tion of seats, used language which was regarded as at variance with the effect of that used by Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain at Blenheim. It was contrary, he said, to the Constitution to be perpetually tinkering at the House of Commons. Do not let them, because some Members of the House misbehaved themselves, put everything into the melting pot, for that was not Conservatism. This point of view may very possibly have commended itself to many minds. It was the war, however, and not the over-representation of Ireland, which was occupying men's attention; so the net effect of the Lord Chancellor's utterance was irritation, and somewhat enhanced uneasiness. This state of mind, however, was appreciably relieved by the judicious tone-serious and straightforward of a letter written by the War Secretary to Sir Howard Vincent, which was published on October 11. In the course of this communication Mr. Brodrick wrote: "I am in daily correspondence by telegraph with Lord Kitchener, and there is no single demand which he has made on us which has not been promptly met. We have, roughly speaking, 200,000 men, with 450 guns, in South Africa, and over 100,000 men under training at home. We have, therefore, no difficulty in keeping up the field Army to its requisite strength by drafts, and, if a further call be made on us, we are in a position to meet it with the utmost promptitude. Notwithstanding this, there seems to be an impression abroad that the close of the war is being in some way retarded by a scarcity of troops or want of mobility in our columns. Our last returns from South Africa show that, besides providing supplies from here for 314,000 persons directly or indirectly connected with the war, we are feeding 248,000 horses and mules in that country, and we maintain in South Africa a reserve of four months' food supply for men and animals. There are at present in the field sixty-nine mobile columns. perfectly equipped for service with picked commanders, and we deliver at South African ports a monthly supply of nearly 10,000 remounts, so that, apart from horses taken from the enemy, we continue in advance of Lord Kitchener's requirements."

People seemed to be anxious, Mr. Brodrick said, about some inactivity or apathy on the part of the Government. "The Home Government have never in any way interfered with the military dispositions of Lord Kitchener, in whose vigorous prosecution of the war they have entire confidence. They have neither spared men nor money to assist him in his difficult task of chasing small bodies of the enemy over an area the size of France and Spain, and defending thousands of miles of railways against attack."

The tranquillising effect of Mr. Brodrick's assurances was very considerably enhanced by the appearance on the same day of the report of a speech by Sir M. Hicks-Beach at Oldham, in which, having referred to the "equinoctial gale of newspaper

criticism," to which the Government had been lately subjected on account of their conduct of the war, he not only denied that there was any ground for the suggestion of slackness made against them, but affirmed in so many words that, in his opinion, it would be "the most mistaken economy to grudge any amount of expenditure which would bring the war to an earlier conclusion." In view of this temper on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and of Mr. Brodrick's positive assurances-and Lord Roberts had spoken in the same sense at Liverpool (Oct. 8)—the disposition to gird at the Government for the slow progress of the war very appreciably subsided.

None the less, the circumstances under which the nation. was keeping the second anniversary (Oct. 11) of the outbreak of the South African struggle were felt to be very melancholy, and comparatively little attention was given to domestic questions. Some interest was, however, attracted by a speech made by Mr. Chamberlain in opening a new temperance hall in Birmingham. In the course of this utterance Mr. Chamberlain observed that he knew of no Act of Parliament which had had any effect whatever in reducing drunkenness, though he knew of several which had had the effect of increasing it—as, for instance, the Act which established grocers' licences, or the legislation of 1869. At the same time he did not think that any impartial man would pretend that there was no need for legislation. But no measure could be carried which had not a large force of moderate opinion behind it. Mr. Chamberlain then illustrated the harm which might be done by extreme reformers by reference to the manner in which his own early proposals for the adoption by Birmingham of the Gothenburg plan, which had the most influential and representative support, had been defeated, with the result that the strength of the liquor interest had been enormously increased there. He went on to say that the principle of the Gothenburg system-the absolute elimination of any idea of private gain from the retail sale of liquors— was, however, a sound one, and he welcomed the efforts of the Public-House Trust Associations to carry it out according to their ability. With the spirit of the minority report of Lord Peel's Commission he agreed, as well as with many of its recommendations, but he entirely disagreed with the view that the licence-holders had no equitable claim to compensation for the non-renewal of their licences, and he believed that the majority of the people were with him on that point. He was glad, he added, to see that in Birmingham the magistrates and brewers were working together for a reduction in the number of houses, which everybody allowed to be desirable.

In this connection it is well worthy of record that during the year 1901 the movement in favour of Reformed Public Houses, managed on the principle referred to by Mr. Chamberlain, took fresh and important developments, mainly through the energetic

Ο

advocacy of Lord Grey. For some years a company called the People's Refreshment House Association had been in existence, due to the initiative of the Bishop of Chester (Dr. Jayne), who acted as its president. This Association by the middle of 1901 had become the managers of eighteen licensed houses in various parts of England, and was doing a very useful work. But Lord Grey aimed at a great increase in the scope of this movement, through the establishment of limited trust companies for all counties or county-groups in the Kingdom, who would be able to apply to the magistrates whenever licenses fell in, or new licensed premises were needed, for permission to hold the licenses concerned, if any were granted, as a trust, on the understanding that the houses would be put in the hands of officials having no private interest in the sale of liquor. The profits of the shareholders in the companies were also limited to 5 per cent., any surplus being applied, locally or generally, to public objects. By the middle of October, according to a report issued by the Central Public House Trust Association, fourteen such companies had been, or were on the point of being, registered-six in England, six in Scotland, one in Wales and one in Ireland. In all cases the directors were persons of high local standing.

