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be a very different project from that introduced by Mr. Balfour under the last Salisbury régime.*

WELSH DISESTABLISHMENT.

In relation to another burning question-that of Welsh Disestablishment -Mr. Chamberlain has opinions which are well known. In relation to Welsh Disestablishment he has always been a stout Liberationist. Even as lately as 1895 he declared that Disestablishment must come, and the only question was whether it should be accompanied with a just treatment of the Church With regard to this point he thought that the Welsh Church was entitled to liberal and even generous terms, but it would do well to agree with its adversary quickly, otherwise it would find its opportunity gone. It is rather amusing to remember that Mr. Chamberlain strongly urged the Welsh to get rid of Home Rule, in order to secure consideration for their question of Disestablishment. That Iwas their best chance, he said. Home Rule has been disposed of, but the Welsh are not likely to see much done about Disestablishment by the present Parliament.

DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS.

In relation to voluntary schools Mr. Chamberlain has swallowed the leek. He was at one time a stout advocate for the gradual elimination of voluntary schools. Instead of being eliminated, they multiplied and increased. They are very dear to the hearts of his new allies, and therefore Mr. Chamberlain has reconsidered his opinion. In 1894 he warned the friends of the Church that they were very ill advised if they took any steps towards interfering with the educational compromise of 1870. If they succeeded in obtaining a share of the rates for their support, it would undoubtedly lead to an irresistible demand for a share in local management. Speaking in 1891, he said that his opinion was, that in the interest of the denominational schools themselves it would be a very good thing if they would agree to accept some kind of representative management. That is to say, they should be willing to add to their committees of management a representative of the parents of the children who went to their schools. If he were a friend of the denominational schools, which he did not claim to be-at one time he was definitely the opponent of denominational schools, and even now he preferred the Board schools-but if he were a friend of denominational schools, and speaking from that point of view, he would strongly advise them to take this course in order to strengthen and popularise their schools.

LOCAL TAXATION.

Mr. Chamberlain was in favour at one time of altering the incidence of local taxation so as to make the landlord pay more of the local rates. He appears now still to be consistently in favour of altering the incidence of local taxation; but circumstances having changed, it is to be altered in favour of the landlords instead of against them.

* Mr. Chamberlain's efforts to assert his absolute consistency create a smile when read in juxtaposition with the declaration which he made at different times about Mr. Butt's Home Rule. In 1886 writing to a correspondent he said:

"I expressed my views very clearly on Home Rule at the time when I was a candidate for Sheffield in 1874. I then said I was in favour of the principle of Home Rule as defined by Mr. Butt, but that I would do nothing to weaken in any way the imperial unity, and that I did not agree with all the details of his plan. Mr. Butt's proposals were in the nature of a federal scheme and differed entirely from Mr. Gladstone's, which are on the lines of colonial independence. Mr. Butt did not propose to give up the Irish representation at Westminster, and I believe that if he had been alive now he would have absolutely refused to have anything to do with Mr. Gladstone's bill."

Thus in 1874 and 1886 Mr. Chamberlain approved of Mr. Butt's bill. But in 1884 we find him writing to Mr. Duignan as follows:

"I object to the Home Rule proposed by the late Mr. Butt, because I believe it would not work and would lead to a demand for entire separation."

EARLY CLOSING.

Mr. Chamberlain's projects for dealing with Old Age Pensions are not yet matured. He has brought forward several, but none of them quite meet the necessities of the situation, and he is still on the lookout for fresh light on this subject. It is different with early closing; he has a

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definite scheme in
his head by which
he hopes to secure
for shopmen and all
retail traders the
great boon of leisure.
This is his scheme:-
My view is that,
taking the majority of
any trade-I do not
care which, the grocers,
the bakers, the
butchers, the drapers
-I should be per-
fectly satisfied that if
those gentlemen met,
and, by a majority of
two thirds, decided
that it was unnecessary
to keep their shops open
longer than, say, ten
hours a day-I only
take the figure as an
example-I should be perfectly satisfied in that case that
their decision should be submitted to the city council-which
would represent, mind you, not the shopkeepers alone, but the
whole of the community-and that if they were prepared to
give their opinion also that the arrangement was a reasonable
one, I should be prepared to give them force and authority
to give it the power of the law.

