Z-J2 



The Review of Reviews, 



March SO, 1906. 



Minister is John Bums. But John Burns was so 

 uncompromising a pro-Boer that the Jingoes of Bat- 

 tersea turned out night after night in their thousands 

 to hoot and howl and curse and swear around his 

 house, while he had to stand hour after hour on 

 guard ready to defend his wife and child from the 

 truculent violence of these sons of Belial swollen 

 with insolaice and beer. For the first time in living 

 memory the whole Principality of Wales returns a 

 solid phalanx of Liberal members. To whom do 

 we owe that result ? Chiefly t© Mr. Lloyd-George, 

 another of C.-B.'s colleagues, who narrowly escaped 

 with his life from the murderous myrmidons of 

 Brummagem Jingoism, and who was actually felled 

 senseless in the streets of Carnar\'on. Scotland has 

 reduced the number of its Unionist representatives 

 to 14, and in the forefront of the Liberal majority 

 stand Mr. Morley, Mr. Bryce, and Mr. Thomas 

 Shaw, worthy colleagues of C.-B., and the Lord 

 Chancellor, every one of them men who went through 

 sore tribulation when it was the hour and the power 

 of darkness. 



It is said, and said truly, that the most conspicu- 

 ous feature of the new Parliament is the presence of 

 some two or three score Labour meml)ers. But it is 

 not often remembered that the Labour Party in 

 the late House of Commons was honourablv dis 

 tinguished by the fact that it alone of all the British 

 parties never bowed the knee in the Temple of 

 Jingo Rimmon. The old Labour members were as a 

 unit against the war. The new Labour members, so 

 far as can be ascertained, are equally strenuous in 

 their detestation of that Imperial crime. Certainly 

 Mr. J. R. Macdonald, the Caxnot who organised 

 their victory, was one of the best pro-Boers in the 

 country. Count over the names of the leading 

 spirits in the Labour ranks and say if there is one 

 who bears on his brow the brand of Cain ? Their 

 whole-hearted denunciation of what they call " the 

 capitalists' war" leaves nothing to be desired by the 

 friends of peace. 



As if to emphasise the desire of the nation to 

 make atonement for the sins committed against the 

 Boers in South Africa, we find everywhere — outside 

 Birmingham — the authors and eulogists of the war 

 cast out with contumely, while the men who bravely 

 confronted the fury of the mob delirious for war 

 have been swept in triumph to the head of the polls. 

 Mr. Balfour was the first great sacr'fice to the in- 

 jured manes of our slaughtered brethren in South 

 Africa. Mr. Winston Churchill, who. as soon as 

 his eyes were opened, laboured night and day to save 

 our gallant foes from merciless destruction, was the 

 first conspicuous victor in the frav. Mr. Brodrick, 

 who was War Minister, was hurled from one of the 

 safest seats in the country by an unknown stranger. 

 Mr. Lyttelton, who was Colonial Minister, was de- 

 feated at Leamington. Mr. Arnold-Forster only 

 polled a mmority of the voters at Crovdon. Mr. 



Gerald Balfour was turned out at Leeds, and Mr. 

 Long at Bristol. One of the most sensational inci- 

 dents of the General Election was the defeat of Mr. 

 Chaplin by constituents whom he had represented 

 for nearly forty years. He was defeated by Mr. 

 Arnold Lupton, the bravest and staunchest Stop- 

 the-war man in the whole North Country. Both the 

 Secretaries of the South African Conciliation Com- 

 mittee, Mr. Molteno and Mr. Mackarness, have 

 been elected. So have Mr. Maddison, who was sac- 

 rificed in 1901 ; Mr. W. P. Byles, Mr. Roberts, Mr. 

 Everett, Mr. Greenwood, Mr. H. J. Wilson, and 

 many another stalwart. Even on the Tory side this 

 law of recompense prevails, and Sir E. Clarke, the 

 only distinguished Conservative who publicly con- 

 demned the war, polled the largest majority of any 

 candidate at the Election. We welcome with par- 

 ticular pleasure the enormous increase of Mr. Burt's 

 majority and the increii.sed majority by which the 

 brave old veteran founder of the Interparliamen- 

 tary Union, Mr. W. R. Cremer, was returned a< 

 H;iggerston. Verily, in the words of the Psalmist, 

 " the Lord has turned again the captivity of Israel." 



III.— THE OPPOSITION AND ITS CHIEFS. 



The new House of Commons contains more new 

 members than any other Parliament of our time. 

 The constituencies have made a clean sweep. Of 

 the 158 Unionists left in the House, nearly half 

 enter Parliament for the first time. The former 

 father of the House, Sir W. Hart-Dyke, has shared 

 the fate of Mr. Chaplin, and scores of the "tried 

 and trusted" veterans have been released from the 

 turmoil of parliamentary life. There are scores and 

 scores of quite young men, full of the enthusiasm, 

 the energy, and the optimism of youth. Democracy 

 has decided to make a new deal. We have to reckon 

 with a House singularly untrammelled by the con- 

 ventions and traditions of the past. Socially and 

 politically the majority is emancipated. It has no 

 fear of Mrs. Grundy before its eyes either in 

 Church or in State. At present the majority is but 

 a heterogeneous collocation of atoms. But it will 

 immediately develop a corporate consciousness. The 

 j)rocess will be all the more rapid because it is a 

 House elected for work and not for play. There 

 will still be tea on the Terrace, although some aus- 

 tere old members of the Labour Party menaced that 

 innocent mode of dissipation with extinction ; but 

 the House ^vill no longer be the pleasantest club in 

 London. It will be the workshop of a nation. The 

 new majority is a multitudinous embodiment of the 

 Strenuous Life. 



Mr. Balfour suffered a brief and humiliating 

 exile. It sheds a somewhat sinister reflection upon 

 the loyalty of his party that no candidate among 

 his followers offered to give place to the Unionist 

 leader. Only when the fight was over a refuge was 

 found for him in the Citv. But whether Mr. Bal- 



