Show TilE PER Of CHAMBfRlAIN HE IS ONE OF THE REAL RULERS OF GREAT BRITAIN A Tower of Strength In the Transaction Trans-action of the Affairs of State For the Queen of England Joseph Chamberlain Joe Chamber lain as he is familiarly called who is dividing conspicuity with President Kruger hi the Transvaal war troubles is one of the real rulers of Great Britain and the one Englishman on whose shoulders falls most of the stress in the contention with the Boers Mr Chamberlain is also one of those Eng lishmen who have felt the need of an American wife Mrs Chamberlain was Mary Endicott and he is therefore interesting in-teresting to his Yankee cousins He had scarce begun his public career era he became famous for his reform work He entered parliament in the lOs as a radical of radicals he was styled a socialist and the masses cheered his vitriolic vituperation of the classes In 1SS6 he would have nothing o his chiefs home rule and he departed from the liberal camp with the claim In his mouth that not he but Mr Gladstone had forsworn true democracy in much the same fashion indeed that Mr Cleveland and Mr Carlisle repudiated Bryan and the Chicago platform Then for six years he remained out of office of-fice fighting home rule and Mr Gladstone Glad-stone on the hastings and supporting a conservative ministry in the house The boss of Birmingham as his foes love to call him made possible by his votes tho continuation of Lord Salisbury bury in power But it was the period also in which he assured his constituents that he was still a libr cr but that until home rule was finally final-ly beate liberal measures must take aback a-back seat and a tory government must be supported as far the less of twO evilsWhen When England turned heavily against home rule in 1893 Mr Chamberlain and other unionists took office with the lories He accepted the great post oC the colonies He struck hands with Lord Salisbury and Mr Balfour and with Sir Michael HicksBeach The quartette today form the inner government govern-ment of the empire the final depository o power This Was his chime of success suc-cess or of ruin His enemies and no man ha more declared his act a filiated him forever with the tories and that he could never again be a liberal and hope for aught from that party But in the short time of four years Mr ChambeiJain has contrived signally to cofound his enemies and sometimes even to astonish his friends Whether he made an antenuptial agreement with Lord Salisbury or not he ha succeeded suc-ceeded in foisting on a torygovernment certain liberal measures which he has advocated for A tory adote years government govern-ment has introduced and made into law an employers liability bill whose principle prin-ciple tory platforms had denounced as socialistic Then there was a bill for the local government of Ireland hose notion and details Mr Chamberlain set for long before Mr Gladstones Pauline Pau-line conversion to home rule In these liberal matUvrs Mr Chamberlain Chamber-lain has succeeded where Mr Gladstone Glad-stone failed By these measures England Eng-land perceives that the minister of today I to-day is not a convert to toryism but a practical and liberal statesman who not only can champion cam ES but can construct efficient and wise legislation He has not forgotten that he is a man of the people now that he has power He has not forgotten what he advocated advo-cated in his youth for he frames bills to ombody his 01 < theories But Mr Chamborlaii has appeared in a new role He has brought a new creation on the stage I he shows himself a disciple of that tribune of the people John Bright he is bringing into actual discussion the imperialistic dreams of Disraeli If as a home minister he is Dlsrel I an advanced liberal as a foreign minister min-ister he is a advanced tory He is for the democracy in local government but for the empire at large Ho would emancipate the masses at home but he would support Cecil Rhodes and Lord Cromer abroad as the Pits in their day supported Wolfe at Quebec and Clive and Hastings in India He would enlarge the bounds of empire for he believes that offense makes thebes the-bes defense Lord Salisbury is a conservor his ideals are in the past he thinks more of what precious things have been gained than of what doubtful good is to be achieved So if he can leave England Eng-land strong and solid as he found her he will be content But it is piercing even t his consciousness that it Is not enough to hold fast what the nation has but thxt more must he tal i that what is already possessed may remains remain-s I is not enough to halt one must go forward unless he would be pushed back But where Lord Salisbury Salis-bury hesitajcs or reluctantly consents his nimbler colleague halloes a to a hunt and the spectacle the world now I enjoys is of Disraelis successor being taught his own game by a former blackcoated Brummagen radical I I may be the cleareyed politician recognizes recog-nizes that the ammunition of the liberal party is wellnigh exhausted that England has become virtually a democracy de-mocracy under the crown and except that it be church establishment or the house of lords nearly al the privileges against which orators have raged and statesmen legislated are now swept away Anyhow the exreform mayor of Birmingham and erstwhile radical has struck out upon a new line He has stalled his future upon one issue that of imperialism he has put his fortunes into one boat that of Greater England Does he dieam this practical man o affairs Has he become a visionary this former manufacturer of screws and authority upon commercial matters Has ho who has ever been renowned for his lucidity his exactness his realism real-ism develop 7 snce he beam a gu > at minister a fanciful imaginat n He has had such a grasp upon fa he Ins disdained so scornfully the Is I s > t theory the-ory he has been a man of details of statistics of immediate interests and he has never been given to flights like Burke and like Gladstone He has seemed commercial to the core But he has startled England not long since by advocating a vollverein an imperial customs union to draw the scattered empire together and make o i a commercial com-mercial unit as against the world Hardheaded men pronounced the scheme chimerical 1 and it was immediately imme-diately relegated to the limbo of impossible im-possible vagaries I he startled England Eng-land then he has startled the whole world later In Birmingham he came out