From "A Chamberlain Picture Book."]
JOSEPH DE LA PLUCHE.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

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The only subject upon which Mr. Chamberlain ever admits he has changed his mind is the question of woman suffrage, and even upon this there is some hope that he may change his mind again. No one can say how the new House will vote upon the question. It is known that Mr. Balfour is a strong advocate of the enfranchisement of women, and Mr. Chamberlain, although stoutly opposed to woman suffrage, is not altogether impervious to the justice of the claims which women make to full citizenship. Addressing the Liberal Unionist women in Birmingham some time ago, he made the following significant remarks:

I understand that you have occasionally meetings for the purpos of discussing political and social subjects. I think that is most desirable; but what I would press upon you is that you should take the occasion of these meetings to consider among yourselves the wants, the special wants and requirements, of women in the matter of legislation. There are a great number of instances in which, as women, you have a deep and a special interest. There are, for instance, such matters as the restrictions upon the employment of women. and there is the question of the laws of divorce and judicial separation. There is the question of the custody of children. There is the question of brutal assaults upon women, and there is the great question of temperance. Now, these are all matters which, in my opinion, require to be considered in the

light of women's experience; and if a great association like this would do something to fix your opinions and to bring your experience to bear, I have no doubt whatever that it would have powerful and very proper influence.

Here we have it recognised that women have an interest in matters of legislation, and that there are a great number of instances where they have a special interest. Half-a-dozen most important measures, in his opinion, need to be settled in the light of woman's experience, and he absolutely invites women by means of association to exercise a powerful and very proper influence upon the legislature. Now if this be so-and any one can see that it is so either the principle of representative government is wrong, or women ought to be represented in the House of Commons. The doctrine of putting a great class, whose interests are vitally concerned in legislation, outside the pale of the Constitution, and permitting them only to exercise their influence at second-hand and round the corner, is an old Tory doctrine which Mr. Chamberlain laughed to scorn in relation to every class of the community with the exception of women. He will find here a bridge ready for his retreat when Mr. Balfour gives the signal for the enfranchisement of women.

THE REFORM OF PROCEDURE.

It is probable, however, that none of these things which have been mentioned will compare in importance with the question of the procedure of the House of Commons. This will be the first important question raised in the new Parliament. Upon this subject Mr. Chamberlain has very clear and definite notions, and, as not unfrequently happens with him, his ideas are characterised by much shrewd sense. In the Nineteenth Century for December, 1890, Mr. Chamberlain wrote an article upon "Procedure," in which will be found a good deal of matter very useful at the present moment when we are going to see for the first time what eighty Irish members can do when they are banded together for obstructive purposes. There have never been so many in Parliament before definitely pledged to a policy of obstruction. Mr. Chamberlain proposes, in place of the present brutal guillotine by which measures are thrust through after the first few clauses have been discussed, without any discussion whatever on the subsequent clauses, a scheme which has also the approval of Mr. Stansfeld. He would appoint a Committee of Rules on the lines of the Committee of Selection, whose province it would be to fix a time limit for the consideration of any particular Bill. I presume that Mr. Chamberlain would have no objection to fixing a timelimit for the discussion of each of the clauses contained in the Bill. In his article Mr. Chamberlain mentions two ways in which obstruction in Supply can be dealt with. These are

(1) That the votes should be sent to one or more Committees, and that the consideration of these Committees should be substituted for a Committee of the whole.

(2) That the House fix beforehand on entering on consideration of Supply the number of days that shall be given to each class of the Estimates, and order the Committee to report each class at the expiry of the time named.

