256 WITH MR. CHAMBERLAIN IN THE 



our own feelings if we did not offer to you and to 

 Mrs. Chamberlain some sort of public welcome, if 

 we did not assure you as a statesman of our un- 

 shaken confidence — (hear, hear) — and as a citizen of 

 our private esteem. (Cheers.) This meeting, Mr. 

 Chamberlain, interesting as it is, has no political 

 significance. (Hear, hear.) If some of those who 

 in past years have worked with you in political or in 

 municipal matters are not here to-night to join in 

 our welcome, their absence is not owing to any fault 

 of ours. (Hear, hear.) We welcome the states- 

 man who by his power and ability has won for him- 

 self with unusual rapidity so conspicuous a place in 

 the front rank, and who has shown by the constant 

 and faithful discharge of his public duties that he has 

 no private interests to accomplish or personal ends 

 to serve. (Cheers.) Your political views, sir, for 

 the purposes of this meeting, may be right or they 

 may be wrong. It is enough for us to say, in the 

 words of that veteran statesman, whose sick-bed we 

 have watched with such a personal grief — (hear, hear) 

 — and whose recovery we have hailed with such a 

 personal joy — (cheers) — that the man who is faithful 

 to the dictates of his own honest convictions, can 

 never be unfaithful either to his constituents or to 

 his country. (Cheers.) In these days, sir, political 

 changes are as sudden as they are unaccountable. 

 (Laughter.) Political memories are short, and the 

 friend of yesterday is but too often the opponent of 

 to-day, and who shall venture to predict what may 

 happen to-morrow ? If, in the immediate future, 

 you should find any defections in the ranks of those 



