Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/228

 by a majority of seven, on 21 June, on a motion dealing with the supply of cordite, led to their immediate resignation: On 24 June, when Harcourt announced his retirement, he described the office of leader of the House of Commons as 'one of greater responsibility and higher obligation even than any office under the crown.' The highest of his ambitions was 'to stand well with the House of Commons.' It was his last speech as a minister of the crown.

The general election that followed was disastrous for the liberal party. Harcourt, while he appealed to his constituents for a mandate to deal with the House of Lords, and to pass the remainder of the Newcastle programme, emphasised the urgent need of temperance legislation. The plea was not popular. On 13 July the two liberal candidates at Derby, Harcourt and Sir Thomas Roe, were both defeated. The final result of the electoral conflict was to put the conservatives into power with the large majority of 152. For the second time Harcourt had to seek a new constituency, and West Monmouth was generously vacated in his favour by Cornelius Marshall Warmington, K.C., who was created a baronet in 1908. Although the liberal majority there was over 5000, the seat was contested, but Harcourt succeeded in slightly increasing the majority. Parliament met on 12 Aug. for the passing of supply, and was prorogued on 5 Sept. Harcourt spent the greater part of the next four months in retirement at Malwood.

Parliament met on 11 Feb. 1896, and Harcourt once more led the opposition with unabated vigour. Speaking at Bournemouth on 11 March 1896 he pledged the liberal party to the principle of self-government for Ireland, to a reform of registration and of the House of Lords, and to the cause of temperance. During the session he attacked the advance of the Anglo-Egyptian army into the Soudan, and asked for an inquiry into the circumstances of the Jameson Raid. After the trial of Dr. Jameson, Mr. Chamberlain moved for a select committee to inquire into recent events in Africa (30 July), and he accepted Harcourt's amendment to extend the inquiry to the raid itself. He was appointed a member of the committee, but only one meeting was held before Parliament was prorogued. From Feb. to July 1897 the committee continued its work at short intervals. Harcourt was prominent in examining witnesses, and his examination of Cecil Rhodes, though severe and searching, was universally admitted to be just. Finally in July Harcourt signed the majority report, which condemned the raid and censured Rhodes, but exonerated the colonial office and the high commissioner. Some members of his own party complained that the findings of the committee were inconclusive. Labouchere accused the two front benches of a conspiracy of silence, and declared that the committee had failed to probe the matter to the bottom. Harcourt defended the committee's decision, which was the only one that the evidence justified, but he failed to conciliate his critics. Some years later, on 20 Feb. 1900, when party feeling over South Africa was running high, he supported an abortive resolution to reopen the inquiry into the raid with a view to further investigation of the rumours that Rhodes's agents had endeavoured to implicate state officials in London and the Cape.

Meanwhile Harcourt offered uncompromising opposition to most of the domestic measures of the unionist government. The education bill, which was introduced on 31 March 1896 and withdrawn on 18 June, Harcourt denounced as extinguishing the school boards and reintroducing the religious difficulty. He treated with scarcely less vigour the agricultural rating bill, which was passed only after long and strenuous debates.

Internal differences hampered the influence of the party. Harcourt rarely referred in public to Lord Rosebery, his titular chief, whose followers showed small respect for Harcourt. The breach was widened by the Armenian massacres in Sept. 1896. Gladstone came forth from his retirement to urge on England a moral obligation to intervene between Turkey and her persecuted Armenian subjects. Harcourt expressed practical agreement with Gladstone in a speech to his constituents at Ebbw Vale on 5 Oct. Lord Rosebery promptly avowed his dissent from Gladstone's and Harcourt's views by resigning the liberal leadership. In a speech at Edinburgh (9 Oct.) he declared that the internal troubles of the party 'were not less than the external.' No immediate steps were taken definitely to elect a new leader. Mr. Morley asserted at Glasgow on 6 Nov. that it was at present enough for the party that Sir William Harcourt led them to admiration in the House of Commons. But Mr. Morley's applause was not universally shared within the liberal ranks, and the wounds left by Lord Rosebery's withdrawal failed to heal. Through the spring of 1897 Harcourt constantly com-