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capital expenditure required to bring this land from a wild and uncultivated state into a condition capable of yielding this rent. First, it must be grubbed, cleared, and fenced; ditches, gates, and roads for access must be made. This could not be done for less than £300 or £400, probably more; the grass land would have to be sown at considerable expense. With this done the land must be drained, probably 200 or 300 acres would require to be drained at a cost of £5 per acre£1,000 for 200 acres. Proper farm buildings and sheds must be erected. This could not well be done for a farm of this size at less than £1,800. The figures will amount to a capital expenditure of nearly £3,500. As these works are of a character largely requiring renewal within a limited period,

Chamberlain of Holloway in '85 was from the Chamberlain of to-day. Then he laid before you an abundant and succulent feast of a democratic programme. That has disappeared, and instead of it we have a sort of shabby genteel menu dished up to a more select and refined company. What has become of the Radical programme? The powerful and popular democratic leader has been transformed into the feeble apologist of a tottering Tory Government. There is not a principle which Mr. Chamberlain has not whittle down. There is not a measure that he has not watered down in order to please a party of which he has become a complacent instrument, ani that is why the voice which was once powerful now has ceased to influence and charm.

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it would not be possible to put the remunerative interest upon them at less than 6 per cent.; the interest therefore would absorb more than £200 for the capital expended, leaving not more than one-third for the rent of the land.

HIS OPINION OF MR. CHAMBERLAIN.

It is hardly fair, perhaps, to represent the change of his views about Mr. Chamberlain as another instance of his conversion, for Mr. Chamberlain himself has changed so much, that that is why Sir William's estimate of his former colleague has undergone such a transformation. Eleven years ago Sir William Harcourt was hand-andglove with Mr. Chamberlain, and even ten years ago they met at our famous Round Table more as allies than as rivals; but that was the point of cleavage between them; after that he washed his hands of his quondam comrade. But that he himself explained after his own fashion, with vigour and lucidity. Speaking at West Islington in 1891, he said:

I remember the days of '85. What a different man the

HIS VOLTE FACE ON INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.

There are two other subjects on which there is a great deal of difference between the Liberal Paul of to-day and the Saul of Tarsus of former times. I have still a vivid recollection of the vehement denunciation which he hurled against those who proposed to interfere with individual liberty and increase the number of inspectors, whom he then was inclined to regard as the pest of modern life. It was the time when the Colorado beetle was eating up the potatoes everywhere, and Sir William declared to his own infinite satisfaction that the inspector, who was invading every department of industrial and social life, was as bad as the Colorado beetle, and ought to be named Inspector vastatrix. But that was twenty years ago. Now Sir William Harcourt is an eight-hours man and an advocate for the infinite multiplication of inspectors in most departments of modern industry. In this he has but moved with the times. Instead of standing as the champion of private liberty, he is the one

great modified ex-ministerial advocate of local veto-the measure which John Stuart Mill selected as illustrating more than any other what was utterly indefensible in the statutory limitations of the liberty of the citizen.

HIS DEVOTION TO THE NAVY.

The only other instance that I should mention of the Saul-Paul kind is more satisfactory. Sir William is usually regarded as a Little Englander, and as such has never been considered a friend of the navy, the existence of which is the pledge of the security of our Empire. In olden days-indeed, not so very far gone, as recently as 1891-Sir William took his parable against the advocates for strengthening the navy. There was a debate in the House of Commons on the protection of British commerce, the discussion being raised by those who wished to provide an adequate navy for the protection of our commerce in the case of war. Sir William Harcourt was against it, of course, and ridiculed the fears that were expressed by the alarmists and panic-mongers. He ridiculed their warnings as to the consequences that would follow a war in which our navy was not able to dominate the sea. They even declared, he said, that we should not be able to import corn or export our manufactures, he maintained that nothing of the kind would follow; all that would happen would be that we should lose the carrying trade of the world. That was all; everything we wanted would come in under foreign flags! In such an airy fashion did he speak of one of the greatest staple industries upon which our industrial and commercial greatness depends. That was in 1891. In May, 1894, when he spoke for the first time as Leader of the House of Commons, in succession to Mr. Gladstone, his note was very different. He said:

We have always held, and hold as strongly as the other party, that the supremacy of the British Navy should be maintained. Last November we stated that the supremacy of the Navy was unquestioned and unquestionable, and that we were prepared to take such measures as would maintain that condition of the Navy in the future. That statement will be justified by the estimates to be laid before the House.