As it is understood that Mr. Chamberlain will lead the House in the absence of Mr. Balfour, it is probable that the first task to be adopted by the new majority and its leaders will be the furbishing up of the rules of procedure, and a very good thing too. The real obstruction is not so much in the House of Lords as in ** Commons. That body has hopelessly wheels are clogged with business w and the method by which it a

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measures could not have been more idiotic had it been invented by a March hare in its maddest moments. Mr. Chamberlain looks at this difficulty from the point of view of the man of business who is one of the directors of a co-operative concern who wishes to get his board reduced to working order, and being, as was said by a diplomatist long ago, " that dangerous man-an autoritaire Radical," he will have no scruple in breaking a good deal of crockery in the shape of traditional usage and custom in this matter of procedure in order to free his board from obstruction, both wilful and undesigned.

VI.-WHAT IS HE GOING TO DO?

We have now seen the clue to Mr. Chamberlain's policy both as a municipal administrator and as a statesman in the House of Commons. We are now to see what he will do on a wider field. Mr. Chamberlain has not become Colonial Secretary for nothing. It is his opinion that in our Colonial Empire there is to be found the widest sphere for the application of those principles which have produced such excellent results in Birmingham, and which he has already applied to a certain extent, and is prepared to apply still further in our national affairs.

MAKE WAR ON FRANCE?

There were some persons at the headquarters of the Liberal party who declared that Mr. Chamberlain had gone to the Colonial Office with the benevolent desire of going to war with France. He could have done it better, of course, if he had been Foreign Secretary, but that post being pre-empted by Lord Salisbury, he took the Colonial Secretaryship as the next best position from which he could embroil this country in war with France. That belief, however, probably sprung from the somewhat unguarded fashion with which Mr. Chamberlain is in the habit of speaking of foreign affairs. But in all matters relating to our foreign relations Mr. Chamberlain is a schoolboy. "A hoity-toity fellow, that Chamberlain," said Cardinal Manning to me one day. "I have been studying him for a long time and never could see that he had anything in him." That unappreciative criticism probably meant that the Cardinal was irate with some of Joseph's anti-Irish performances; but hoity-toity fellow he is indeed in relation to foreign affairs. He has, or had at least, most extravagant ideas as to the possibility of improvising navies.

A BLACK SPOT ON HIS RECORD.

One of the wickedest things which he ever did in his life, considering the policy which he has uniformly advocated, was the action which he took in the year 1884 in cutting down the special vote of credit which Lord Northbrook had been induced with great difficulty to demand in the Cabinet. Fortunately the mischief was speedily remedied by the useful incident of Penjdeh in the following year; but had it not been for the assistance of the late Tzar, Mr. Chamberlain would have crippled for some years the necessary development of our naval strength. This probably he did from sheer ignorance. He knew that our great shipbuilding yards could turn out ships much more rapidly than those of any other nation; he drew the erroneous conclusion that our yards would be able to build ships quickly enough so as to affect the result of a naval war. The fact that no war of our time has lasted twelve months, and that it takes eighteen months or two years to build and equip a first-class ironclad, had not entered into his calculations. Possibly he knows better v, for he has travelled somewhat, and knows more of onditions under which navies can be built.

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HIS GOOD WORK IN THE PAST.

Up to the present he has not caused any very serious harm, from an Imperial point of view, by anything that he has said or done, and in one or two cases he has been distinctly useful. It was largely owing to him that the Bechuanaland Expedition was despatched which saved the whole of the Hinterland to the Cape Colony, otherwise the Dutch would have joined hands with the Germans, and the northward development of the British Empire would have been definitely blocked. But it must be admitted that in Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet he had small opportunity of exhibiting any distinctive bent in the direction of any Imperial or Colonial policy. In 1887 he was sent out at the head of a Commission to settle, if he could, the Fishery difficulty between the United States and Great Britain. He did his part well, but, as was expected, the Senate rejected his Treaty, Mr. Chamberlain not being a person with whom America was permitted to make a Treaty. Although the Treaty has not been ratified, it has formed the basis of the modus vivendi

which has been in force ever since. Mr. Chamberlain has a considerable stake in the colonies, having purchased one of the islands of the Bahamas for the purpose of cultivating a new fibre, in which he believes there lie

great commercial possi

bilities.

