xi POLITICAL LIFE 259 



chance, were not so well qualified to do. Certain 

 great questions must come forward, even in spite of 

 still more pressing ones of a general character the 

 great questions connected with our social condition, 

 and especially of education and on these I might be 

 able to speak and perhaps be of assistance to the com- 

 munity. It was not because I cared really about 

 having " M.P." after my name, and it was not because 

 I thought there were not plenty of able men who 

 could represent a Manchester constituency in many 

 ways better than I myself could. I was not a com- 

 mercial man. I did not pretend to understand many 

 of the questions which at any rate were most important 

 in this district; and the fact that they had conferred 

 this honour upon one who was out of the ordinary 

 lines of political life had given me great satisfac- 

 tion, and had been an incentive to me to accede 

 to the request that I should contest the division. 

 Putting aside altogether the personal view of the 

 question, I could not but think it was really a very 

 satisfactory conclusion to which a great commercial 

 community had arrived when it proposed to have for 

 its Parliamentary representative a man who was some- 

 what different from the men who usually represented 

 such a constituency. 



I may also mention that a deputation waited upon 

 me from the Liberal electorate of the Eccles division 

 of South- East Lancashire, requesting to know whether 

 I would undertake to become a candidate for their 

 division. About the same time a letter reached me 

 from a member of the Liberal Committee of the Liberal 

 Association of the University of Edinburgh, asking me 

 whether I would agree to become a candidate for the 

 University seat. I replied to both that I had already 

 accepted a nomination from South Manchester. 



s 2 