V.-A CATALOGUE POLITICIAN.

Sir William Harcourt's record as a legislator has not been conspicuous for its brilliancy. His opportunities, however, Fave not been great. He is the champion of substituting a catalogue for a policy. Like every one else, he was at first overshadowed by Mr. Gladstone.

HIS SINGLE ACHIEVEMENT.

His one great achievement was the Budget by which he readjusted the Death Duties and made a perceptible approximation to the adjustment of taxation in proportion to wealth. His scheme of graduation was vehemently attacked, and the Duke of Devonshire was very lugubrious concerning the Death Duties; but as the new Ministry have made no serious attempt to interfere with the settlement, we may take it that the justice of his reform is recognised even by those who most criticised it.

WHAT HIS DEATH DUTIES COME TO.

The effects of his new Death Duties were thus summarised when he was defending himself from an attack of the Duke of Devonshire:

Upon smaller fortunes it will be about one year's income, upon all moderate fortunes it will be about one and a half year's income, and upon the great fortunes it may be two, and that divided into eight years, or sixteen half-yearly payments. The duty will accrue how often? If you take a generation of twenty-five years it will accrue four times in a century, if you take it at twenty it will accrue five times in a century. That

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fellow men. It is a great thing to be able to make people laugh, and Sir William Harcourt has always contrived to do this without ever degenerating into a mere Merry Andrew. Some of his jokes may be rather ponderous, but they usually tell with the audience. His epitaph on the last Conservative Ministry was a fair specimen of his platform humour. He ridiculed the Church of England Temperance Society as "very much Church and very little Temperance," and declared that on the tombstone of the Ministry would be inscribed:

They lived upon COERCION;

Their daily food was their own broken pledges; And their latter end was hastened by

DRINK.

His phrases are often very happy. One of the best of those was that in which, defending himself from the complaints of those ardent juveniles who imagine that

everything can be done in a hurry, he said: "No, gentlemen, works that are made to last, take time to accomplish. For my part, I am no admirer of the jerrybuilder in politics."

HIS GIFT OF HAPPY ILLUSTRATION.

He has a gift of lucid exposition, perhaps partly derived from his legal training, and also in part a natural or inherited gift. It is a great thing to be able to make every one who hears you understand exactly what you are driving at. There is nothing Gladstonese about Sir William Harcourt; his metaphors are homely, and such as can be understood by the wayfaring man. For instance, what could be better than his description of the Newcastle Programme, when he compared the Liberal Party to one of those great steamtugs which drags in its wake a whole flotilla of heavyladen vessels. Home Rule was the first, but behind it came many other vessels of precious freight, which he then proceeded to name as they were to be found marshalled in the Newcastle Programme. Alas! the metaphor was only too exact: the Liberal Party was a steam-tug, but not a great one; and instead of dragging in its wake the vast flotilla of heavy-laden vessels, it simply churned the water with unavailing paddles, and proved to all the world that it had not sufficient horsepower to move the heavy dead weight behind it.

THE IMPOLICY OF THE CATALOGUE POLICY.

