In many ways Sir William Harcourt's speech deserves the highest
praise. Nothing could have been more honourable or more generous than the way in which he dealt with the personal innuendos against Mr. Chamberlain. In this respect his speech was worthy of the best traditions of our political life, and showed how high is Sir William Harcourt's standard of gentlemanly conduct. Quite excellent, too, was the way in which he dealt with the Rhodes group. " They are the authors of these suspicions. It is the agents of Mr. Rhodes who have en- deavoured to cover their guilt by suggesting, and more than suggesting, by asserting, the complicity of the Colonial Office." They set to work to engineer the apparent com- plicity of the Colonial Office, as they had engineered the apparent complicity of Lord Roamead. To allow these men to continue to cover themselves by the suggested connivance of the Colonial Office from the responsibility of their malefactions was, declared Sir William Harcourt, not safe in the public interest. Therefore, he supported an inquiry which would put aside those mischievous suspicions which the Colonial Secretary had repudiated.
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