future mayor went with the family. There he devoted himself assiduously to the development of the paternal industry, which ultimately assumed gigantic proportions, the firm employing as many as two thousand "hands." Throughout, employers and employed were on the best of terms; and when, in 1875, Mr. Chamberlain, after his father's death, finally retired from the business in order to devote himself exclusively to the public service, he did so with an ample fortune and the best wishes of the numerous operatives of the firm, who embraced the opportunity to bestow on him a handsome token of their regard in the shape of a valuable piece of plate. Mr. Chamberlain has oftener than once acted as an arbitrator in labor disputes, and always with the utmost fairness and good sense; his most notable award, perhaps, being one which substituted a sliding-scale for a fixed rate in the memorable coal-mining strike in Staffordshire in 1873-74.
Mr. Chamberlain was thirty-two years of age before he ever addressed his fellow-citizens; and he at once made his mark as a singularly clear, articulate, methodical speaker. The fact is peculiar, but not altogether inexplicable. For years before, he had been a diligent reader, utilizing all his spare time in his library the shelves of which are filled with some three thousand well-selected volumes. He had thus acquired much knowledge; and, what with a ready tongue and rare nerve, he felt fully equipped for the brilliant public career on which he entered in 1868.
Onerous and honorable duties were at once thrust on him. In 18G8 he accepted the chairmanship of the famous Education League, and in the same year he became a member of the town council. In 1870 he was