But although Sir William must have gnashed his teeth over the impossibility of the task to which he had committed himself, he never showed the white feather, but protested the more strenuously his complete satisfaction with the policy of the programme the more utterly it was breaking down in his hands. Instead of recognising that they had frightfully overtasked the strength of the Liberal steam-tug, he maintained that the policy of the Liberal Party was an entire policy, and must be promoted as a whole. The programme of the Liberal Party is, and ought to be, a multifarious programme. "The mouse that is confined to one poor hole can never be a mouse of any soul." This was the antithesis of the Policy of Concentration.

HIS DEFENCE OF THE CATALOGUE.

No one was more energetic than he in insisting on the Newcastle Programme as a kind of sacred mandate laid upon the Government by the country which they must carry out at all hazards. On assuming the Leadership, he said:

When this Parliament was elected, and when this Government came into office, it did so upon the distinct statement that the whole of that plan, beginning with Home Rule and going on to disestablishment, including the Local Veto Bill and the other Bills, enumerated in the Queen's Speech, would be pressed forward. You (the Opposition) denounced our plan, the country pronounced in our favour and against you. It is the mandate of this Parliament to carry that plan and that scheme into execution, and when the House of Commons rejects that scheme you will be justified in condemning us. But as long as we have the support of the majority of the House of Commons we shall proceed continuously with that plan in good and evil report, and use every means at our disposal to promote these measures and carry them through this House. What may be done with them in another place is not our responsibility. The responsibility for that conduct will be ultimately judged by the country.

THE TRUE POLICY OF THE OPPOSITION.

As the country has now expressed its judgment with considerable emphasis, Sir William is free to take a new tack, which he probably will not be slow to do. It will

be well if he sticks to the line he laid down in his address to his constituents at Rhymney last month, when he repudiated the idea that it was the duty of the Opposition to resist and delay all the measures of the Government, good or bad. When Ministers introduced Bills which were good and in accordance with the principles that commended themselves to his judgment, he intended to support them, and only to oppose those which seemed to him to run counter to the best interests of the State. If he would but base his policy on these lines, laying it down as the principle to be followed by the Liberal Party, he would do a great deal to overcome the breakdown in the Parliamentary machine, and at the same time to secure such legislation as the Liberals deemed necessary. For it is obvious, and has been admitted very candidly by no less an authority than Mr. Balfour himself, that it is impossible to pass any long measure through the House of Commons that is seriously opposed. The Leader of the Opposition, therefore, in the House of Commons has it in his hands, if he chooses to take advantage of his opportunity, to practically dictate what the Ministerial programme shall be; he simply needs to go through the measures introduced by Ministers at the beginning of the Session, and intimate that he will co-operate with the Government to secure the passing of all such as are of a non-contentious, useful nature, reserving the whole strength of his Opposition for those which he condemns. By this means Ministers would be inevitably led to take the line of least resistance, and so to legislate in the direction that is in accord with Liberal convictions.

VI. HIS RELATIONS WITH LORD ROSEBERY.

The extent to which the personal relations between Sir William Harcourt and Lord Rosebery led to the decision of the latter to abandon the Leadership of the Party, is buried at present in impenetrable obscurity. It was known that Lord Rosebery and Sir William Harcourt were not on the best of terms with each other before the Unionists came in, and since that time their love for each other has not increased. This is a matter of temperament possibly as much as difference of opinion. Personalities and dislikes cannot be eliminated from the conduct of human affairs.

THE ANTIPATHIES OF GREAT MEN.

Archibald Forbes has recently reminded us how intense was the personal antipathy between the three great men who, under the German Emperor, secured the triumph of Germany in the great war with France. Bismarck, Von Moltke, and Von Roon were all jealous of each other, and in one case at least the jealousy went to the length of genuine personal dislike. But although these three great men were thus at daggers drawn, the tremendous pressure of the war, and the necessity of getting definite work done from day to day, enabled them to meet and work under their Emperor from beginning to end, without their personal friction impairing in the least the efficiency of the German arins and the success of the German policy. No doubt the same thing might have happened here if we had had an Emperor over our Moltke and Bismarck, or if they had in hand any piece of work of the tremendous importance and all-absorbing nature of the FrancoGerman war. Unfortunately, we had no Emperor, and there was no particular work to do. "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do," and it was natural that between Sir William Harcourt and his leader the comparative idleness of a period of Opposition should

have developed differences which were allayed when they were in office by the constant need of getting through "the daily round, the common task."

