The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-07-25
DEATH OF A GREAT ENCLISHMAN

party attack, Mr.. Chamberlain had to
look for new cry, and he found it.
His attempt to raise the fiscal ques-
ton in 1903 was the last desperate
throw of defeated gambler, and the
hazard failed. In order that the reader
may not think we do the dead states
man an injustice, we cite letter of
his to Lady Dorothy Nevill, dated June
21, 1904, and not published till several
years later:
THE Primrose League is as timid
as the other wire-pullers. They do
not see that the best policy is to take
the offensive, and they allow their op-
ponets to force them to fight on the
defensive against Chinese slavery,
education, licensing, and all the rest
of it, whereas their true policy would
be to carry out flank attack with
tariff reform.
However, they must go their own
way to destruction. Market Har-
borough and Devonport have turned
out exactly as l predicted. If they do
not take care, Chertsey will be the
same. Good Lord! What fools they
be-"
When Mr.. Chamberlain was a Radi-
cal he was an ardent Free Trader and
remorseless critic of the follies and
frauds of Protection. Yet he chose
Protection as the philosophers stone"
which was to transmute all his leaden
metal into gold. The remuneration of
his old opinions had become a devour-
ing passion with him, and the eX-
President of the Golden Club was soon
engaged in sneering at it's foreign
members" and in attempting to belit-
tie the work in which he had taken a
distinguished share.
We all know the end of that adVen-
ture. The raging, tearing propa
ganda" failed to prevent the crushing
Liberal victory at the polls in January,
1906.
Mr. Chamberlain aWoke from his
dreams to find the seven Birmingham
seats still faithful to him, but Tariff
Reform was dead. He never recover
ed from the shock. He was no longer
young, and a physical breakdown en-
sued.
He still received the loyal devotion
of his friends and neighbors, and for
time the pathetic fiction of his
speedy return to the political arena
was maintained. But he never again
appeared in debate, and last January
it was formally announced that he
would not again contest West Birm-
ingham. The third act has been play
ed out, and the curtain has now de-
scended on this strange, eventful his
tory"
Yet in spite of all this political para
doX and change of front, Mr.. Chamber
lain was, as Mr.. Redmond remarked
on his death, great man, distin
guished municipal reformer, clever
parliamentarian, with gifts of the high
est order. He charmed the House with
a style of oratory, cold, clear, in
cisive a sweet musical voice carried
every word to the farthest corner. He
never INDUCED in fury of word or
gesture. His sentences were sharp, |
pointed and stinging, but they were
delivered with almost preternatural
calmness.
And while we turn away from the
checkered career of Joseph Chamber
lain with increasing contempt for the
professional politician, we cannot help
feeling the pathos of such splendid
natural gifts prostituted to the service |
of the most mean and mercenary mo-
tives, the pathos of life begun with
the highest ideals for the betterment
of society and ending in such dismal
failure.