On Friday afternoon last week Mr. Chamberlain was present at
a meeting of the Committee of the Tariff Reform League, when Mr. C. A. Pearson resigned the chairmanship, and Lord Ridley was elected in his stead. Mr. Chamberlain afterwards favoured the Committee with a summary of the campaign up to date, which reads to us more like a lament than a paean. It was with something like weariness and a sense of failure that he admitted that be had underestimated the strength of the forces he bad to contend with. " I suppose that we may look forward to two or three years of this kind of work." The speech was full of the inconsistencies to which he has accustomed us of late. The question was not a party question, he said, and it was a scandal that the Opposition should have forced it into party lines ; and a little later he complained that his object might have been gained rapidly " if our own party had been absolutely united." He poured the vials of his contempt upon the weak-kneed Unionists who could not accept his whole policy. It was owing to such men that by-elections were lost, for no candi- date was of any value who was not " whole-hearted in the cause of Tariff Reform." Such a complaint is of course really a complaint against the whole Government, and especially against Mr. Balfour ; and the absurdity of the position is shown in the fact that Mr. Chamberlain can make such com- plaints, and next day protest his complete agreement with the Fabian policy of his colleagues on this very subject.
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