Mr. Chamberlain further contends that as Lord Salis- bury was
privy to the negotiations with the Colonial Premiers up to the date of his resignation in 1902, be plainly approved of both retaliation and Colonial pre- ference up to that time, and adds :—" In the period inter- vening before his death in 1903 I do not think that I said anything beyond the reassertion of these two general principles. The speeches in which I have developed the policy have all been delivered subsequently, beginning with that made in Glasgow on October 6th, 1903." These post- humous invocations of authority are always unsatisfactory. Mr. Chamberlain is entitled to make what capital he can out of selected extracts from Lord Salisbury's speeches in 1885 or 1892, but he would have done better not to have dragged his late chief's name into the controversy. In the kaleidoscopic evolution of the Protectionist doctrine it is only the last phase that counts, and the last phase of Lord Salisbury was one of profound dissent from Mr. Chamberlain's Fiscal policy. If Mr. Chamberlain had quitted the political arena for good and all in 1902, he might have been claimed as a stalwart Free- trader on the strength of his speeches in 1885.
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