MR. CHAMBERLAIN.*

TETE part played by Mr. Chamberlain in the public history of the last twenty years has been so conspicuous, and the personal element has had so prominent a share in the con- troversies in which he has been engaged, that no apology is needed for a book aiming, from almost any point of view, at the diffusion of a just estimate of his character and work. The book before us is written quite frankly from the point of view of the admirer,—but, let us hasten to add, the admirer possessed of both intelligence and good taste. There is nothing here in the shape of fulsome eulogy. What is aimed at, and in the main achieved, by the writer, Miss N. Murrell Marris, is the orderly setting forth of the salient facts in Mr. Chamberlain's public career, and also the indication of essen- tial aspects of his more private life, in such fashion as to enable the reader at large to understand the singular bold which he possesses over the mind and heart of the mighty industrial community with which his name will always be so intimately associated, and though in a less degree, yet very really, upon the confidence of themasses of his fellow-country- men in Great Britain and in the Colonies.

Mr. Chamberlain would doubtless have been a great

The Eight Honourable Joseph Chamberlain: the Manama the statesman. By N. Murrell Marti& WW1 Many Illtuttratkms. London: Hutoldnoan and Co. [Ws. net.]

Parliamentarian if he had sat in the old unreformed House of Commons as nominee of the proprietor of Gatton or Old Sarum, but his foree as a politician in a democratic age has been immeasurably enhanced by the fact of his continuous and always triumphant election as one of the representatives of Birmingham. Miss Marris, we think, exhibits the rationale of this connection in a light which shows it to have been eminently honourable to the representative and the con- stituency alike. A Londoner by birth, and a member of a Unitarian family of substantial means who for several genera- tions have held high office in the ancient Cordwainers' Com- pany, Mr. Chamberlain was educated at private schools, and for two years under Dr. Key at University College School, where, when he left at the age of sixteen, he "was the head mathe- matical scholar of his year, was bracketed first in mechanics, hydrostatics, Sce., and also in French (dividing the prize with Jules Benedict, sea of the musician), and was distinguished in Latin." Little was done in the way of athletics at University College School in those days, and in that little Joseph Chamberlain hardly cared to join. We gather, however, though the subject is very delicately touched, that he had been found at his first private school by no means unwilling to use Nature's weapons in vindication of his natural right to be President of a Peace Society which he had founded. An athlete he never became, nor a sportsman, but he enjoyed

swimming, and was good at it, and a present may be made to "F. C. G." of the fact that in Birmingham society, in the

later " fifties " and early "sixties," his good dancing was an element in the popularity he enjoyed. For, after two years spent in acquiring the art and mystery of cordwaining, it was to Birmingham he was sent to develop with his cousin Nettle. fold a new patent for screw-making. Develop it they did, and the whole business connected with it, until in 1865, out of one hundred and thirty thousand gross of screws produced weekly in Birmingham, no fewer than ninety thousand gross were turned out by Nettlefold and Chamberlain. And this—old slanders on the subject having long ago withered—they accomplished by perfectly honourable enterprise, marked by just those kinds of resource and adaptability the lack of which has so often stood in the way of the successful compe- tition of British with Continental manufacturers. The result was that at the age of thirty-eight Mr. Chamberlain was able to retire from business, and to throw himself entirely, young, fresh, and all but unworn, into those varied forms of public work in which he had already for several years taken an increasingly active and prominent part.

For a considerable period, after obtaining its charter under the Municipal Reform Act, Birmingham, while very keenly interested in general politics, and largely from the Radical point of view, was far from being in the van of progress in respect of self-government. The town "was backward in spending money on civic improvements; its representatives on the Council had little taste for remedying abuses, and reforms which would not only cause ill-feeling but cost money were

shelved indefinitely ; the main object was to keep down the rates, not to improve the town." The administration of local affairs passed mainly into the hands of an inferior class of citizens, and among men of culture and social consideration the membership and work of the Town Council came to be regarded with contempt. It was this unwholesome state of

things which Mr. Chamberlain was prominently active, both by example and by precept, in transforming for the better. A movement in that direction had been begun, indeed, some years before he entered municipal life. Its "prophet," in the phrase of Dr. Dale, was the late Mr. George Dawson. Dr. Dale himself and other eminent ministers of

religion, Mr. Bunce, the able editor of the Birmingham Post, and other influential men gave it support of essential value from outside the Council. But of the active reformers within

the Corporation Mr. Chamberlain appears to have been, .0 though not by any means the earliest, the first who obtained a commanding hold of the public mind through the exhibition of combined zeal, persuasive power, and high business capacity :—