A REMINISCENCE OF 1895.

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Now the contingency has arrived which has been foreseen and feared for a long time. The stories that are current as to the immediate cause of the split, recall the curious series of speeches which were made in the National Liberal Club in May, 1895. Different leaders spoke in different rooms, following each other in succession. Sir William Harcourt in the course of his speech referred to the possibility of a difference with Lord Rosebery. He said :

He was the victim of what he might call an alternate arrangement, because he understood that the leader of the Government in the House of Lords had made a speech just now. He who so unworthily occupied the position of leader of the House of Commons was called upon to make a speech without having the remotest idea of what the Earl of Rosebery had said. That was very inconvenient, because if he said the same things he would be regarded as a bore, and if he said different things that would be dangerous.

CESAR AND POMPEY.

Hitherto, it must be admitted, that Sir William Harcourt has not said things different from Lord Rosebery. The differences, whatever they may be, were concealed from the great public, and on the very last subject upon which they both spoke-the question of the East -it is difficult to see any difference between the views of the two Liberal spokesmen. Sir William Harcourt spoke bally, saying nothing that was new; Lord Rosebery spoke well from a full heart and resolute conviction; but what both said came to the same thing. Both of themi deprecate single-handed war, neither of them would have anything to do with the defence of Turkey, and both of them advocated concerted action for the maintenance of peace in the East, and the redress of the grievances of the Armenians. Indeed, it might be said of the two in the old familiar saying of the Christy Minstrels, "Cæsar was very like Pompey, particularly Cæsar." The difference between them which caused the resignation cannot lie there.

SIR WILLIAM TAKING LORD ROSEBERY'S ADVICE.

It is rather touching to recall Lord Rosebery's speech on that occasion, and to read his earnest assurances that they had no reason to lose faith either in their cause or in their position, and to read his declaration that "it was not for them to forsake the helm merely because the storm happened to lower." Sir William Harcourt has certainly taken that advice to heart. There have been frequent references to his intention to retire from public life, but they have always been contradicted."

As

Mr. Jacob Bright reminded the party on the occasion of the Harcourtian banquet, Sir William expressed the determination when Mr. Gladstone retired "in fair weather or in foul to keep the Liberal ship seaworthy and to bring her into the haven."

The Liberal ship, alas! is still buffeted and tossed by the tempest, but Sir William is lashed to the helm, and any temptation he may have had to cut himself adrift was terminated when Lord Rosebery announced his resignation.

VII-PERSONALITIES.

Although, of course, like every one else, I have seen Sir William Harcourt in the House and on the platform, and passed him in the lobby, I have never had the pleasure

of making his personal acquaintance; therefore anything that may be said here of a personal nature is necessarily at second hand. There are many ill-natured stories about concerning his lack of personal bonhomie, of which the most familiar example is the legend as to the friends who each agreed to ask the most disagreeable man of their acquaintance to dinner, only to find when the bell rang that they had all invited Sir William Harcourt. If this were ever true it must have been a very long time ago. Those who know him now speak very differently of him. Here, for instance, are two tributes to his charm as a host and a conversationalist :

Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt is an admirable narrator, and if monologue were conversation he would be also a brilliant conversationalist. The full deep tones of his rich and musical voice, his keen sense of humour, his ready command of pure and strong English, secure him willing and delighted listeners even among men who, rightly or wrongly, conceive that they have something to say themselves if haply they could find an opportunity of saying it. It is reported that in one of the apocryphal prophets, rightly excluded from the orthodox Canon, may be found the curious and apparently meaningless message, "S- W- H- is on his high horse. Let all the earth keep silence before him." The licentious conjectures of the newer criticism, so sternly rebuked by Archdeacon Denison, deny that a living statesman is indicated by this mystic announcement and injunction. But there are men, even clergymen, who will deny almost anything.

