applied for an appointment at the seat of war, and Lord Roberts, knowing his man, gave him command of the Ninth Division. Here seemed an opening that might lead him into the front rank of British generals. It proved to be a chasm that engulfed fame and fortune.

Having been five times honourably mentioned in despatches from the field of battle, his name became ominously familiar to the British public by a succession of disasters. A force of mounted men and guns, under command of Colonel Broadwood, riding towards Bloemfontein were ambushed at Sanna's Post by the Boers under De Wet and thoroughly routed. Colvile was under orders to advance from Bloemfontein and reinforce them. He came near enough to hear the guns. But, according to the charge brought against him, he was content to make a slow flanking movement, and the Boers were left undisturbed in their victory.

Some months later, Colvile, in command of the Highland Brigade, was moving towards Heilbron. A force of 500 Yeomanry had been sent to join him at Lindley. On their arrival they found he had passed through. Halting for a day with intention to follow on his track, they were attacked by the ubiquitous De Wet, and after hard fighting surrendered. The charge brought against Colvile in this case was that, disregarding the cry for help from the Yeomanry, he continued his march.

Citation of these facts is necessary for explanation of the subjoined letter, in which Colvile states his own case:

9 Wellington Court, Albert Gate: Jan. 19, 1901. DEAR LUCY,-I was placed on the retired list in last night's Gazette, so now I imagine the W.O. and I are quits over the insubordination.' I sinned and have been punished, and am now free to peg away at the old question of my conduct in South Africa. I hear they say the fact of the telegram being a forgery is unimportant, and I should not be surprised if they find that the whole Yeomanry incident is unimportant too, and fall back on Sanna's Post. I believe I have an even better case over that than on Lindley.

It must always be a matter of opinion whether I should have turned back to help the Yeomanry or not; but Sanna's Post can be reduced to a question of hard fact. Would it have been possible under any circumstances (starting from Bloemfontein at the time ordered) for me to recapture Broadwood's guns? I say 'No.' Of course they will say 'Yes,' and if there is an inquiry we shall both produce our evidence.

There has been some rather shady work over my retirement.
VOL. XXVI.NO. 151, N.S.

3

But I do not want to argue about that, as I look upon the charge of insubordination as only a red herring intended to take the scent off the main issue.

I return to Lightwater on Monday, but could meet you any day, if there is anything you would like to know.

Yours sincerely,

H. E. COLVILE.

The insubordination to which he alludes, which led to his being placed on the retired list, was a statement made by him to a newspaper representative on his return to England.

After the Lindley incident he was relieved of his command in South Africa, but was permitted to return to the high military position formerly occupied by him at Gibraltar. Fortune, pursuing him with relentless malignity, stabbed him afresh. Hardly had he settled down in his old quarters when a curt command from the War Office practically dismissed him from the service. He came home a broken man, and never regained opportunity of rejoining the service he loved. He looked me up in London and, finding I was in the country, posted off to Hythe, bringing his maps and memoranda with him. I recall his figure as he knelt on my study floor with the map spread out before him demonstrating the sheer impossibility of his men, setting out from Bloemfontein at the time ordered, arriving at Sanna's Post in time to recapture Broadwood's guns.

His last tragedy brought him the relief of death. Riding, according to his wont, at top-speed on a motor-bicycle, he came into collision with a motor-car driven by an old friend and sometime comrade. When the lights were turned on the prostrate body it was found that Henry Colvile's troubles in this world

were over.

XXVIII.
'C.-B.'

AT three historic epochs falling within my personal observation politicians at head-quarters, voicing opinion prevalent at the moment in London society, have grievously erred. The first dates back to 1873, when it was generally agreed that, by declining the Premiership pressed upon his acceptance after the resignation of Gladstone, Disraeli lost his final opportunity. The second was when Gladstone's departure for Midlothian in the

spring of 1880 was regarded as a forlorn hope as far as it concerned his chances of his again becoming Premier. The third was when the claims of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to succession to the Liberal Premiership were, in the closing years of his leadership of the Opposition, thought scarcely worth discussing.

As history records, Disraeli in 1874 triumphed over the deeply rooted prejudices of the Tory Party, disarmed the long-cherished distrust of his sovereign, and became the most powerful Premier since the days of Pitt. Gladstone came back to power in 1880 to commence not the least striking or important chapter of his marvellous career. Within a few months of his accession to the highest office open to a Commoner, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman became the most popular Leader of the House since Palmerston sat on the Treasury Bench, his too-early death being mourned with unfeigned sorrow in both political camps.

