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JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN (1836— )
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See also:JOSEPH See also:
His See also:programme was " See also:free See also:
In later life Oxford- and See also:Cambridge gave him their doctors' degrees; and in 1897 he was made See also:lord See also:rector of See also:Glasgow
University (delivering an address on " Patriotism " at his See also:installation)
.
In 1876 Mr Dixon resigned his seat in See also:parliament, and Mr Chamberlain was returned for Birmingham in his place unopposed, as John See also:Bright's colleague
.
He made his See also:maiden speech in the House of See also:Commons on the 4th of See also:August 1876, on Lord Sandon's Education See also:Bill
.
At this period, too, he paid much See also:attention to the question of licensing reform, and in 1876 he examined the See also:Gothenburg system in See also:Sweden, and advocated a See also:solution of the problem in See also:England on similar lines
.
During 1877 the new federation of Liberal Associations which became known as the " See also:Caucus " was started under Mr Chamberlain's See also:influence in Birmingham—its secretary, Mr Schnadhorst, quickly making himself See also:felt as a See also:wire-puller of exceptional ability; and the new organization had a remarkable effect in putting life into the Liberal party, which since Mr See also:Gladstone's retirement in 1874 had been much in need of a stimulus
.
When the general election came in 188o, Mr Schnadhorst's See also:powers were demonstrated in the successes won under his auspices
.
The Liberal partynumbered 349, against 243 Conservatives and 6o Irish Nationalists; and the Radical See also:section of the Liberal party, led by Mr Chamberlain and See also:Sir See also:
In June 1885 he made a speech at Birmingham, treating the reforms just mentioned as the " See also:ransom " that See also:property must pay to society for the See also:security it enjoys—for which Lord See also:Iddesleigh called him " See also:Jack See also:Cade "; and he continually urged the Liberal party to take up these Radical measures
.
At the general election of See also:November 1885 Mr Chamberlain was returned for See also:West Birmingham
.
The Liberal strength generally was, however, reduced to 335 members, though the Radical section held their own; and the Irish See also:vote became necessary to Mr Gladstone if he was to command a majority
.
In See also:December it was stated that Mr Gladstone in-tended to propose See also:Home See also:Rule for See also:Ireland, and in See also:January Lord See also:Salisbury's See also:ministry was defeated on the Address, on an See also:amendment moved by Mr Chamberlain's Birmingham henchman, Mr See also:Jesse Collings (b
.
1831), embodying the " three acres and a cow " of the Radical programme
.
Unlike Lord Hartington (after-wards See also:duke of See also:Devonshire) and other Liberals, who declined to join Mr Gladstone in view of the altered attitude he was adopting towards Ireland, Mr Chamberlain entered the cabinet as president of the Local Government Board (with Mr Jesse Collings as parliamentary secretary), but on the 15th of See also:
When the House met in August, it was decided by the Liberal Unionists, under Lord Hartington's leadership, that their policy henceforth was essentially to combine with the Tories to keep Mr Gladstone out
.
The old Liberal feeling still prevailing among them was too strong, however, for their leaders to take office in a See also:coalition ministry
.
It was enough for them to be able to tie down the Conservative' government to such measures as were not offensive to Liberal Unionist principles
.
It still seemed possible, moreover, that the Gladstonians might be brought to modify their Home Rule proposals, and in January 1887 a See also:Round Table See also:conference (suggested by Mr Chamberlain) was held between Mr Chamberlain, Sir G
.
Trevelyan, Sir See also:
The visit also resulted, in November 1888, in his See also:marriage with his third wife, Miss Endicott, daughter of the United States secretary of war in President See also:Cleveland's first See also:administration
.
At the general election of 1892 Mr Chamberlain was again returned, with an increased majority, for West Birmingham; but the Unionist party as a whole came back with only 315 members against 355 Home Rulers
.
In August Lord Salisbury's ministry was defeated; and on the 13th of February 1893 Mr Gladstone introduced his second Home Rule Bill, which was eventually read a third time on the 1st of See also:September
.
