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in arriving at an arrangement for an international halt, those 14 millions will not be spent, neither will the other 14 millions which we should of course spend in order to maintain our naval ascendency. Here we have 28 millions sterling dangling in the balance28 millions which need not be spent, and would not be spent, if we met the Russian initiative in a generous, manly and earnest spirit, but every penny of which will be spent and more besides if we meet it in the mood of censorious pessimism which finds favour in many influential quarters. Imagine what might not be done with 28 millions if it were but set free to bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness, instead of being squandered on ships, every one of which will be rusty iron in twenty years!

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The truce of parties at home is thus the natural prelude to the Truce of Parties! truce of nations to which we invited at the Peace Conference. If the nation were menaced with invasion, the first duty of the Leaders of the Opposition would be to place their services at the disposal of Her Majesty's Ministers; and in the present instance the danger is quite as real and far more universal than any which would result even from a foreign war. Liberal leaders, therefore, could not do better than place themselves at the disposal of Her Majesty's Government, if Her Majesty's Government is willing to justify the expectations raised by Lord Salisbury's hopes of 1897, and co-operate energetically with other nations in securing an international agreement which would give at least five years' rest to the world. This, being translated into plain English, means that the nation would see with profound satisfaction the appointment of Lord Rosebery as one of the British plenipotentiaries to represent the Government at the Peace Conference at St. Petersburg. Lord Rosebery as an ex-Prime Minister, and as the statesman who first mooted the question, is pre-eminently entitled to such a recognition of his position in this matter. As Foreign Minister he succeeded in gaining recognition for the great principle of continuity in our foreign policy; and we could have no more efficient, more influential, and more commanding representative in the Parliament of the Nations. His nomination would be the best possible indication of the fact that this movement was international, far transcending and exceeding the narrow limits of party politics.

Clarion.]

RESIGNATION.

[Dec. 24

As the crew was discouraged, and none of the officers would do their duty or obey their orders, the captain resigned-just in time to escape being thrown overboard. And then- ?

The

of the Opposition.

interests.

The Liberal Party has certainly

Parlous Condition never been under less pressure to succumb to the temptation of giving precedence to party before national Never was a Party in a more woeful state than Her Majesty's Opposition in the House of Commons. It is a self-decapitated Party, which exhibits somewhat of the same convulsive movements that we have witnessed in a chicken when its head has been cut off. The correspondence between Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Morley, published on December 14th, brought into very clear relief the fact that there was something rotten in the state of Denmark. What the thing was that had gone rotten no one could authoritatively say; but that things were about as bad as bad could be was obvious to every one. The rank and file of the Liberals, however, in the constituencies, although somewhat dismayed by Sir William Harcourt's resignation, are nevertheless counting hopefully upon winning the next General Election. It is true that they have neither a leader nor a programme, that they have neither candidates nor money; but these are details. They intend to win the General Election all the same, and when they have won it they will consider what they have got to do, what kind of Government they must form, what kind of policy they must carry out. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof! There is a fine hearty British pluck about these deserted Liberals, whose faith in Liberal principles is not in the least conditioned by their ability to formulate them in a practical programme or by the readiness of any capable statesman to lead them.

Departure.

I am not going to follow my conSir W. Harcourt's temporaries into discussion of any correspondence between the late Leader of the Opposition and his eminent lieutenant. The truth about the resignation lies in a nutshell. Sir William Harcourt has grown old. He has no longer energy left to discharge the duties of the position which he occupies. What little vitality still remains he wishes to put to better purpose than in acting as the general of a disheartened and powerless minority. His taste leads him to spend his declining years in worrying the Ritualists. and in vindicating the Protestantism of the Anglican Church. It became necessary, therefore, for him to go, and he has gone. That is all there is about it. As to the manner of his going, so much has been said that there is very little really to say. The Samson of Malwood has no real desire to pull down the temple on the head of the Philistines, nor even to let a brick fall upon the pate of Lord Rosebery. All that he wished to do was just to give the Liberal edifice an ugly little shake to remind them how much more mischief he could do if he cared to. It was a school

boyish way of paying off a grudge; but there is nothing serious about it. The best service we can do to Sir William Harcourt's memory is to forget it, and to allow the mind to dwell gratefully only upon those episodes in his career in which he did good service to the good old cause.

Anti-Jingoism at

Birmingham.

At Birmingham, when the Liberal Federation met on December 16th, there was undoubtedly a very strong feeling that Sir William Harcourt's resignation was due to his objection to what was described as the pseudo-Jingoism or new militarism, to which it was said some leaders of the Liberal Party had succumbed. But for the vigorous extinguisher clapped somewhat unceremoniously on the meeting by Mr. Spence Watson, the discontent of the provincial Liberals would have found a very loud expression. It was not so much that they loved Sir William Harcourt as that they hated Jingoism; and there was an uneasy suspicion among the rank and file that Sir William Harcourt had been jockeyed out of his position because he would not bow in the temple of Rimmon. In support of this hypothesis, it was pointed out that

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Sir William Harcourt had always been an advocate of peace, and had always been ready to assail with energy the false gods of Jingoism. On the other hand, people remembered that Sir William Harcourt had gone to the Guildhall to swell the triumph of the Sirdar after his victory at Omdurman; that he neither by word nor deed had done anything to protest against the orgie of drunken Imperialism through which the nation had just been passing; and that he had done nothing to protest against the seizure of Wei-Hai-Wei, while he had done a good deal by his gibes at the alleged failure of the Government policy in China to render that act of grab inevitable.