The above is from the Daily News, and the other I came upon in a newspaper cutting which did not betray its origin, but it was obviously written by some one who knew Sir William Harcourt well:

I remember meeting him one day in the library corridor, and I asked if a certain statement published that morning about him was correct. "My dear sir," he said, with a broad smile and a racy chuckle, placing his hand upon my shoulder, whenever you see anything about me in the newspapers be sure it is not true."

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Sir William's private amusements are pastoral and innocent. The late Lord Beaconsfield loved his peacocks. They were the pets of the gardens of Hughenden. Sir William Harcourt readily leaves the dead Premier his unchallenged taste for the gorgeous birds of Juno, and is satisfied, like all great minds, noble in their simplicity, to dally with flowers. Sir William delights in roses, and, like a true son of the royal Plantagenet, is devoted to the red rose. He loves his home, delights to gambol in it. His strong side is undoubtedly the genial. He is a great social factor, or might be.

Like all men of action as well as of large structure, Sir William has a temper. He is of strong emotions. His displays of indignation make him the terror of permanent officials, even though they have had experience of "the chief's" little thunderstorms. But Sir William can be, and more frequently is, a man of soft and downy impulses. He will be the merriest of the merry. His laugh is broad and genial. At table he can be most entertaining. He is an excellent raconteur. To see Sir William at his best socially the student ought to pass an evening with him at Malwood, his beautiful place in the New Forest. Sir William's sons are clever actors, and the winter evenings are passed with charades. They also play Parliament. The father, Sir William, makes amusing speeches. The younger son chaff's his parent in the character of Lord Randolph. The host may be seen upon a most expansive scale of domestic philanthropy. Seated in a large throne-like chair he presents a vision of Falstaflian breadth and satisfaction. He directs the revels with a noisy gladness. He gambols, too, and is, to all intents and purposes, His Gracious Majesty King Frolic.

A PERSONAL APPRECIATION.

On looking over these pages, I am painfully conscious of the absence of the personal note which I have always endeavoured to preserve in the studies of the notables who have figured in this portrait gallery. But that is my misfortune or my fault, because I have never seen Sir William Harcourt excepting when he was, so to speak, on exhibition on his public form. To supplement this deficiency, I asked an old friend who knows Sir William Harcourt well, to give me some brief notes of his personal appreciation of our subject. He kindly complied with my request, and wrote the following:

"My affection for Jumbo is real, despite my total disapproval of him as a politician and disagreement on every conceivable political question, domestic and foreign. What I think is, that, as a man, he has considerable attractions, being so warm-hearted, and genial, and humorous, with a certain largeness and generosity about him altogether, which quite disappears in his partisan utterances. I don't know any man who, in his armchair, with a cigar in his mouth, judges political opponents in a more detached spirit. On the platform, and even in the House, he is, as you know, the genius of unfairness in controversy. But this is largely from a mental defect-his tendency to exaggerate. First, he overstates enormously what his antagonist has said or proposed, and then he assails this inflated bogey of his own imagination as if it was a real thing, and really believes in its existence. Responsibility, however, greatly sobers him. The reckless critic of the Front Opposition Bench became, as you may remember, a singularly temperate, judgmatic, and even popular leader of the House of Commons. He was much liked at the Treasury, and was thought a good and conscientious administrator. He has a real zeal for economy which, though unfortunate when practised as the means of national defence, is invaluable against the thousand small jobs and fritterings away of money which are constantly cropping up in the machinery of administration.

"He hates detail, but no man is a better hand at mastering a subject, if once his natural indolence can be sufficiently overcome to allow him to break ground. Once interested in a subject, he shows both quickness and grasp. He is rapid in picking up points, and yet broad and masterly in his general presentation of a case.

