Transvaal, and indignation over the revelations concerned with the war—were monopolizing attention, to the weakening of his hold on the public. The revival in trade, and the production of new statistics which appeared to stultify Mr Chamberlain’s prophecies of progressive decline, enabled the free-trade champions to reassure their audiences as to the very foundation of his case, and to represent the whole tariff reform movement as no less unnecessary than risky. Moreover, the split in the Unionist party brought the united Liberal party in full force into the field, and at last the country began to think that the danger of Irish Home Rule was practically over, and that a Liberal majority might be returned to power in safety, with the prospect of providing an alternative government which would assure commercial repose (Lord Rosebery’s phrase), relief from extravagant expenditure, and—as the working-classes were led to believe—a certain amount of labour legislation which the Tory leaders would never propose. On the other hand the colonies took a great interest in the new movement, though without putting any such pressure on the home public as Mr Chamberlain might have expected. At the opening of 1904 he was officially invited by Mr Deakin, the prime minister of the Commonwealth, to pay a visit to Australia, in order to expound his scheme, being promised an enthusiastic welcome “as the harbinger of commercial reciprocity between the mother country and her colonies.” Mr Chamberlain, however, declined; his work at home was too pressing.
From the end of Mr Chamberlain’s series of expository speeches on his scheme of tariff reform, onwards during the various fiscal debates and discussions of 1904, it is unnecessary to follow events in detail. The scheme was now before the country, and Mr Chamberlain was anxious to take its verdict. Time was not on his side at his age, and if he had to be beaten at one election he was anxious to get rid of the other issues which would encumber the popular vote, and to press on to a second when he would be on the attacking side. But he would make no move which would embarrass Mr Balfour in parliament, and adhered to his promise of loyalty. The result was a long drawn out interval, while the government held on and its supporters became more embittered over their differences. Mr Chamberlain needed a rest, and was away in Italy and Egypt from March to May, and again in November. He made three important speeches at Welbeck (August 4), at Luton (October 5), and at Limehouse (December 15), but he had nothing substantial to add to his case, and the party situation continued in all its embarrassments. Mr Balfour’s introduction of his promise (at Edinburgh on October 3) to convene an imperial conference after the general election if the Unionists came back to power, in order to discuss a scheme for fiscal union, represented an academic rather than a practical advance, since the by-elections showed that the Unionists were certain to be defeated. The one important new development concerned the Liberal-Unionist organization. In January some correspondence was published between Mr Chamberlain and the duke of Devonshire, dating from the previous October, as to difficulties arising from the central Liberal-Unionist organization subsidizing local associations which had adopted the programme of tariff reform. The duke objected to this departure from neutrality, and suggested that it was becoming “impossible with any advantage to maintain under existing circumstances the existence of the Liberal-Unionist organization.” Mr Chamberlain retorted that this was a matter for a general meeting of delegates to decide; if the duke was outvoted he might resign his presidency; for his own part he was prepared to allow the local associations to be subsidized impartially, so long as they supported the government, but he was not prepared for the violent disruption, which the duke apparently contemplated, of an association so necessary to the success of the Unionist cause. The duke was in a difficult position as president of the organization, since most of the local associations supported Mr Chamberlain, and he replied that the differences between them were vital, and he would not be responsible for dividing the association into sections, but would rather resign. Mr Chamberlain then called a general meeting on his own responsibility in February, when a new constitution was proposed; and in May, at the annual meeting of the Liberal-Unionist council, the free-food Unionists, being in a minority, retired, and the association was reorganized under Mr Chamberlain’s auspices, Lord Lansdowne and Lord Selborne (both of them cabinet ministers) becoming vice-presidents. On July 14th the reconstituted Liberal-Unionist organization held a great demonstration in the Albert Hall, and Mr Chamberlain’s success in ousting the duke of Devonshire and the other free-trade members of the old Liberal-Unionist party, and imposing his own fiscal policy upon the Liberal-Unionist caucus, was now complete.
During the spring and summer of 1905 Mr Chamberlain’s more active supporters were in favour of forcing a dissolution by leaving the government in a minority, but he himself preferred to leave matters to take their course, so long as the prime minister was content to be publicly identified with the policy of eventually fighting on tariff reform lines. Speaking at the Albert Hall in July Mr Chamberlain pushed somewhat further than before his “embrace” of Mr Balfour; and in the autumn, when foreign affairs no longer dominated the attention of the government, the crisis rapidly came to a head. In reply to Mr Balfour’s appeal for the sinking of differences (Newcastle, November 14), Mr Chamberlain insisted at Bristol (November 21) on the adoption of his fiscal policy; and Mr Balfour resigned on December 4. on the ground that he no longer retained the confidence of the party. At the crushing Unionist defeat in the general election which followed in January 1906, Mr Chamberlain was triumphantly returned for West Birmingham, and all the divisions of Birmingham returned Chamberlainite members. Amid the wreck of the party—Mr Balfour and several of his colleagues themselves losing their seats—he had the consolation of knowing that the tariff reformers won the only conspicuous successes of the election. But he had no desire to set himself up as leader in Mr Balfour’s place, and after private negotiations with the ex-prime minister, a common platform was arranged between them, on which Mr Balfour, for whom a seat was found in the City of London, should continue to lead the remnant of the party. The formula was given in a letter from Mr Balfour of February 14th (see Balfour, A. J.) which admitted the necessity of making fiscal reform the first plank in the Unionist platform, and accepted a general tariff on manufactured goods and a small duty on foreign corn as “not in principle objectionable.”
It may be left to future historians to attempt a considered judgment on the English tariff reform movement, and on Mr Chamberlain’s responsibility for the Unionist débâcle of 1906. But while his enemies taunted him with having twice wrecked his party—first the Radical party under Mr Gladstone, and secondly the Unionist party under Mr Balfour—no well-informed critic doubted his sincerity, or failed to recognize that in leaving the cabinet and embarking on his fiscal campaign he showed real devotion to an idea. In championing the cause of imperial fiscal union, by means involving the abandonment of a system of taxation which had become part of British orthodoxy, he followed the guidance of a profound conviction that the stability of the empire and the very existence of the hegemony of the United Kingdom depended upon the conversion of public opinion to a revision of the current economic doctrine. There were doubtless miscalculations at the outset as to the resistance to be encountered. But from the purely party point of view he was entitled to say that he followed the path of loyalty to Mr Balfour which he had marked out from the moment of his resignation, and that he persistently, refused to be put in competition with him as leader. Even in the absence of the new issue, defeat was foredoomed for Mr Balfour’s administration by the ordinary course of political events; and it might fairly be claimed that “Chinese slavery,” “passive resistance,” and labour irritation at the Taff Vale judgment (see Trade Unions) were mainly responsible for the Unionist collapse. Time alone would show whether the system of free imports could be permanently reconciled with British imperial policy or commercial prosperity. It remained the fact that Mr Chamberlain staked an already established position on his refusal to compromise with his
