Review of Reviews, 20/3/06. 



Character Sketches, 



269 



jectly incapable son shall be made Chancellor of the Ex- 

 chequer as the price of abstension from opposition; and 

 having got this, nevertheless to blackmail for two and 

 a-half years the Government you have abandoned; at the 

 end of that time to procure the insulting rejection by the 

 representatives of the party of a resolution approving your 

 leader's policy, and to follovs' this up by openly flouting 

 and insulting that leader with charges of humiliating and 

 disgra-cing the party, while at the same time slavering 

 him with professions of affection. 



This is "false friendship"; this is "stabbing in the 

 back." 'to do this once were infamy enough for one; but 

 to do it twice, to betray successively two leaders, to break 

 up two parties — this is a depth of political infamy not 

 hithei'to sounded. In comparison with this the Thugs of 

 India are faithful friends and Judas Iscariot himself en- 

 titled to a crown of clory. 



Yet the most pitiable of all this remains. That all this 

 should be done to an end which is never to be attained, 

 that with all his talents, though he has occasionally got the 

 support of selfish interests, he has ne\er won the affection 

 or the trust of any party. He who, had he been honest 

 and true, might have been a leader, can never be but 

 what he always was — a wrecker, This is what makes him 

 so bitter; that he feels that he is the most conspicuous 

 failure of the nineteenth century; that he who ne^er could 

 endure to be second will nevertheless never become first, 

 and that of him it will remain to be said : — 



" Thou, like the hindmost chariot wheel, art curst. 

 Still to be near, yet never to be first." 



As an altogether different style of epitaph we may 

 take Mr. George Meredith's letter, which is a bril- 

 liant piece of Meredithian characterisation: — 



We view a stormy sea of the disruption of parties, and 

 Conservatives will own, as promptly as Liberals perceive, 

 that the mover of this turbulent state is the life of it. His 

 supporters, as a fighting body, are swallowed up in his 

 person. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was once a light of the 

 Radical ranks; he is now enrolled amongst the 'lories. He 

 was a Free Trader; he has become a Protectionist, and 

 he has been thoughtlessly called a renegade. He is merely 

 the man of a tremendous energy acting upon one idea. 

 Formerly it was the Radical and Free Trade; now it is the 

 Tory and Protectionist idea ; and he is quite in earnest, 

 altogether at the mercy of the idea animating him. You 

 see it in his lean long head and adventurous nose. Men 

 of such a kind are dangerous to their country. They are 

 usually, as he is, adroit debaters, persuasive speakers; 

 energised, as he is, by petrol within to drive, swift and 

 defiant of opposition, to a mark in view. Mr. Chamberlain 

 is one of the motormen occasionally let loose upon us to 

 stir convulsion. The motor-man of Highbury is assured 

 that he can persuade the working man that by accepting 

 a tax on his loaf he will have in return full employment 

 and higher wages — that is to say, the reward of a promise 

 in the clouds for a positive dead loss. He would persuade 

 the country that Protection leads to no war of Continental 

 tariffs, nor to the encouragement of mononolies, nor to the 

 renewal of times of Will Watch, tlie bold smuggler, nor 

 to the various chicaneries practised before the days of 

 repeal. It would be a demented country that believ.ed 

 him. It cannot be that the borough of Croydon will con- 



sent to be ranked as one of the crazy, for if Mr. Chamber- 

 lain wins, the country is on its downward way at motor 

 speed. 



The Spectator was shocked in its inmost soul by 

 the profane ribaldry of the reference to the " ad- 

 venturous nose " of this most adventurous politician. 

 As it is akin to blasphemy to allude to the most 

 conspicuous feature in his countenance, so it is for- 

 bidden to refer to the fact that his feet slipped at 

 last in the innocent blood which he shed in South 

 Africa. Sin having conceived, bringeth forth death, 

 and the gory feather in his cap brought about his 

 end. Sad and melancholy, and most wondrous piti- 

 ful, is the epitaph which history will inscribe over 

 his tomb. He hoped to do so much, and did so 

 little. He aimed so high, and fell so low. He 

 promised everything, and performed nothing. No 

 great measure of constructive legislation is asso- 

 ciated with his name. What he defended in his youth 

 he devoted his old age in a futile effort to over- 

 thjow. No man had higher ideals, and few have 

 done so much to prevent their realisation. 



Peace be with his ashes ! For him there is no 



hope of a glorious resurrection. His fighting days 



are over. In the midst of his own people — who 



supply a touching confirmation of the truth of the 



couplet 



Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast 



To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last^ 



he will now spend the remainder of his days in 

 peace. " Unwept, unhonoured and unsung " will be 

 his actual obsequies, which, let us hope, may be 

 far distant. Those who think that he will play the 

 heroic part of the undaunted champion of a lost 

 cause do not know their man. No rat ever deserted 

 a sinking ship with greater alacrity than he has 

 abandoned every cause that became unpopular. Of 

 course, he may from very shame stick to his Pro- 

 tectionism now — although shame upon his cheek has 

 never been able to find a seat — and as there is no 

 other refuge in the storm, he may sulk in his tent. 

 But he is no longer a living force in English 

 Dolitics, R.I.P. 





,(P\3e/<3)(i 



(cy^G\(2)' 