"His indolence applies to work, not to study, for he is a great reader, and in a capacious memory has stored much curious lore and humorous anecdote. Also he quotes his classics copiously-especially Horace in the old manner. All these things add a certain old-world charm to his conversation. For at heart he is a Whig of the Whigs, whenever he is not a Tory. I think his political ideal is probably Walpole."

LULU AND HIS FATHER.

This strikes me, from all that I can hear from those who know the Squire of Malwood in the privacy of domestic life, as a singularly accurate and just description of a man whose better side is seldom turned to the public gaze. There is another point that deserves to be noted which tells strongly in favour of what may be regarded as the more kindly estimate of Sir William's character. I refer to the devotion of his son Lulu. There are few things in English public life more altogether admirable than the absolutely crystalline devotion of the son to the father. Lulu is now a man full grown, but no child could believe more implicitly in the goodness and wisdom of his father than does Lulu in the genius and the talents and the grace of his sire. Lord Rosebery some years ago publicly referred to the relation between

Sir William Harcount and Lulu as one of tho beautiful things of our contemporary public life, and there must be much sterling good in a father who can so command the loyalty and devotion of his son.

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19 HISTORICUS AND HIS TRENCHANT PEN. Space fails me to dwell upon many other qualities of Sir William Harcourt, to which I have not even attempted to do justice. I have said nothing, for instance, concerning the keen, incisive style which has made his pen for more than thirty years one of the most powerful weapons of journalistic disputation. Like Lord Salisbury, he is an old Saturday Reviewer, but, unlike Lord Salisbury, he has continued to keep his hand in down to the present time by contributions to the columns of the press. He has never, so far as I know, contributed to the pages of any periodical, but has limited himself for years to the correspondence columns of the Times, in which the elaborate and erudite articles of "Historicus" appeared many years ago.

HARCOURT AT THE HOME OFFICE.

Another phase of his character which I regret to have passed by refers to his success as an administrator. He had five years at the Home Office, and although it was before Mr. Asquith's time, when the Home Office had not become the most important department of our administration, it nevertheless gave him ample opportunity of proving that he possessed talents of no mean order, and a very level-headed judgment. His tenure of office is remembered by no conspicuous blunder as was that of Mr. Matthews. He showed great sympathy with legislation for the treatment of children, and he showed himself an administrator who possessed many of the good qualities which distinguish him in his own house. WHAT IS THE HARCOURTIAN POLICY?

But what may he be in the future? It depends upon his health. Last session he did well in the House of Commons. As long as the House of Commons is the only assembly in which trial of political strength is possible, so long will the leader of the Lower House loom much more conspicuously before the country than any leader in the Peers. The right of pre-eminent domain, the post which enabled him to stand conspicuous at the foretop of the party, departed from Lord Rosebery when the Liberals went out of office. He has now deliberately by his own act still further aggrandised the position of Sir William Harcourt, but it is doubtful whether Sir William Harcourt will be equal to the opportunity which has thus been afforded him. It was bitterly said of him by a keen and unsparing critic, that Sir William Harcourt possessed all the qualities, both good and bad, of that useful but much maligned animal the mule. He is a great worker, indispensable to the team, with a vicious temper, and an obstinate disposition; but there is a closer resemblance still. Disraeli made one of his characters declare: "Conservatism is the mule of politics that engenders nothing," and in the sphere of political thought and speculation Sir William resembles Conservatism.

In foreign policy it is probable that he would be in favour of working with Russia in the East of Europe. Whether he would lay it down as a general principle of British policy, e.g., in the Far East, I don't know. He would look coldly upon entangling alliances of any sort. So he would look coldly upon extensions and expansions of the Empire generally.

He was at one time in favour of accepting Mr. Rhodes's offer to take over Uganda. Perhaps he may live to hand it over yet to the British South Africa Company.

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