HIS AIM IN THE

FUTURE. It is no doubt quite true, as he told the AgentsGeneral, that he had long

as a whole to use its wisdom and its wealth in order to develop its more backward members.

AN IMPERIAL APPLICATION OF HIS OLD IDEA.

What Mr. Chamberlain proposes to do is to apply the same principle to the colonies. Addressing the Birmingham Jewellers' and Silversmiths' Association in 1893, he foreshadowed in advance the policy which he intends to adopt at the Colonial Office:

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The duty of the country was to take every opportunity of extending and developing the foreign trade, and especially of securing new markets, which were also free markets, for the introduction of our goods. We were landlords of a great estate; it was the duty of a landlord to develop his estate. What was the use of having a country, for instance, like Uganda, which would grow almost anything, which was, as regarded a considerable portion of it, capable of receiving European inhabitants-what was the use of our taking a country of that kind if we neither give to that country nor to those who would colonise it the opportunities which were necessary for the purpose? All this trade depended on the existence of satisfactory methods of communication. Without that what was the good? How could they expect that trade would created, that production would take place, if it cost £300, £400, or £500 a ton to bring down the productions of Uganda to the coast, or to carry our goods from this country to Uganda? In his opinion it would be the wisest course for the Government of this country to use British capital and British credit in order to create an instrument of trade in all those new and im

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From the Westminster Gazette.]

66

WHICH SWALLOWED THE OTHER?

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[July 15, 1895.

Several Liberal speakers have, in reference to the coalition between Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain, recited the verses:

There was an Old Party of Niger
Who smiled as he rode on a tiger;
They finished the ride with the Party inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

But we can't say that the results of the Election

"But the question is," said Mr. Chamberlain, "which has swallowed the other? Our artist gives what he takes to be Mr. Chamberiain's answer. so far altogether justify it!

entertained strong opinions as to the importance of drawing the United Kingdom and the colonies, if possible, more closely together. He felt very strongly the great importance of the colonies, and assured them that they could rely upon his hearty co-operation for everything that was calculated to advance their position and increase their influence. All this, however, might be mere generality, which does not throw much light upon the course which he intended to follow. We are fortunately, however, not left in the dark, for he has from time to time delivered himself of sentiments which show clearly enough what is in his mind. To him the colonial question is vitally bound up with that of the unemployed, and Mr. Chamberlain has sufficient appreciation of the facts of the social position to that the unemployed difficulty is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, which concerns the new Administration. In his speeches we find very strongly accentuated the note of the municipal statesman who insists upon regarding the municipal government as a co-operative concern, which enabled the community

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portant countries, and he firmly believed, not only would they in so doing give an immediate impetus to British trade and industry in the manufacture of the machinery that was necessary for the purpose, but that in the long run, although they might lay out their money for a few years-which in the history of a nation was nothing-they would sooner or later earn a large reward, either directly or indirectly.

HOW TO HELP THE UNEMPLOYED.

Later on in the same year he received a deputation from the unemployed which was introduced by Mr. Arnold White, and he explained more or less in detail how close was the connection which existed between the unemployed question and the expansion of the British empire. He put the policy of Imperial expansion as the alternative to that of municipal workshops, and pointed out with homely eloquence the fact that the municipal workshops would not give more work to bootmakers, and they might easily take away some of the work which bootmakers at present enjoyed. He said :

:

