Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/78

 70] ENGLISH HISTOEY. [mabch

Mr. Clay. Mr. Wayman having retired, the Eadicals put forward Mr. C. P. Trevelyan, a young and untried man, who had acquired a reputation at Cambridge as a fluent speaker, but whose chief recommendation to the constituency was that he was the son of Sir G. 0. Trevelyan, who had recently retired from political life, after having been successively Secretary for Ireland and Scotland in Mr. Gladstone's later Administrations. Mr. Trevelyan carried the seat (March 8) for his party by an increased majority, polling 6,041 votes against 5,057 given to his Conservative opponent, Mr. P. S. Foster. The elevation of Sir H. Cozens-Hardy to the bench caused a vacancy in North Norfolk, which he had represented as a Liberal for many years, and by a substantial though somewhat varying majority, which in 1895 had just exceeded 500. His opponent on that occasion was Sir. H. K. Kemp, who again came forward as a Conservative, but was thoroughly defeated (March 16) by a neighbouring landowner, Sir W. B. Gurdon, who had been a clerk in the Treasury, and for many years private secretary to Mr. Gladstone when Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Treasury. Sir W. B. Gurdon polled 4,775 votes against 2,610 given to Sir H. K. Kemp.

The National Liberal Federation, which had selected Hull as its meeting place (March 21), was attended by upwards of 1,000 delegates from 400 associations. Dr. Spence Watson, who presided, spoke in a somewhat depressed tone of the political outlook of the party. The loss of Sir Wm. Harcourt seemed, in his opinion, more supportable than that of Mr. John Morley, the man most fitted to carry on the Gladstone tradition ; but he gave it to be understood that by the withdrawal of both the task laid upon the party was all the harder. He held that the Liberal policy should be to make the empire better, and leave to the Tories to make it bigger. The reforms he mentioned as before them were — the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church, Home Eule, the great group of land questions, including that of ground values, and the group of social ques- tions which clustered round the drink traffic, and also the reform of education by which a child might be able to ascend to the highest regions of knowledge. There was still, however, the great obstacle in the way of all Liberal legislation and reform, the House of Lords. Whoever was to be their Premier must undoubtedly have a fair understanding with the Sovereign that, whatever might be needed, even if it should be the refusal of supply, to effect this reform of the House of Lords, he should be given liberty to carry it through.

Some of these suggestions were subsequently put forward for discussion in the form of separate resolutions, expanded to meet the views of various sections of the party; but on the other hand the questions of Disestablishment, Home Bule and the Liquor Traffic were left severely alone. The evening meeting was addressed by Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman who made up for