Mr. Chamberlain made a very able speech at the Consti-
tutional Club on Wednesday, the Earl of Kintore in the chair. Lord Kintore, in proposing Mr. Chamberlain's health, struck the right key when he said that Mr. Chamberlain had won the respect of the country by his steady subordination of party interests to those of the country. The Conservative grudge against him of which we hear so much,—so much more indeed than its actual extent justifies,—is really, we believe, due to a sort of resentment against him for not ful- filling the expectations of those who always regarded him as a mere partisan. Mr. Chamberlain, in his reply to the toast, took up a remark of Lord Kintore's that in a club of six thousand members it was impossible for all of them to be- come Cabinet Ministers, by explaining that, even if they could, they would not find the position exactly a bed of roses, and saying with a smile that perhaps, as Cabinets were getting larger and larger every year, the time might come when even the whole Constitutional Club might hope to be included in the Cabinet. He remarked that the victory of last year was less due to the merits of the Unionists than to the demerits of the Gladstonians, especially in trying to please so many different Radical cliques on condition that every clique should pay for what was done for it by helping on all the other fads similarly taken up. He thought Lord Rosebery had shown that he cared little for the continuity of our foreign policy by criticising so sharply Lord Salisbury's action, but he
acknowledged with gratitude the hearty support which he himself had received in dealing with the,Colonial policy of Great Britain.
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