clearly demonstrated that adequate and even excessive preparation for war, if made in time, is the cheapest policy in the end. Probably not one of Mr. Goschen's colleagues would have had the authority which enabled him to raise naval expenditure from the 18 millions as it stood in 1896 to the 27 millions, besides two millions on naval works, nearly 30 millions in all, which it reached in 1900; for as an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer he knew the importance of economy, and he could be trusted to get proper value for the vast sum he expended. Not only this, but he was known to be, after the Prime Minister himself, the member of the Cabinet who was best acquainted ' with foreign affairs and the relations towards us and inter se 'of the continental nations.' It was a fortunate circumstance for this country that one of the strongest, ablest, and most patriotic of her statesmen should have held this particular post during a critical time. When after thirty-seven years of continuous parliamentary work he decided, on the approach of the so-called 'Khaki' election, that the time had come for him to retire from office and accept a peerage, an honour never more worthily bestowed, no one could have anticipated that another urgent call to arms would find him still in the forefront of the battle; and that the Unionist party, built up so largely by his efforts, was on the eve of disruption. There is something curiously dramatic in the varying personal relations of Lord Goschen and Mr. Chamberlain. Nothing but a political convulsion of the first magnitude could have brought together two statesmen so anti-pathetic in their political training and outlook and enabled them to work in outward harmony, and even to sit in the same Cabinet for a long series of years. It was no less singular that another turn of the wheel should have sundered these relations and made them protagonists on opposite sides in a struggle not less momentous than the first. To many readers the concluding chapters of this book will be of more captivating interest than the rest. For in them Mr. Elliot gives us the story, again at first hand and from personal knowledge, of the Unionist stand against the Protectionist reaction, a stand in which Lord Goschen played the leading part until his death in February 1907. In none of the controversies in which he had been engaged did he take a more honourable or more influential share. He had, as he said, been a Missionary of Empire' but always a Free Trader; and Free Trade with him, like his other economic opinions, was not a matter of doctrinaire prejudice but the result of thought and observation. I have worked out these problems for myself 'he told the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce in 1903. 'I have been a patient observer of commercial, banking and trade affairs, ' and it is from that point of view I speak to you as a business man.' He was not content to repeat without verification the opinions he had always held, and when the question was first raised he set himself with the energy which younger men do not often show to bring his knowledge up to date and test his opinions by the study of all the recent authorities and fresh statistics he could lay hands upon. When he spoke, therefore, it was with a weight of argument and a wealth of illustration which carried all before it and pulverised Mr. Chamberlain's case; and the very fact which Mr. Elliot notes that 'he had no wish to bring ' recruits to Radicalism' and that he spoke from the point of view of one who had done with office and was bent on maintaining a non-party and non-electioneering attitude,' gave all the greater force to his endeavours to enlighten the political quackery, as he thought it, by which it was attempted to delude the people into accepting a policy most injurious to the ' interests of the nation and the empire.' From the day in June 1903 when he raised the question of preferential tariffs in the House of Lords and struck the keynote of the coming discussion (as he had done on more than one former occasion) in a striking epigrammatic phrase It is a gamble in the food of the people '-down to the election of 1906 when Free Trade had been saved (as the Duke of Devonshire remarked for the present'), his speeches weighed, as the same statesman said, ' almost more in the public mind than those of any other man.' It has not often in English history been given to a public man to carry on to the end of his life an activity so beneficial to his countrymen and so fortunate in the public esteem which he increasingly enjoyed. Of Lord Goschen's characteristics as a statesman the foregoing notes on his career will perhaps have given some idea. He was cautious, astute, ambitious, analytical, with a razor-like quickness of intellect; but he joined to these qualities others which are not often allied to them: devotion to principles, courage in asserting them, personal disinterestedness and high-mindedness, and consistency in action-qualities which do not always secure their reward in public life but which always elevate and adorn it. In politics,' wrote his friend Mr. Arthur Butler, he was a strong Liberal of the left centre, and he claimed that he had never abandoned this position, even when he had joined the Carlton.' The claim is just, though a 'conservative unwillingness to change increased ' with advancing years.' He was a thoroughly loyal colleague, 6 but his love of detail, his critical attitude towards his subordinates, and his manner of balancing till the latest moment the pros and cons of any particular course made him a somewhat exacting chief in official life. His caution, his sensitiveness, and the moderation of his opinions disguised feelings of unusual depth and strength, and his nature was the very reverse of phlegmatic. The words furious' and 'angry' often recur in his letters and diaries, and he might, like Montlosier, have been described as one 'qui aimait la sagesse avec folie et la 'modération avec transport.' Two things specially, observes Mr. Elliot, provoked him to indignation when he thought he perceived them: 'the setting class against class and the manifestation of indifference to the greatness and power of the nation.' He was in short' at the same time a moderate man and a fighting man,' and he 'aspired not unsuccessfully to make moderation a force.' No combination of qualities is rarer, and none could conceivably be of greater use in a democratic state. Of Lord Goschen's private and domestic relations Mr. Elliot gives a most attractive account. His houses, whether in London or the country, were real homes where family life was seen at its best. Those who had known him only in official life were sometimes surprised to find at Seacox Heath the best and most genial of hosts-gay, cheerful, and courteous with old and young alike. There was indeed no society in which he ' was not the best of company, and no one appreciated or told a good story better than himself.' His retentive memory, his wide cultivation, his interest in men and things, made him a most brilliant talker; he drew around him as his friends the best and most distinguished men and women of his day, and he was a member of many of those clubs and inner social coteries such as the Cosmopolitan, the Breakfast Club, and Grillion's, to which political eminence alone is no sufficient or certain passport. It is well that these traits and attributes-the human side of the great statesman-should have been treated so fully and sympathetically as they are in these volumes, for without them no true picture of the man would have been possible, and the memory of them is far more fleeting than that of political achievements and public services. No. CCCCXXXVII. will be published in July. 553 INDEX A. Army Training, Memorandum on' reviewed, 321. Asquith, Right Hon. Herbert H., Speech at Hull (November 25, B. Balfour, Right Hon. Arthur, Speeches at Nottingham (November 6 Barbary Corsairs, The, 443--Turkey and the Levantine corsairs, Bateson, W., Mendel's Principles of Heredity' reviewed, 77. Biddulph of Ledbury, The Lady, Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth 'Board of Education, University Reports for 1908-9' reviewed, 57. British Army and Modern Conceptions of War, The, 321-the Boer Brown, G. Baldwin, The Care of Ancient Monuments' reviewed, 370. C. Campbell, Douglas Houghton, Ph.D., Lectures on Evolution of Conflict of Colour, The, 419-annexation of the Punjab, 419-effect |