It has been formally given out that the Duke of
Devonshire will still remain at the head of the Liberal Unionist Party, but that Mr. Chamberlain will be its leader for the future in the House of Commons, Sir Henry James having been, as we anticipated, the first to see that this is the appropriate and natural arrangement, and that which is most likely to conduce to the success of the Unionist policy. Mr. Herbert Glad- stone thinks that the Duke of Devonshire in the House of Lords will probably prove a much more effective Liberal than Lord Hartington in the House of Commons, where the repellent Radicalism of the extreme wing was always stimulating his natural Conservatism, whereas now the torpid and reactionary Toryism of the Lords will steadily stimulate his natural Liberalism. That may very probably be the result. Let us hope, too, that Mr. Chamberlain may be forced by his new position into a little of that indignation against the destructives to which the Duke of Devonshire / will no longer feel a constant incitement. Mr. Chamberlain has some very healthy Conservative instincts in him, admirable Radical though he be.
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