roundly for a AngloAmerican al liance Was It a grandstand play or a forecast into the future Was it the sudden candor of genius which forecasting fore-casting the Inevitable future puts itself in harmony with the march of events or was it the whim of the archdema gogue playing on the emotion of the moment and courting a cheap notoriety by audacious indiscretion Perhaps to understand this career it will be necessary to understand in a measure the man to explain the twists and windings of his course we should first discover the quality of his mind and the laws of his temperament First of all Mr Chamberlain is a modern man of business He made his fortune in the manufacture of wooden screws and the methods of his success were what arc styled American in Eng land that is the method of II trust By nature and by habit he sees clearly what is and what is possible and he ha the concentration and the tenacity to take advantage of what he sees His first entrance into politics was in the municipal administration of the Midland Mid-land metropolis He advocated a city run In the interest of the people of the city ho secured such d government and Birmingham is now recognized asa as-a model municipality In a larger field of politics Mr Chamberlain Cham-berlain while a cnnvinfol 4 J t has been emphatically a opportunist he looks out for the main chance He i distinguishes resolute between what is i possible and what is Impossible He 1 is a practical statesman without a I shade of the doctrinaire and is glad to I get a halfloaf where a whole one is impossible Yet while so nimble sO adaptable s superficially inconsistent this man who is a radical al heat and sits an a tory ministry who IS I the author au-thor of socalled socialistic legislation l and yet nurses Imperialistic dreams has convictions npUvithstandUfg The convictions he puts Into practice wherever and to whatever degree he Is able but he foregOes them temporarily tempo-rarily when their advocacy w uld embarrass em-barrass him without f orvardingtheni A party he regards as a < mere 1 instrument I instru-ment the actual results are whit he takes account ofi In this 11 Is more practical than the average politician who will cling to party names even when the spirit is departed frocn him Mr Chamberlain probably believes that lie can yet compel com-pel Disraelis tory democracy to pass more or as much radical legislation legisla-tion a the liberal party itself would while the former retains the Immense advantage of beirS aggressively imperialistic im-perialistic whereas the latter Is hopelessly lessly parochial Mr Chamberlain is a born fighter He is compared in looks to a foxterrier He is hard bitter merciless a har r melclcs opponent and his tongue is the bitterest in all England I is said he never forgives that he never relents that he has no magnanimity and little sympathy His style of debate Is direct acrimonious clear convincing the personification of logic and fact He smashes a falsity as ho smashes an antagonist He has few personal friends and but little personal per-sonal magnetism But to have Joe Chamberlain after them unnerves most politicians and to have hint explain ex-plain a matter is to see to the depth of it He has made hosts of enemies i seems n if he were past master in the gentle art Hating an error In logic a nusstatemcnt of fact he extends his hatred to the male of thorn But this practical politician this clear expositor this able and clean legislator has nd cen legslator ha captured cap-tured the business confidence of England Eng-land as Mr Gladstone by his fervor and his moral sublimity captured the conscience O England They dont love him but business men believe in his capacity He is English to the core and so able that he ems master of every question And yet he develops beyond the hopes of his friends This nonuniver sity unliterary commercialtrovele politician of a municipality has in turn shown himself able to unravel the problems prob-lems of the board of trade to frame wise and liberal legislation to debate on a par with Mr Gladstone him to seize the meaning of home rule and repudiate it and yet come forward with a substitute measure And now he has brought tho colonies to the front He exhibits himself as a statesman broad enough to consider the interests of 100 various parts of a Avorldwide empire He has realized what Lord Rosebery posed as he has become the statesman of an empire He has gone even beyond be-yond that he has sounded the trumpet for the union of the Englishspeaking races he stands a tho champion of AngloSaxon freedom and trade against continental militarism and Slavic des potismv What height may he not reach to what depth 1 e may fall The same penetration and energy of mind that grasped and solved the problem of municipal government that criticised and destroyed Mr Gladstones scheme of home rule now attacks the world problems of the day foresees the final alignment of the natLons divines that the peril is not to England alone but to AngloSaxonia at large The same selrconfdet surefooted and aggressive aggres-sive nature that has made hjm the foremost political fighter of his time now presses forward to grapple with these mighty difficulties His enemies trust that a acknowledged acknowl-edged chief of neither great par it may be his fate to fall between two stools And it is true that a portion of the liberals whom he deserted hate him while the oldfashtoned tory heartily dislikes him But friend and foe recognize his capacity his courage his his vision cunning sure and his tenacious aggression I England shows weakness in Asia i is ascribed to the vacillations of Salisbury white In Africa where she has held her own is Chamberlains domain Probably the antagonism between a strong and a weak policy does not divide the cabinet cab-inet into two hostile factions but the antagonism exists and the day that Chamberlain gains the upper hand will see a stiffening of the backbone of England all over the world I Is a unique position he occupies The head of a faction neither party calls him her own Yet he is Indispensable to one and may become the chief of the other At any rate he has the ear of the people peo-ple and the confidence even of those who personally detest him And with the oldfogy nobles la one party and humanitarian idealogues In the other England in the hour of peril approaching ap-proaching her may instinctively turn to the one man who has grasped power and confidently wields it PH P |