The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1914-07-04
JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN.

ures in the British public life of hi
time. Whether he was one of tn
statesmen of his generation will b.
a good deal debated.
Is is near forty years since Cham
berlain entered parliament, and h
had had a very respectable politica
career even before that. Withou
doubt he exerted a very importan
influence in shaping the politica
movements of his time; but it mus
be said that his influence was com
monty on the wrong side; at least
on the side that ultimately met re
pudiation before the memorable logi,
of events.
Chamberlain was, like Disraeli, Of
humble origin; and even the torie:
who at length came to recognize his
abilities as the hope for their con
tinuapce in authority, never quite &C
cepted him. He was not quite social
ly correct, from the viewpoint Of
Their Snobbishnesses. But he worked
hard throughout long career>to de-
serve well of the people who snubbed
him whenever they dared; and on the
whole he earned a very decent sort
of reward, if a public man cares for
that sort of reward.
Chamberlain started to be liber-
al; but he would not 60 with Glad
stone when Gladstone made home
rule for Ireland a test of liberal
faith. There was the beginning of
Chamberlain's assiduous counting of
the tories. He preferred to take his
stand with the extreme conservatism
that owned land in Ireland, rather
than with the liberalism that would
serve the people Of ireland. His de-
lection from Gladstone very possibly
deprived that leader Of the satisfac-
ton Of seeing accomplishment. of
his great purpose. But it did not kill
home rule. Chamberlain lived to see
home rules victory absolutely as
sured; assured. in circumstances
that represented the complete re-
pudiation of Chamberlain's policy
and program as to Ireland.
He was no more fortunate in tax
ing a. position on the general fiscal
question of his country. At a time
when it seemed incomprehensible
that any serious-minded Englishman
should attempt such a revolution,
Chamberlain took up the question of
tariff reform; which, in the British
view, meant the Reputation of the
old free-trade policy that had con-
tinued from Peel down to date, and
the substitution of a program of pro-
lection, with preference for colonial
products.
There was much about this pro-
gram that made it attractive, par
ticularly the appeal to imperialistic
sentiment that was carried by the
preferential features. But in the
end it was fairly rejected by the
English people. They discussed it for
a long time; they permitted the
Chamberlain faction to win some po-
litical skirmishes; but they would
not and did not change the general
policy on which, from Peel and Cob
den and Bright down to this day, the
British national fiscal system has
oeen based.
Chamberlain's protectionist cru
SADIE served to drive some of the
free-trade conservatives away from
the conservative party; and Cham
berlain in his last years saw his
great pet issue well-nigh forgotten,
and an utterly different program of
fiscal reforms fastened upon the ma
ton under the leadership of Asquith
and Lloyd-George.
Mr.. Chamberlain's long service as
secretary of state for the colopies
his name with the major
share of responsibility for the policy
that brought about the Boer war.
Britain never engaged in a less
popular, i more generally disastrous,
or d more morally discreditable con-
test than that one. Mr.. Chamber
lain's personal hold on the confidence
of the masses of people fell to its
lowest ebb during that struggle; but
he survived without breath of scan
dal or losing the support of his Biz
ningham constituency. Doubtless
the record Of history will make the
8oer war the most creditable of
Chamberlain's achievements; for it
is already plain enough that Africa
IS better for the wars having been
fought, and for the establishment of
he South African Union as one more
IF the chain of self-governing Brit
sh colony-nations girding the world.
That, however, is no justification for
the policy by which Chamberlain and
MS associates forced the war on a
inferior enemy, for the