" When Mr. Chamberlain joined the Council there were only three members (Messrs. Avery, Jesse Collings, and Harris) who sympathised with his ideals of municipal government; but no exertions were spared to induce capable and energetic men hold- ing similar views to present themselves for election. He devoted himself ardently to the cause, speaking frequently in the wards and enlisting recruits for the Council. The members of the

Reform party grew steadily, and only four years after he became a member of it a crowning effort was made. Every ward in the town was contested amid excitement which rivalled that of a ; General Election. The Reformers came in with a very large majority, and immediately elected Mr. Chamberlain as Mayor (November, 1873)."

We have not space even to glance here at the uses to which

this great victory was put, but can assure our readers that ' they will find ample evidence in Miss Marris's pages that the three years for which Mr. Chamberlain's mayoralty was pro- longed were years of singularly fruitful municipal activity in respect of arrangements for water supply and gas supply, and of sanitary and street improvement. In regard to all these matters Mr. Chamberlain exhibited a striking combination of administrative and diplomatic faculty with intensity of

ardour for improvement in the conditions of local life, and especially that of the poorest inhabitants. So it was that when in June, 1876, Mr. George Dixon resigned his Beat as one of Mr. Bright's colleagues in the representation of Birmingham, nothing seemed more natural, or indeed inevitable, than that Mr. Chamberlain should be, as he was, returned in his room, unopposed and amid great enthusiasm. Several years previously Mr. Chamberlain's name had become known outside Birmingham as that of a vigorous and effective exponent of Radical opinion. His first programme, put

forward in a Fortnightly Review article (September, 1873), was summed up in the somewhat misleading phrase," Free Labour, Free Land, Free Church, and Free Schools,"—misleading. because the word " free " is used in some of these cases in a sense quite different from that in which it applies to the others.

It was for some years in connection with the propaganda of the National Education League for practically universal free, rate- aided, and uneectarian schools that Mr. Chamberlain's pre- Parliamentary political activity was most conspicuous. We find nothing in this book to modify the view always held by the present writer that the bitter temper shown towards Mr. Forster by Mr. Chamberlain and other adherents of the League, on account of the compromise-settlement of the question of primary schools embodied in the Education Act of 1870, was without real justification. Still, there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of the convictions with which, in the country and on the Birmingham School Board, of which he was actually chair- man concurrently with his mayoralty, Mr. Chamberlain de- nounced the Education Act, and strove to administer it, as far as might be, in the spirit of the League. On educational, as on many other questions, Mr. Chamberlain's views have widened as the years have gone on and new political associa- tions have been formed, as is shown by his vindication of the legislation of the present Government in aid of voluntary schools.

On the other hand, Miss Marris's book brings into view quite clearly and fairly the very considerable degree in which Mr. Chamberlain has been able, both from without and from within Unionist Governments, to promote legislation ameliorating the condition of the working classes, in pursuance of aspirations declared in his early Radical days. If, despite his original aims, denominational schools survive with his goodwill, it must be very largely attributed to him that primary education is free of charge. His influence, again, must be mainly credited with legislation of the type of the Small Holdings and Allotments Acts, directed to the benefit of the agricultural labourers, with whose hardships, though himself a townsman, he has, it is clear, always felt a genuine sympathy. Again, Miss Marris's readers will not fail to recognise the unmistakable evidences she produces that, though for a time it may have been somewhat latent—possibly under Gladstonian influence —the Imperial vein was distinctly a part of Mr. Chamberlain's early as well as of his later temper. It was called out promi- nently by the necessity under which he found himself of

resisting Mr. Gladstone's project of Home-rule, and was im- pressively declared in the speech in which he rallied his con- stituents to the position he had taken up at that most critical moment in his career. Since then it has increasingly domi- nated his public conduct, and thereby, despite whatever

occasional errors in the manner of its manifestation, has influenced profoundly, and in the main, as we believe, dis- tinctly for good, the national position and prospects. Mr.

Chamberlain's career, towards a just appreciation of which the book before us is a genuine and interesting contribution, is, happily, according to all human probabilities, still far from its close. If he will only be ready, as to no inconsiderable extent he has shown himself in the past, to learn from his own mistakes, it is hard to place any limit to the magnitude of the services which he may render to the world-wide British realm.