The difference in the position of Campbell-Bannerman as Leader of the Opposition and that almost immediately conceded to him as Premier can be fully realised only by daily witnesses of scenes in the House of Commons during successive phases of his career. The party fealty, in many cases ripening into personal affection, displayed towards him during his brief Premiership, finds parallel only in the insubordination and habitual slighting that fretted him while he sat on the other side of the Table. A man constitutionally disposed to scholarly indolence, he at the call of duty came to the help of the Liberal Party when sections of it had worried Sir William Harcourt into resignation. His view of the situation is cheerfully indicated in the following letter, written on acceptance of the Leadership in succession to Sir William Harcourt:

Belmont Castle, Meigle, Scotland: January 15, 1899.

MY DEAR LUCY,-Very many thanks for your letter and for your flattersome encyclical. You are always too kindly, and do not keep so strictly to the truth as we higher principled politicians do.

Seriously, however, I am overwhelmed by the friendliness of the public generally and the party in particular. As to my immediate colleagues, nothing could be more urgent and instant than their expression of desire for me to take the foremost placeand I really could not have entertained the idea had it not been for their solidarity.

Can it be that we have for some time had an element warring against this necessary solidarity among us? Can there be some sensation of relief that-but no; why waste time on such an impossible conjecture?

If it comes, then, we must make the best of it, whether we like it or not, and I can answer for one who does not like it.

In the meantime the thought uppermost with me is, how nice it would be to be at Hythe! We have had an odious winter in Caledonia, every day different from, and worse than, its predecessor. You have been all this time favoured by the light breezes of the balmy South. How we envy you. I presume you constantly make the run over from Dover to Calais, laying up a stock of health for the stale and stuffy Lobby.

We shall soon meet, I daresay, and I hope that whatever changes supervene (that is, I think, a good Press word) you will always find me

Yours very truly,

H. C.-B.

Within a period of twelve months things had grown so bad that a second meeting of the Liberal Party at the Reform Club was summoned, to hear the declaration that if things did not mend, a new Leader must be sought.

Towards the close of the Session of 1899 I took the opportunity in a weekly article which had much vogue in Parliamentary circles, to write a few plain words on the situation. It brought me a letter of which the following are such extracts as may be printed at this date.

Marienbad: August 13, '99.

MY DEAR LUCY,-I am greatly obliged to you:

(a) For your writing in the Observer.'

(b) For sending it to me.

(c) For your letter.

(d) For enclosing your riposte to

...

I do not foam and fret about it quite so much as you do, though I wince internally. . . . I blame rather the decent, quiet, welldisposed rank and file who do not see the harm they are doing in following unruly courses.

Also, the whipping might be more strenuous. But after all there are two theories. One is that there should always be the observance of discipline; the other is that it is better not to be always cracking the whip, but rather to let them have their fling on immaterial things so long as they go straight on the bigger questions. We shall see.

Here we are. . . . No M.P.s as yet and only two Lords; thus no society for you. Stick to Hythe, therefore..

What a drama at Rennes and Paris! We have seen nothing like it for thrilling interest in our time.

Remember me to your wife. We are both pretty well and recovered from a terrible hot journey out.

Yours,

The drama alluded to was the second trial of Dreyfus.

H. C.-B.

The fragment reveals the genial, lofty character of the writer. He was daily wounded in the house of a friend. Having sacrificed treasured ease to the services of the party, having no axe to grind on his own account, rich, popular, a man of simplest, most wholesome tastes, he had, there being no one else acceptable for the sacrifice, loyally given up all. His reward was revolt in his own ranks, an attitude of hostility, curiously mixed with contempt, on the part of gentlemen opposite. Yet he makes no complaint, indulges in no recrimination.

When, a little more than five years later, he became First Minister of the Crown, dispenser of honours, he, doubtless with his genial smile, tossed a title to one of the men who had been foremost in organising the petty revolts among a wing of the Liberal Party that weakened the hands of its nominal Leader and gave the enemy occasion to blaspheme. The prize was probably acquired by the practice successful in the case of the importunate widow. But how many are there who would have displayed the magnanimity of Campbell-Bannerman towards a former foe, whom it certainly was not worth while to buy over?

It was this caballing behind the scenes among sections of his own following that accounted for the comparative failure of Campbell-Bannerman as Leader of the Opposition. If, as was rudely made apparent, he did not command the confidence of his own following, how could he hope to win the respect of the adversary? It was certainly not forthcoming. There were some painful scenes in the closing Sessions of what was known as the Khaki Parliament. When Campbell-Bannerman addressed the House, members who crowded the benches to hear Mr. Asquith speak ostentatiously withdrew. Mr. Balfour with rare variance from constitutional habit of chivalrous courtesy did not hesitate to sneer at his later habit of reading his speeches from MS. Mr. Chamberlain, following him in debate, harped on the same string. Had this method of attack been resented by swift outburst of angry protest from the Liberals it would have been endurable. Bitterest ingredient in the cup was that the assailants were unrebuked.

Campbell-Bannerman bore this discipline so uncomplainingly