In the course of a speech at Edinburgh (Oct. 16) Mr. Asquith expressed surprise at the tone of Mr. Chamberlain's speech, and insisted that vigorous legislative efforts must be made to remedy the evils of the drink traffic. Liberals, he maintained, should take their stand, he would not say upon the details, but upon the main lines of Lord Peel's report. At the same time he held, with regard to the reduction of houses, that, as a matter not of right but of policy, something in the nature of compensation should be paid to the owners of suppressed licenses, to be levied on the enhanced value of the licenses which survived. In the same speech he again touched on the relations between the Liberals and the Nationalists. In the interval since his last speech Mr. Herbert Gladstone, at Leeds (Oct. 7), had apparently declined to accept Mr. Asquith's declaration on this subject as bearing its only obvious meaning. Mr. Asquith now reiterated what he had said, in its plain sense. It would not," he said, "be wise for the Liberal party to repeat the experiment of 1892, and to assume power when it could only be retained by the support of the Irish vote." But he added that he had no authority to give a pledge on the subject for the party as a whole, though he knew his opinions were shared by "a large number of the most level-headed Liberals in the country."

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On October 25 Mr. Chamberlain made a speech of considerable length and importance at Edinburgh. In its course he intimated that in the ensuing Session the Government meant to bring forward rules which would "give to the majority of the House of Commons a greater control over its own business, a greater control over the men who insulted and outraged it". As

to the representation of Ireland, he would explain for the benefit of Mr. Asquith that, if they proposed any change in it, it was not with the slightest hope that they would thereby do away with obstruction. If they took up the question it was because they thought that the present representation was an abuse and a scandal. No alteration could be made except in immediate anticipation of a dissolution, and that they were not now contemplating. "But when we get nearer to that time," Mr. Chamberlain continued, "I think we shall ask you whether you think that the Irish representation is so precious to you, is so valuable to national interests, that it is desirable to continue it on a scale which gives to the Irish people a representation which enormously exceeds the proportionate representation of Scotland and of England."

In reference to the war Mr. Chamberlain, after paying a tribute to the courage and tenacity of the enemy, went on to refer to the question which had been raised in some quarters at home friendly to the Government, of the possible necessity of resorting to sterner measures for the suppression of the present guerilla warfare. In this connection he employed a sentence which was made the subject of so much and such angry discussion in Germany that it is well to give it verbatim : "There is no subject," he said, "which has given us greater anxiety, more anxious consideration. I think," he proceeded, "that the time has come-is coming-when measures of greater severity may be necessary, and if that time comes, we can find precedents for anything we may do in the action of those nations who now criticise our barbarity' and 'cruelty,' but whose example in Poland, in the Caucasus, in Algeria, in Tongking, in Bosnia, in the Franco-German war-whose example we have never even approached." Mr. Chamberlain added that in these things, however, the Government would rather be blamed for going too slow than for going too fast, and when he read of demands for wholesale confiscation, for wholesale execution, he confessed that he had not, up to the present time, been able to convince himself that such measures would conduce either to a speedy termination of the war or to a satisfactory peace.

On the same evening Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman spoke at Stirling. As to the divergent views on the war among the Liberal party, he said that it was no part of his duty as leader to rebuke or confute or excommunicate those who might hold extreme views on any question. His business was to keep the head of the ship straight, whatever the theory of navigation which possessed the minds of some members of the crew. Criticising the conduct of the war, he contended, in effect, that it was rendering a happy settlement impossible. The whole country in the two belligerent States outside the mining towns was a howling wilderness. The farms were burned, the country was wasted. The flocks and herds were either

butchered or driven off; the mills were destroyed, furniture and implements of agriculture were smashed. These were what he had termed methods of barbarism, and he adhered to the phrase.

Its

This passage is from the first of a series of speeches delivered by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman in the autumn. drift indicated what proved to be the fact, that his realisation of the idea of "keeping the head of the ship straight" was likely to afford much more satisfaction to the anti-war than to the Imperialist section of his "crew."

There is no space within the limits of this work to follow in detail the great number of speeches by leading politicians on both sides, and particularly the Opposition, by which the newspapers were filled. Ministers very possibly had their differences-perhaps as to the legislative programme for the ensuing session, and almost certainly, judging from their public utterances already mentioned, on the subject of a Redistribution Bill. But the date of that was yet a long time off, and even if they disagreed about nearer questions, as, for example, the right lines of an educational settlement-which seemed a not inconceivably dividing issue-they kept their own counsel. Many of their friends, the supporters of Voluntary schools to wit, were in great anxiety as to whether the Education Bill promised for the ensuing session would include arrangements relieving those schools of the still "intolerable strain" caused by their inability to compete with the Board Schools supported out of the rates. In the summer a joint-committee of the Convocations of Canterbury and York had drawn up a series of resolutions, which were published in the autumn, setting forth the conditions deemed reasonable for a settlement of the elementary education difficulty. They were generally to the effect that in all elementary schools, Board or Voluntary, the cost of secular teaching should be met out of public resources, on the understanding that effective local control should be admitted by the supporters of Voluntary schools over the secular teaching given in them; that the buildings, which had been provided, should be maintained by the existing managers; and that they should allow facilities for the teaching of children of other denominations in those buildings if desired. This last condition had special reference to the large number of country villages in which the Church school was the only one available. On the other hand, it was claimed that corresponding facilities for denominational teaching should, where desired, be allowed in Board schools. In support of a settlement on these lines, or something like them, there was manifested a very large body of Church opinion, as expressed in Diocesan Conferences and among bodies of Church educationists, and in Church newspapers. But the year closed without any indication of an at all authoritative character as to whether the Cabinet accepted the claims of the Church in this matter, or proposed to give