During the eighty-two days' discussion in the House of Commons Mr Chamberlain was the life and soul of the opposition, and his criticisms had a vital influence upon the attitude of the See also:country when the House of Lords summarily threw out the bill
.
His See also:chief contribution to the discussions during the later stages of the Gladstone and See also:Rosebery ministries was in connexion with Mr See also:Asquith's abortive Employers' Liability Bill, when he fore-shadowed the method of dealing with this question afterwards carried out in the See also:Compensation Act of 1897
.
Outside parliament he was busy formulating proposals for old See also:age See also:pensions, which had a prominent place in the Unionist programme of 1895
.
In
that year, on the defeat of Lord Rosebery, the union of the Unionists was sealed by the inclusion of the Liberal Unionist leaders in Lord Salisbury's ministry; and Mr Chamberlain became secretary of See also:state for the colonies
.
There had been much See also:speculation as to what his See also:post would be, and his nomination to the colonial office, then considered one of secondary rank, excited some surprise; but Mr Chamberlain himself realized how important that See also:department had become
.
He carried with him into the ministry his See also:close Birmingham municipal associates, Mr Jesse Collings (as under secretary of the home office), and Mr J
.
See also:Powell-See also:Williams (1840–1904) as See also:financial secretary to the war office
.
Mr Chamberlain's influence in the Unionist cabinet was soon visible in the Workmen's Compensation Act and other measures
.
This act, though in Sir See also:Matthew See also: Another " social " measure of less importance, which formed part of the Chamberlain programme, was the Small Houses Acquisition Act of 1899; but the problem of old age pensions was less easily solved . This subject had been handed over in 1893 to a royal commission, and further discussed by a select committee in 1899 and a departmental committee in 1900, but both of these threw See also:cold water on, the schemes laid before them—a result which, galling enough to one who had made so much See also:play with the question in the country, offered welcome material to his opponents for electioneering recrimination, as year by year went by between 1895 and 1900 and nothing resulted from all the confident talk on the subject in which Mr Chamberlain had indulged when out of office . Eventually it was the Liberal and not the Unionist party that carried an Old Age Pensions scheme through parliament, during the 1908 session, when Mr Chamberlain was hors de combat . From January 1896 (the date of the See also:Jameson See also:Raid) onwards See also:South See also:Africa demanded , the chief attention of the colonial secretary (see SOUTH AFRICA, and for details TRANSVAAL) . In his negotiations with President See also:Kruger one masterful temperament was pitted against another . Mr Chamberlain had a very difficult part to play, in a situation dominated by suspicion on both sides, and while he firmly insisted on the rights of Great See also:Britain and of British subjects in the Transvaal, he was the continual object of Radical See also:criticism at home . Never has a statesman's personality been more bitterly associated by his political opponents with the developments they deplored . Attempts were even made to ascribe financial motives to Mr Chamberlain's actions, and the political See also:atmosphere was thick with suspicion and See also:scandal . The See also:report of the Commons committee (July 1897) definitely acquitted both Mr Chamberlain and the colonial office of any privity in the Jameson Raid, but Mr Chamberlain's detractors continued to assert the contrary . Opposition hostility reached such a See also:pitch that in 1899 there was hardly an act of the cabinet during the negotiations with President Kruger which was not attributed to the See also:personal malignity and unscrupulousness of the colonial secretary . The elections of 1900 (when he was again returned, unopposed, for West Birmingham) turned upon the individuality of a single See also:minister more than any since the days of Mr Gladstone's ascendancy, and Mr Chamberlain, never conspicuous for inclination to turn his other cheek to the smiter,was not slow to return the blows with interest . Apart from South Africa, his most important work at this time was the successful passing of the Australian See also:Commonwealth Act (1900), in which both tact and firmness were needed to See also:settle certain See also:differences between the imperial government and the colonial delegates . Mr Chamberlain's See also:tenure of the office of colonial secretary between 1895 and 1900 must always be regarded as a turning-point in the See also:history of the relations between the British colonies and the See also:mother country . His See also:accession to office was marked by speeches breathing a new spirit of imperial consolidation, em-bodied either in suggestions for commercial union or in more immediately practicable proposals for improving the " imperialestate "; and at the See also:Diamond See also:Jubilee of 1897 