What you want to do is not to change the shop in which the boots are made, but to increase the demand for boots. If you

can get some new demand for boots, not only those who are now working but those out of employment may find employment. That should be our great object. In addition to the special point before me, you must remember that, speaking generally, the great cure for this difficulty of want of employment is to find new markets. We are pressed out of the old markets-out of the neutral markets which used to be supplied by Great Britain-by foreign competition. At the same time, foreign Governments absolutely exclude our goods from their own markets, and unless we can increase the markets which are under our control, or find new ones, this question of want of employment, already a very serious one, will become one of the greatest possible magnitude, and I see the gravest reasons for anxiety as to the complications which may possibly ensue. I put the matter before you in these general terms: but I beg you, when you hear criticisms upon the conduct of this Government or of that, of this Commander or of that Commander, in expanding the British Empire, I beg you to bear in mind that it is not a Jingo question, which sometimes you are induced to believe-it is not a question of unreasonable aggression, but it is really a question of continuing to do that which the English people have always done -to extend their markets and relations with the waste places of the earth; and unless that is done, and done continuously, I am certain that, grave as are the evils now, we shall have at no distant time to meet much more serious consequences.

DEVELOP THE COLONIES.

We have here the policy which Mr. Chamberlain would adopt. As he multiplied the municipal debt of Birmingham eight times in order to secure an economic advantage for the ratepayers, so he will use British credit unhesitatingly in order to open up new territories and develop the resources of the colonies. This may be a very great policy. It certainly is not lacking in boldness, and it may produce very unlooked-for results in the colonies, where it is not usually supposed that the British Government takes a very keen interest in developing their material resources. Mr. Chamberlain may not change all that, but he is at least going to try. I am afraid that the course which he has seen fit to pursue on the subject of Home Rule has greatly increased the chances against his success in his new enterprise. No scheme can be devised which will attain the ends outlined in his somewhat vague but sounding generalities which does not pre-suppose an honourable understanding on both sides. In other words, it is impossible to carry out any such scheme without the cordial co-operation of the Colonial Governments and Downing Street.

BUT HOW ABOUT THE IRISH?

Now it so happens that Mr. Chamberlain at the Colonial Office is very far from being a persona grata with a very influential element in the governing bodies of all our great dependencies. It may not altogether be a disadvantage that Mr. Chamberlain should have it borne in upon him by his experience of colonial administration that until the Irish are pacified the Empire can never be united. Irishmen outside Ireland are far more influential than in their own native country. It is not until you cross the Atlantic and live in one of the great American cities that you begin to understand the rôle which is played by those, the virtue of whose ancestors caused Ireland to be called the Isle of the Saints. The ascendency, the predominance, not to say the domination, of the Irish in the great American cities is a phenomenon which must be witnessed to be understood or even to be realised. They are not so powerful, it is true, in the British colonies, but there is not a large town in any part of the world under the Union Jack where there is not a large section of men who are either Irish born or of Irish descent. These men would be less than human if they

were to make the path of Joseph Chamberlain smooth. The temptation will almost be overwhelming to do just the opposite. The Unionists may trample upon the Irish National movement at home, but the sons, the brothers, and the friends of Irishmen abroad will pay them out as best they can when their time comes. If Mr. Chamberlain is to bind the Empire together, and to bring the colonies into a closer union with the mother country, he will find that in some way or other he must propitiate the Irish. It is possible that in this he may find an ally in the one colonial statesman whose fame is of imperial dimensions.

A CASE FOR MR. CECIL RHODES..

Mr. Cecil Rhodes is an Imperialist of the Imperialists, but he was quite shrewd enough, being detached by his South

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African residence from the mists and fogs of faction, to see that in Home Rule lay the keynote to the future federation of the Empire. He therefore made terms with Mr. Parnell, and has always remained in the closest alliance with the Parnellite party. If Mr. Chamberlain is bent upon any scheme which meets Mr. Rhodes' approval, he may find the relations which Mr. Rhodes assiduously cultivated with Mr. Parnell and his followers indispensable for his projects. What Mr. Chamberlain will do is as yet uncertain, but like Mr. Rhodes, he has come to the conclusion that it is to the interests of the British working man that as much of the world's map should be coloured red as possible, and it is pretty well certain that if Mr. Rhodes were to renew the proposal which he made to the Colonial Office during the late Administration for the creation of constitutional safeguards against the levying

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