Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/114

 106] ENGLISH HISTOEY. [mat

party is to be founded on its severance, this factor, at any rate, must be prominent to the minds of those who construct or revive — the factor of the larger patriotism that I have called imperialism/ ' As if he had not introduced enough explosive elements into his speech, Lord Eosebery went on to speak of imperialism. Not content with generalities, he touched on Mr. Morley's intention to raise the whole question of the Soudan by opposing the grant to Lord Kitchener. "If," said Lord Eosebery, " it be true that there is an intention in the House of Commons to oppose a vote for a pittance of 700Z. a year or so for a gallant soldier to support the coronet which he won on the field of battle, I should say that that, too, was an imperfect way of promoting imperial interests. But that I do not believe, because it seems to me so wholly incredible." Subsequently replying to the toast of his health, Lord Eosebery said he trusted nothing had occurred that night which could be taken as an indication that he had any intention of returning to that active arena which he deliberately and for good reason forsook in 1896.

As was natural, Sir Wm. Harcourt was not likely to let the charge, for such it seemed to be, remain unchallenged, and on the next evening (May 6) at the dinner of the Welsh parlia- mentary party, made a speech of which the drift, notwith- standing the absence of reporters, found its way into the newspapers. Sir Wm. Harcourt fastened upon the words of his former colleague and leader as implying a desire to revert to the Liberal programme as it existed before Irish Home Eule was introduced into it. "Mr. Gladstone's ashes were hardly cold before they were advised to wipe out the whole of the inheritance which he had left the Liberals." Such a policy would mean dropping other important questions such as Welsh Disestablishment, temperance reform, land reform, and the abolition of the Lords' veto. He believed that Sir H. Campbell- Bannerman would not adopt such a suggestion, but would take up the whole burden of the Liberal programme. " What they wanted in a leader was a man who said to his troops ' Go forward/ and who was not prepared to invite them to retire to the rear. At all events the time had come when the Liberal party must make up its mind whether its march was to be forward or backward. If it allowed itself to be defeated by such counsels as he had referred to, it would deserve to be destroyed."

Lord Salisbury (May 18), when speaking at a Primrose League banquet, referred in a somewat different tone to Lord Eosebery's speech, declaring that for good or for evil the Liberal party of 1886 had passed away for ever. " The past is never reproduced. You may come back to analogous results, you may obtain some of the conditions, or even all of them, which you enjoyed before, but when the method, the system, the circum- stances by which those results were obtained are once shattered they can never be reproduced." He held, moreover, that the