Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/324

 was the chief measure before the cabinet, met with Canipbell-Bannerman's approval. On 8 June the proposals of the government were defeated in the House of Commons by 343 to 313, ninety-three liberals voting against the bill ( Gladstone, iii. 341). Gladstone dissolved parliament, was defeated at the polls, and Lord Salisbury accepted office for a second time. For six years (1886-92) the liberal party remained in opposition. During the period Campbell-Bannerman actively supported Gladstone in fighting the cause of Ireland and home rule. In 1887 he moved an amendment to Mr. A. J. Balfour's Irish land bill, to the effect that no bill of the kind was satisfactory which did not provide for revision of the judicial rents. In the course of the Irish controversy he described the process of adopting home rule as 'finding salvation,' and he invented the term 'Ulsteria' for the peculiar blend of Orange bigotry and Irish toryism which he imputed to the Irish opponents of home rule.

During the agitation for improved national defence in 1888-9 he maintained a critical attitude, strongly opposing any diminution of civilian control of the army, and any attempt to place that control entirely in the hands of military advisers. In June 1888 he served with Lord Randolph Churchill, W. H. Smith, and others, under the chairmanship of Lord Hartington (afterwards eighth duke of Devonshire [q. v. Suppl. II]), upon the royal commission appointed to inquire into the civil and professional administration of the naval and military departments. The commission reported finally in February 1890 (C. 5979 of 1890), when Campbell-Bannerman, who had been unable to take part in the consideration of the second portion of the report, added a memorandum expressing his general acquiescence in its tenour and his cordial concurrence in its principal recommendation, 'that the secretary of state should be advised by a council of military officers, who should be the heads of several military departments.' He at the same time strongly dissented 'from the further proposal to create a new department that, namely, of chief of the staff.' He reasoned that the innovation was unnecessary, and likely to re-introduce the evils incidental to the office of com mander-in-chief which the new council of general officers was designed to replace (10 Feb. 1890).

Lord Salisbury dissolved parliament in 1892, and his government was defeated at the polls. Thereupon Gladstone formed his fourth administration (July 1892), and Campbell-Bannerman joined the cabinet in his former post of secretary of state or war. He was a member of the cabinet committee which drafted the second home rule bill, which passed the House of Commons, but was decisively rejected by the House of Lords. When Lord Rosebery succeeded Gladstone as prime minister on 3 March 1894, Campbell-Bannerman retained his office. He was an active administrator. Under his regime at Pall Mall there was established a forty-eight hours week (or an average of eight hours a day) in the ordnance factories at Woolwich Arsenal and he justly anticipated no necessity for 'a reduction in wages' (see Hansard, 5 Jan. 1894). He also arranged for the delicate matter of the retirement of the duke of Cambridge from the office of commander-in-chief, and tactfully effected the step without disturbing the good relations which had always existed between the duke and himself. But he doubted the wisdom of offering the duke a special pension which was offered him later by the conservative government, and the duke declined the offer on the ground of this difference of view. On the day of Campbell-Bannerman's announcement of the duke's retirement (21 June 1895) Mr. St. John Brodrick (afterwards secretary of state for war and Viscount Midleton) moved a reduction of Campbell-Bannerman's salary on the ground that the reserves of cordite and other smallarm ammunition were inadequate. Campbell- Bannerman admitted that the reserves did not exceed 100,000,000 cartridges. The government was defeated by seven votes in a small house, 132 against 125 ; Lord Rosebery, the prime minister, resigned next day. A lack of harmony between Lord Rosebery and some of his colleagues partly prompted so serious a treatment of the adverse division. Harcourt, in announcing to the House of Commons Lord Rosebery's resignation and the queen's acceptance of it, said : 'The division of last Friday night upon the army vote for the war office was a direct vote of censure upon the secretary of state for the war department, than whom I will take on me to say there is no more able, more respected, or more popular minister.' Campbell-Bannerman received the G.C.B. on leaving office. The adverse vote had little positive justification. As Campbell-Bannerman subsequently explained (cf. speech at Newport, 30 Nov. 1903), expert opinion proved it inexpedient to keep in stock any large supply of cordite,