The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-07-25
Mr.. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN WAS
LINKED WITH GLADSTONE
PARADoxICAL CAREER OF A
GREAT STATESMAN AND PAR
LIAMENTARY LEADER.
(Written for The Catholic Bulletin by
Cecil Underwood.)

Mr.. Joseph Chamberlain died OF
July End, at his London home, sur
rounded by his family and friends who
for some days had been expecting the
end In his long career carrying the
mind back to the palmy days of Dis
raeli and Gladstone, we have the rise
decline and fall of the most remark
able public man of our day in Eng
land. 1t was from the very beginning
a checkered career, full of violent
changes and political surprises, quite
as tragic in some respects as that of
his distinguished contemporary, Mr.
Charles Stewart Parnell.
There has always been a great deal
of mystery as to why Mr. Chamber
lain, who fought as a home ruler in
1874, who worked in close alliance
with Parnell for many years, who op-
posed Mr.. Forster in the Gladstone
cabinet, who negotiated the Kilmain-
ham Treaty and declared coercion"
to be an Infamous procedure" strange
that he of all men should have op-
posed the Home Rule Bill when it
was first brought forward by Mr..
Gladstone. Yet he seeded from the
Liberals when the Home Rule crisis
came, and thus wrecked the Liberal
party. His political conduct on that
occasion gained for him the unenvia-
BILE title of Judas Iscariot Chamber
lain" Moreover, he was gradually
forced into such an intimate alliance
with the classes he had held up to
ministry at the sacrifice of every prin-
ciple he had ever advocated.
A ParadoxicaI Career.
But his paradOXical career did not
end with the defeat of Home Rule. In
fact it had only begun.
So it came about that to Mr.. Cham
berlain as Colonial SecT etd1y in tne
ministry of Lord Salisbury-the poll
tician who sneered at him as Jack
Cade"-there fell the glory and the
shame of the South African war.
There is something in this mans
intellect that seems to revel in para
doX. Just as it was the statesman
who compared England's rule in Ire
land to that of Russia in Poland, who
supported the most savage Coercion
Act of modern times, so it was the
eulogist of the Beers after Majuba
who allowed himself to be drawn by
the greedy financiers of the Rand into
the campaign against the Boer Re-
publics.
Mr.. Chamberlain had spoken of the
Beers in 1881 as a race of farmers
animated by deep and even stern
religious sentiment, who inherited
from their ancestors-the men who
won the independence of Holland from
the oppressive rule of Philip II of
Spain-their unconquerable love of
freedom and liberty" Yet he it was
who launched England into the Boer
War-that feather in my cap" as he
called it.
His completely in the Jameson raid
is a question which will probably new
er be settled; there were too many
personalities involved, and we all
know how the Committee of Inquiry
was suddenly stricken with the palsy
when it came to fix responsibility.
But the South African War was his
work. He told us that "the sands in
the glass are running out" when the
negotiations with Mr.. Kruger looked
like coming to peaceful settlement.
He at least avoided the peril of peace.
We remember how in those days
huge crowds used to assemble to see
Mr.. Chamberlain drive into Downing
Street to Cabinet Councils with big
cigar in his teeth, and that pale, cold
smile on his ashen face like moon
beam on an iceberg. Those cheers
died away, and We were all left with
the bill-25,O0O lives and G250,OO0,O 900
of money.
The spectacular progress of the Co.
lonial Secretary through the recently
devasted territories brought us the
promise of the mining magnates to
contribute G30,O00,O00 towards the
cost of the war.
1t was little enough as the price of
the Chinese labor horror, but even
that pledge did not materialize into
hard cash. Mr.. Chamberlain's new
friends did not even pay their debts
of honor.
The Tariff Reform Tragedy.
1t is the third act of the drama
which now swiftly brings the public
career of Joseph Chamberlain to
close. He who, in the municipal work
of Birmingham, had carried out pol
icy of constructive craftsmanship that
still endears him to his fellow-towns-
man, was the most sterile OF minis
ters in the parliamentary sphere.
He promised old-age pensions, and
left them to Mr.. Lloyd George to carry
out. He took up the Gothenburg
licensing system, and never carried it.
All he has left on the history of his
time is a bankruptcy act and a great
war.
But when the South African War
had come to an end, and he could not
longer "crystallize" the patriotic preju-
dices of the people into weapons OF