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he could do Midlothian' over again, if he only chose to take his chance," said another. To whom replied sadly a third who knew him well, "But don't you know that Sir William Harcourt is the man who has muffed more chances than any other statesman in public life?" “But he can't muff this. It is too obvious. Why, he could simply romp round the country if he chose." "We shall see," said the other. We have seen, for we had not long to wait. So far from using the position of greater liberty and leisure to which he has now attained, for the furtherance of the cause to which he was supposed to have sacrificed the Leadership, he has done nothing and said nothing. The only trace we have of his existence is in the shape of letters to the Times upon the precise amount of Romanism with which the Anglican clergy ought to be allowed tỏ dilute the pure wine of the Reformation doctrine and rites.

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The question of a successor was The Next Leader much debated at Birmingham, and the Liberals. with reason. As more than one delegate plaintively remarked:

The electors want to know who is our leader, and what have we got to tell them?" It was edifying indeed to see the high and mighty pedantry with which the Executive reproved all such manifestations of a natural and commendable desire on the part of the privates to know under whose command they were to go forth to battle. Even a Radical caucus can become a very temple of red tape when it suits the convenience of the managers, who shut down

all discussion with a promptitude which showed better than anything else how dangerous they felt the situation to be. It is no doubt true, as one of the speakers at the evening meeting wittily remarked, "You can no more make a man a leader of a party by passing a resolution than you can make a man a poet by appointing him Poet Laureate." But, nevertheless, it is rather hard upon the leaderless host of Liberals to forbid them even to express an opinion in the councils of the party as to the man whom they would prefer to set them in battle array against the enemy. They would not have said anything very dreadful either if they had been allowed to speak.

Desire.

What they would have said, what What Liberals Liberals everywhere would have said, almost with one consent, is that they want Lord Rosebery to lead them, but to lead them on Liberal lines. At present Lord Rosebery neither seems to realise the responsibilities of personal leadership, nor the obligation which attaches to the head of a great Party. The sense of irresponsibility and the lack of any painstaking systematic effort to preach what may be regarded as the Rosebery doctrine, renders all the more obvious and natural the expectation of the provincial Liberal that he will come back to lead the Party upon its old lines -Home Rule, Newcastle Programme, and all the rest of it. The fact is, Lord Rosebery cannot shake himself free from the responsibility attaching to the one man of the Party who has been Prime Minister of the Crown, and who has the ear of the country. He may bolt and he may caper as he pleases. He can no more get away from his responsibility than a man can escape from his own shadow. The more utterly he may differ from his Party, the more absolutely incumbent upon him it is to undertake the work of converting his Party to his own views. For the Party and the Leader are mutually indispensable to each other. If he cannot wean the Party from views which he dislikes, the Party will expect as a matter of course that he will accept the views which he has made no serious effort to alter, and will use the Party as a means to give effect to convictions which he may not share, but which he has made no serious attempt to modify.

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capable person, a Liberal W. H. Smith of a very superior type. He is familiar with the business of the House of Commons; he is popular on both sides of the House, he is a sturdy Gladstonian, and above all he is tough. We have had far too much personal sensitiveness among Our Leaders of late, and it would be a welcome change to have as our Chief in the House of Commons a man who is as tough as they make them, and who could be relied upon to do his work with genial good humour and an absence of all personal acrimony. Mr. Asquith and Sir Henry Fowler, both of whom have been mentioned as possible Leaders of the Opposition, have no claims which can be put forward for a moment in comparison with those of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, whose one fault is laziness, and who has only one blot on his record-the fact that he played second fiddle to Sir William Harcourt in the fiasco of the South Africa Committee. The latter is a blot which cannot be wiped out; the former, fortunately, can be cured, and there are few better prescriptions for curing a man of a hereditary predisposition to lethargy than putting him upon. the thorny seat occupied by the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Asquith.

Mr. Asquith made a speech at Birmingham on the evening of the day on which the Liberal Caucus wrung its hands and shed its tributary tears over the political bier of Sir William Harcourt. It was a conscientious, solid, carefully-prepared bit of work, which had all the qualities and all the defects of its author. I could not help wishing, as behind the speaker on the platform of the Town Hall, that there could be effected, either by transfusion of blood or other means, a kind of combination between Mr. and Mrs. Asquith. If some of that volatile, quicksilver element of nervous excitability which makes Mrs. Asquith quiver even to her finger-tips with suppressed excitement, could be transferred to her somewhat stolid husband, he would be twice the man that he is to-day. A capacity to let himself go, to launch himself at the head of a responsive audience, to kindle their enthusiasm, and inspire them with the divine energy of a Gladstone or a Bright, seems so far to have been denied him.

