Review of Reviews, 



The Book of the Month. 



209 



all branches of their policy and m all features of 

 their administration are animated by lofty and 

 Liberal ideas."' Nor did he hesitate to base his ad- 

 vocacy of Liberal ideas on his faith in human pro- 

 gress, the denial of which is at the root of most Con- 

 servatism. He said he was guarded from terror and 

 despair " by a firm belief in the essential goodness 

 of life, and in the evolution, by some process or 

 other which he did not exactly know and could not 

 determine, of a higher and nobler humanity." 



HIS GREAT ACHIEVEMENT. 



As the apostle of Tory Democracy he stood al- 

 most alone. He was the object of almost passionate 

 dislike and jealousy in high places. The Front 

 Opposition Bench regarded him with aversion and 

 alarm. " To them he seemed an intruder, an up- 

 start, a mutineer who flouted venerable leaders and 

 mocked at constituted authority with a mixture of 

 aristocratic insolence and democratic brutality."' 

 Hut he had his reward when he rescued the Con- 

 servatiye Party in spite of themselyes. " A very 

 little and they would neyer haye won the New De- 

 mocracy. But for a narrow chance they might 

 have slipped down into the gulf of departed sys- 

 tems ; but for him the cleavage in British politics 

 might have become a social, not a political, division 

 ' — upon a line horizontal, not oblique : " " He ral- 

 lied the people round the Throne, a loyal Throne 

 with a patriotic people. He restored the health} 

 balance of parties, and caused the ancient institu- 

 tions of the British realm once again to be esteemed 

 amongst the masses of the people." 



THE CAPTURE OF THE TORY CAUCUS. 



In 1884 Lord Randolph captured the party 

 Caucus, the story of which is told by Mr. Winston 

 in a chapter entitled ; ' The Party Machine,"' which 

 reads like ancient history. The event was useful to 

 Lord Randolph, but the Tory Caucus remained 

 pretty much the same afterwards as it was before. 

 Mr. Winston somewhat sarcastically refers to the 

 condition of somnolence into which the National 

 Union passed after its capture by his father, and 

 the subsequent compromise with Lord Salisbury, 

 and remarks that its recent awakening at Sheffield 

 hardly justified any desire for its renewed activity. 



HIS CULMINATING POINT. 



Lord Randolph probably reached his highest 

 at Dartfofd on October 2nd, 1886, when he not only 

 expounded the domestic programme of Tory demo- 

 cracy, but, making a bold excursion into foreign 

 politics, declared that if war should arise the sym- 

 pathy, and, if necessary, the support of England 

 would be given to those Powers who seek the peace 

 of Europe and the liberty of peoples. At that 

 moment the diminutive figure of Lord Randolph 

 loomed before Europe as that of a coming Palmer- 

 ston. At home and abroad he was the most con- 

 spicious of Englishmen, his personality eclipsing for 

 the moment both that of Lord Salisbury and Mr. 

 Gladstone. Then, even at his culminating point — 



when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Leader 

 of the House of Commons, and foremost English- 

 man of his time — he fell like Lucifer, hurled by his 

 own act from the very pinnacle of glory to the utter- 

 most depths. 



SUICIDE BY* SWELLED HEAD. 



It is difficult to account for his resignation on am 

 other theory than that of swelled head, manifesting 

 itself in an impatient determination to force the 

 hand of Lord Salisbury and constitute himself 

 Mister of the Cabinet. Mr. Winston disguises, ex- 

 cuses, and extenuates the supreme miscalculation of 

 his father's lifetime. But beneath all the excuses 

 due to filial respect the fact stands clearly out that 

 Lord Randolph believed the time had come when he 

 could dictate to Lord Salisbury. It was a fatal 

 miscalculation. With patience he could have 

 achieved his end, but he was impatient, and his 

 over-vaulting ambition o'er-leaped its selle and fell 

 upon the other side. 



HIS DISILLUSION. 



Mr. Winston argues that, in so far as the special 

 points in conflict were concerned, Randolph Chur- 

 chill's resignation was vindicated in the most defi- 

 nite and tangible manner by the actions of those 

 who had most strenuously opposed him, but that 

 fact is in itself the most crushing condemnation of 

 the precipitance with which he staked everything 

 upon one throw of the dice. " I had fondly hoped, ' 

 he said. " to make the Conservative party the instru- 

 ment of Tory democracy ; it is an idle, schoolboy's 

 dream ; I must look elsewhere." 



THE CI-DEVANT FAIR TRADER. 

 The rest of the story is sad and tragic. Mr. 

 A\ inston makes the most of it, dwells upon the effort 

 which his father made in order to secure economy 

 and efficiency in the Army and Navy, and pays him 

 a well-deserved tribute for his staunch refusal to 

 use the Fair Trade lunacy as a weapon of defence 

 against the Government which he had left. In his 

 early days he had talked as much nonsense upon 

 the subject as Mr. Chamberlain has been doing of 

 late, but when he was sobered by the responsibility 

 of office, and when he had time to study the ques- 

 tion seriously, he perceived that as a financial ex- 

 pedient a complicated tariff would not work, and 

 as a part\- manoeuvre it would not pay ; hence his 

 instinct as a statesman compelled him to refrain 

 from grasping the weapon that lay ready to his 

 hand with which he might have torn the heart out 

 of Lord Salisbury's Government. 



SOUTH AFRICA. 



There is hole said concerning Lord Randolph's 

 visit to South Africa, but the investments he made 

 wire not inconsiderable <>r misjudged, as they were 

 sold at his death for upwards of ^'70.000. Writing 

 to his wife from Mafeking on hearing af Arthur 

 Balfour's appointment to the Leadership of the 

 i I use of Commons, he says : "So Arthur Balfour 

 is really Leader, and Ton Democracy, the genuine 



