Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/115

 of compelling by law a second ballot where no one candidate has secured a clear majority of the voters.

It is perhaps too much to expect that any such sensible rule will ever be adopted by the British legislature; but Mr. Chamberlain admits that is the true remedy, although that provided by the caucus is, of course, not inconsistent with it. But it is not on this ground so much that Mr. Chamberlain justifies the caucus. He regards it as an invaluable school for political instruction. Nor is that all. The National Liberal Federation, of which Mr. Chamberlain is president, has in more than one sudden emergency shown a promptitude in bringing pressure to bear on the Government by means of powerful deputations and concerted public meetings that never could have been rivalled by any conceivable isolated action. Mr. Bright, in introducing to Lords Hartington and Granville the great national deputation in favor of peace, summoned by the federation and the National Reform Union, pointedly described it as "a remarkable deputation, such a one as I have not seen before in my political experience." Of course, with a more constitutional Premier than Beaconsfield at the helm of the state, the occasions on which the federation will require to review its forces will be few and far between; but certainly, in the light of the late "imperial" menace, the Liberal party owes the president of the federation a deep debt of gratitude for the disinterested sagacity he displayed in striving to furnish it with such a potent weapon of defence ready to its hand.

The National Liberal Federation was constituted at Birmingham in May, 1877; and Mr. Gladstone, it will be remembered, was one of its sponsors. It then num-