the visits of the colonial premiers to London emphasized and confirmed the new policy, the fruits of which were afterwards seen in the cordial support given by the colonies in the See also:Boer War . Even in what Mr Chamberlain called his " Radical days " he had never supported the " See also:Manchester " view of the value of a colonial empire; and during the Gladstone ministry of 1882–1885 Mr Bright had remarked that the junior member for Birmingham was the only See also:Jingo in the cabinet—meaning, no doubt, that he objected to the policy of laissez-faire and the timidity of what was afterwards known as " Little Englandism." While he was still under Mr Gladstone's influence these opinions were kept in subordination; but Mr Chamberlain was always an imperial federationist, and from 1887 onwards he constantly gave expression to his views on the desirability of See also:drawing the different parts of the empire closer together for purposes of See also:defence and See also:commerce . In 1895 the time for the realization of these views had come; and Mr Chamberlain's speeches, previously remark-able chiefly for debating See also:power and directness of See also:argument, were nowdominated by a newnote of constructive statesmanship, basing itself on the economic necessities of a See also:world-wide empire . Not the least of the anxieties of the colonial office during this period was the situation in the West Indies, where the See also:cane-See also:sugar See also:industry was being steadily undermined by the See also:European bounties given to exports of See also:continental See also:beet; and though the government restricted themselves to attempts at removing the bounties by negotiation and to measures for palliating the worst effects in the West Indies, Mr Chamberlain made no See also:secret of his repudiation of the See also:Cobden See also:Club view that See also:retaliation would be contrary to the doctrines of free trade, and he did his utmost to educate public See also:opinion at home into understanding that the responsibilities of the mother country are not merely to be construed according to the selfish interests of a nation of consumers . As regards foreign affairs, Mr Chamberlain more than once (and particularly at See also:Leicester on 30th November 1899) indicated his leanings towards a closer understanding between the British empire, the United States and See also:Germany ,—a See also:suggestion which did not See also:save him from an extravagant outburst of See also:German hostility during the Boer War . The unusually outspoken and pointed expression, however, of his disinclination to submit to See also:Muscovite duplicity or to " See also:pin-pricks " or " unmannerliness " from France was criticized on the See also:score of discretion by a wider circle than that of his political adversaries . During the progress of the Boer War from 1899 to 1902, Mr Chamberlain, as the statesman who had represented the cabinet in the negotiations which led to it, remained the object of constant attacks from his Radical opponents—the "little Englanders " and " See also:Pro-Boers," as he called them—and he was supported by the Imperialist and Unionist party with at least equal ardour . But as colonial secretary, except in so far as his consistent support of Lord See also:Milner and his enthusiastic encouragement of colonial assistance were concerned, he naturally played only a subordinate part during the carrying out of the military operations . Among domestic statesmen he was felt, however, to be the backbone of the party in power . He was the See also:hero of the one See also:side, just as he was the bugbear of the other . On the 13th of February 1902 he was presented with an address in a See also:gold See also:casket by the See also:city See also:corporation, and entertained at See also:luncheon at the See also:Mansion House, an See also:honour not unconnected with the strong feeling recently aroused by his See also:firm reply (at Birmingham, January 11) to some remarks made by See also:Count von Billow, the German chancellor, in the Reichstag (January 8), reflecting the offensive allegations current in Germany against the conduct of the See also:army in South Africa . Mr Chamberlain's speech, in See also:answer to what had been intended as a contemptuous rebuke, was universally applauded . His own imperialism was intensified by the way in which England's difficulties resulted in calling forth colonial assistance and so cementing the bonds of empire . The domestic crisis, and the See also:sharp cleavage between parties at home, had driven the See also:bent of his mind and policy further and further away from the purely municipal and national ideals which he had followed so keenly before he became colonial minister . The problems of empire engrossed him, and a new See also:enthusiasm for imperial projects arose in the Unionist party under his See also:inspiration . No See also:English statesman probably has ever been, at different times in his career, so able an advocate of absolutely contradictory policies, and his opponents were not slow to taunt him with quotations from his earlier speeches . As the war See also: |