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that a man can be made Leader of the Liberal Party in spite of himself, but that seems to be by no means an impossible fate in store for Sir Edward Grey. He is not lazy, like Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, but he is indifferent, which is perhaps an even worse quality; and there is in him a total absence of that demonic element which Mr. Gladstone possessed in such abundant measure. Sir Edward Grey may possibly lead the Party. He will never get up steam sufficient to give momentum to the force, the guidance of which may be committed to his unwilling hands. But so far as practical politics are concerned, it is not much worth discussing the prospects of the more or less "embarrassed phantom" who will be installed in the seat of Sir William Harcourt. It is more to the purpose to note the sayings of Ministers who begin the New Year with an unbroken majority at their back.

Last month we had several speeches Lord Salisbury's of varying import. Lord Salisbury, for instance, spoke on December 16th at the Constitutional Club.

Americanism.

Looking through the report of his speech for any indication of the ideas that may be fermenting in his brain, we find two or three constantly recurring. The most important is that with which he concluded, viz., that in running an Empire it is necessary above all things to govern it on business principles, not to substitute rhapsody for calculation, but to cut your coat according to your cloth. He made rather a significant reference to the Ritualistic controversy, which would seem to indicate that he looked to the bishops to exercise more vigorously the power entrusted to them for the disciplining of their Romanising clergy. The third point touched a very familiar strain in Lord Salisbury's speeches. It was that in which he again advocated the Americanising of our institutions. Speaking of the difficulties of carrying on our foreign policy, he said:

It is a great disadvantage to feel the want of such an institution as the Committee of Foreign Relations in the Senate of America. It is a great advantage that a Minister can meet persons not of his own political opinions, and explain the real reasons that have urged him to a course of action. That is denied to us. Lord Salisbury added that "it is impossible we should have it, because neither of our Houses of Parliament has any analogy to the Senate." But that reason is hardly conclusive.

It is interesting to read into this speech What does this of Lord Salisbury's some remarks made by his nephew, Mr. Balfour, in addressing the Edinburgh Merchants

mean?

and driving force. It is somewhat difficult to imagine Society on December 22nd. After speaking of the

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defect of our existing Parliamentary system in connection with foreign affairs, Mr. Balfour said, "Let me say that, on the whole, it seems to me that this country has never in its history been in a better position for dealing with and for modifying our public institutions so as to enable them to deal adequately with the complex problems of empire." Now put this and that together; what does it mean? Have Ministers got in their heads any idea of so modifying our institutions as to give to British administrations a secret body composed of representatives of both Parties to which they could explain the reasons for their actions? It would almost seem as if they had something of this kind in their heads. The only practical suggestion to which Mr. Balfour alluded was confined to a proposal to forbid any questions, without notice, on foreign affairs, unless they were supplemental questions addressed by the responsible head of the Opposition to the Leader of the House. That would take us a very little way, and could be brought about by a slight alteration in the rules of the House of Commons. What Lord Salisbury hinted at goes much deeper. If Ministers really wished to introduce any such modification of our Constitution as he alluded to, it is possible they may find a nucleus ready to their hands in the Council for National Defence.

Recantation.

an

Another Minister who made Mr. Chamberlain's important utterance last month was Mr. Chamberlain. His speech was chiefly important because it was equivalent to the unmaking of a previous speech, which of all others attracted most attention last year. Statesmen need never be at a loss for political orations, if they proceed upon Mr. Chamberlain's principle of making a speech one day in one sense and then demolishing it the next. The only passage from the Wakefield speech which calls for attention here is that in which the author of the famous long-spoon invective proclaimed aloud his conviction that it was all a mistake. A few months ago Russia was the devil with whom Mr. Chamberlain could only sup if he were provided with a very long spoon; but at Wakefield he proclaimed:

I believe that an agreement with Russia is desirable, and I would even say that it is necessary, unless very serious complications are to be encountered; but I go on and add that there are no insurmountable obstacles to such a friendly arrangement; that I believe it is quite possible to conciliate what I may call the reasonable ambition of Russia; that the fixed and settled policy of this country is to maintain equal opportunities in trade for all other nations. I think that we may arrive at such a settlement.

As the chief obstacle in the way of such a settlement

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Compensation to injured workmen.

"Increased power to local authorities for the better housing of the poor.

"Prevention of pauper immigration. "Shorter hours for shop assistants."

Now of these various items of a socialistic stock-intrade, one only has been as yet dealt with by the Government, viz., "Compensation to injured workmen." How this Act is in one way working may be seen by the following notice, issued by the Barrow Hematite Steel Company (of which the Duke of Devonshire is chairman) :

From this date forward please note that no men are to be engaged who are known to have any defects, such as the loss of a limb, defective sight or hearing. Further, no men are to be

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