” alludes to King Gama’s line in Act 1 of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Princess Ida (1884):

I’ve an irritating chuckle, I’ve a celebrated sneer,
I’ve an entertaining snigger, I’ve a fascinating leer.

As ‘Michael’ points out, the quote is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It comes from Act 1 scene 5, just after Hamlet has been visited by the ghost of his murdered father.

This has echoes of the song “When I was a lad” from Act 1 of Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic opera HMS Pinafore (1878):

When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an Attorney’s firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.

I polished up that handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee!

The ‘fateful day’ was 15 May 1903, when Chamberlain addressed his Birmingham constituents at a crowded meeting in the Bingley Hall.

Jaegers were a one-piece woollen undergarment with long arms and legs, often known as “woolly combinations”. They were popularised in Britain by the Dr Jaeger’s Sanitary Woollen System Company, which was established in December 1883 by Lewis Tomalin. The garments were promoted for their healthy properties, based on the findings of a German doctor, Gustav Jaeger, whose Essays on Health Culture Tomalin had translated into English. Jaeger’s theory was that woollen undergarments conducted heat better than those made of vegetable fibres and allowed bodily perspiration to escape, rather than to be trapped and reabsorbed by the body, with the result, he argued, that they were beneficial to health.

This is a parody of “Aroint thee, witch!”, a line which appears twice in Shakespeare, in Act 3 scene 4 of King Lear and in Act 1 scene 3 of Macbeth, and in which the word “aroint” means “Begone!”

This alludes to the Boer War (1899–1902), during which the Liberal party, under Campbell-Bannerman, was strongly critical of the Salisbury Government’s day-to-day handling of the war and was in turn accused by Government supporters of being “pro-Boer” and “unpatriotic”.

See note 14 above.

Volapuk was artificial language constructed by a German priest, Johann Martin Schleyer, in 1879–80. The language attracted a small number of enthusiasts but was rapidly displaced by Esperanto, which has a simpler orthography. By 1899, Volapuk was already being described in the English press as “moribund”.

“The John Bull Store” was written by B. Fletcher Robinson and published in the Daily Express on 9 October 1903. It was set to music by Robert Eden.

This song does not appear to be based on a specific song but includes phrases that faintly echo at least two popular patriotic airs. The song’s opening line hints at “Rule, Britannia!”, the refrain of which begins “Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves”, while the first lines of the second, third and fourth verses are suggestive of “Hearts of Oak”, which begins “Come, cheer up, my lads . . .” and includes such sentiments as “We ne’er see our foes but we wish them to stay” and “and drub them at shore as we drub them at sea”.

Parrot poem 09 uses the same device of having members of the Cobden Club speak in German, French and ‘American’.

Cavendish is the family name of the Dukes of Devonshire.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson were popular British heroes of the Napoleonic wars, the one on land, the other at sea. George Canning and the Pitts, William the elder and William the Younger, all served as Prime Minister in the period between 1766 and 1827; the Pitts, father and son, are considered to be among the great British prime ministers, while Canning was regarded as one of the ablest ministers of his day but had the misfortune to serve only 119 days as prime minister before dying in office.

The Daily News was a radical newspaper, founded in 1846. Between 1896 and 1901, the paper supported Lord Rosebery and the imperialist faction of the Liberal Party, but in 1901 it was aquired by George Cadbury, a Quaker industrialist who supported the anti-imperialist faction in the Liberal party and was opposed to the Boer War. Under Cadbury’s ownership, the News supported the Liberals under C.-B. in opposing the Boer War and defending the policy of free trade.

The Dictionary of National Biography describes C.-B. as “Britain’s first and only radical prime minister”.

As president of the Liberal Unionist Association, the Duke of Devonshire was officially the leader of the Liberal Unionists; Chamberlain was a vice-president of the Association. The Liberal Unionists had split from the Liberal party in 1886 because they opposed Gladstone’s plans for Irish Home Rule and in 1895 they joined a coalition government with the Conservatives under Lord Salisbury (and, after his retirement, Arthur Balfour).

Chamberlain’s proposals for tariff reform split the Liberal Unionists. The majority supported Chamberlain but some, like Devonshire, favoured free trade. Devonshire argued that the Liberal Unionist Association should not commit itself to either tariff reform or free trade, but was ignored by many of the local branches, which passed resolutions in favour of Chamberlain. As the Liberal Unionist Association became increasingly associated with Chamberlain’s campaign, Devonshire found himself isolated and, in early 1904, he formally severed his connection with the party.

It is not clear what resignation the Duke is referring to here. His resignation from the Government—which took place the day after that on which the playlet is set—had nothing to do with whether Chamberlain was, or was not, being seen as the leader of the Liberal Unionists, while his resignation as leader of the Liberal Unionists was still some six months in the future. In fact, as at the date on which the playlet is supposed to take place, the Duke’s difficulties with the Liberal Unionist Association had not yet become apparent.

The radioactive element radium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie in December 1898. Radium, and its properties and potential uses, excited considerable interest in the English press, especially after Pierre Curie’s announcement, in March 1903, that radium emitted heat without combustion and without any change in its chemical composition or molecular structure. A lengthy series of “Letters to the Editor” of the Times kept interest in the subject alive between late March and early September 1903, as did a lecture which Pierre Curie delivered at the Royal Institution in mid-June. On 12 November 1903 the Curies were awarded the Davy Medal by the Royal Society for their researches on radium and on 11 December it was announced that the Curies and Henri Becquerel had been jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on radiation phenomena.

The inspiration for this line is part of the refrain of a song, “We are a happy family, we are, we are, we are”, which was written by Frederick Bowyer and Gilbert Harrow, and popularized by music-hall comedian Arthur Roberts in the early 1880s. Wodehouse used this refrain in his Daily Chronicle poem “A Sound Cure” and in Chapter V of the 1906–09 versions of Love Among the Chickens; and parodied it in “The Phalanx”, which appeared in The Books of To-day in January 1906.