Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/621

 offices he claimed to be consulted, and freely placed his knowledge and judgment of persons at his minister's disposal. But, save occasionally where he wished to serve a friend in a military, naval, colonial, diplomatic, or ecclesiastical promotion, the minister's choice was practically unfettered. The personal machinery of government interested him, however, more than its legislative work or policy, but he effected little of importance even in that direction. When in 1904 resignations rent asunder Mr. Balfour's ministry and reconstruction became necessary, the king made some endeavour to repair the breaches. He sought to overcome in a powerful quarter hesitation to co-operate with Mr. Balfour. But to the king's disappointment nothing came of his effort. It was one of many illustrations of his virtual powerlessness to influence political events.

On 5 Dec. 1905 the king accepted Mr. Balfour's resignation, and admitted to office his third prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman [q. v. Suppl. II], the leader of the liberal party. The change of ministry was emphatically ratified by the general election of January 1906, and the liberals remained in power till the king's death. The fall of the conservatives caused the king little disquiet. The return of the liberals to office after a ten years' exclusion seemed to him to be quite fair, and to maintain a just equilibrium between opposing forces in the state. His relations with Gladstone had shown that a distrust of the trend of liberal policy need be no bar to friendly intimacy with liberal leaders. He had slightly known Campbell-Bannerman as minister of war in the last liberal administration of 1892-5. But the politician's severe strictures on military operations in south Africa during 1901 had displeased the king. Early in the reign he had hesitated to meet him at a private dinner party, but he suppressed his scruples and the meeting convinced him of Campbell-Bannerman's sincere anxiety to preserve the peace of Europe, while his Scottish humour attracted him.

With constitutional correctness the king abstained from interference in the construction of the new cabinet, and he received the new ministers with open-minded serenity. The innovation of including The liberal among them a labour member, ministry of Mr. John Burns, was not uncongenial to him. His earlier relations with Mr. Broadhurst and Mr. Arch taught him the prudence of bestowing responsible positions on representatives of labour. Mr. Burns personally interested him, and he was soon on cordial terms with him. With another of the liberal ministers, Lord Carrington, afterwards marquis of Lincolnshire, minister for agriculture, he had been intimate since boyhood. Mr. Herbert Gladstone, home secretary, was a son of his old friend. Mr. Haldane, secretary for war, whose genial temper and grasp of German life and learning appealed to him, quickly became a persona grata. With the ministers in other posts he found less in common, and he came into little contact with them, save in ceremonial functions.

The grant by the new ministry of self-government to the newly conquered provinces of south Africa excited the king's serious misgivings, and he feared a surrender of the fruits of the late war. But he contented himself with a remonstrance, and there was no diminution of his good relations with the liberal prime minister. After little more than two years of power Campbell-Bannerman fell ill, and from February 1908 his strength slowly failed. Just before setting out on his #annual visit to Biarritz the king took farewell of the statesman at his official residence in Downing Street (4 March 1908). The king manifested the kindliest sympathy with his dying servant. A month later the prime minister forwarded his resignation, and recommended as his successor Mr. Asquith, the chancellor of the exchequer. The king was still at Biarritz, and thither Mr. Asquith travelled to surrender his old place and to be admitted to the headship of the government. There was a murmur of dissatisfaction that so important a function of state as the installation of a new prime minister should be performed by the king in a foreign hotel. Nothing of the kind had happened before in English history. The king's health was held to justify the breach of etiquette. But the episode brought into strong relief the king's aloofness from the working of politics and a certain disinclination hastily to adapt his private plans to political emergencies.

Mr. Asquith's administration was rapidly formed without the king's assistance. It mainly differed from that of his predecessor by the elevation of Mr. Lloyd George to the chancellorship of the exchequer and the admission of Mr. Winston Churchill to the cabinet. Neither appointment evoked