stone from the leadership. But the leadership was already, as it seemed, assured to him in the near future. The defection of the whigs under Lord Hartington must have inured to the benefit of the radical wing of the liberal party; Gladstone was a very old man, and Chamberlain was marked out as his natural successor. Chamberlain sacrificed this prize by voting with the whigs, who had been his special aversion, and with the tories, who had regarded him as Jack Cade; he risked political extinction sooner than comply with the demands of Parnell. Nevertheless, considering his past, considering the nature of his relations with most of the dissentient liberals, who, like Lord Hartington, had merely reached a goal to which for a long time they had unconsciously been moving, it was natural that Chamberlain should, for some time, retain hopes of reunion with his old associates; and the Round Table Conference at the beginning of 1887, attended by Sir William Harcourt, (Lord) Morley, and Lord Herschell from the one side, and by Chamberlain and Sir George Trevelyan from the other, was an attempt to find a modus vivendi between men who were in fact fundamentally at issue. In this state of things, a provocative letter by Chamberlain in The Baptist merely killed what could never have survived. The resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill (December 1886) had seriously affected Chamberlain’s position. The tory democracy of Churchill attracted him; and the idea of organizing, along with Churchill, a new national party occurred to him, though he soon recognized its impossibility. Still, he thought that the tory government was doomed, and formed the gloomiest anticipations of the probable result of another general election, with coercion again to the fore.
Chamberlain’s mission, however, to the United States to negotiate a treaty regarding the North American fisheries (November 1887–March 1888) gave him a few months’ peace from party politics. The Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty of 15 February 1888 sought to make a satisfactory settlement of the questions relating to the interpretation of the Convention of 1818. That Convention gave, to a limited extent, the same territorial advantages over certain portions of the island of Newfoundland and of Canada as were given under the Treaty of 1783, and in return secured the renunciation by the United States of the liberty of their fishermen to enter on any other portion of the recognized waters of British North America, except for certain specified purposes. The Treaty was rejected by the American Senate in the following August. Nevertheless, when the Hague Tribunal arbitrated on the meaning of the Convention of 1818, the basis of their settlement was the same as that adopted in the Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty. Moreover, the modus vivendi which was continued after the failure of the Treaty removed all causes of irritation between the United States and Canada; and Sir Charles Tupper [q.v.], the Canadian commissioner, bore witness to the tact, ability, and firmness with which Chamberlain met and overcame all but insurmountable difficulties. The visit served to strengthen those feelings of friendship towards the United States which so profoundly influenced his later policy.
After Chamberlain’s return to British politics there was a noticeable movement in the direction of support to the conservative government. He was found jeering at the ‘crazy-quilt’ of Lord Randolph’s professions, and supporting the ministry against his attacks. The return to power of a Home Rule ministry in August 1892 further tended to unite all enemies of Home Rule; and no one worked more ably or persistently against the measure of 1893 than Chamberlain.
In other directions Chamberlain’s views were crystallizing. A visit to Egypt in 1889 had deeply impressed him with the benefits accruing to that country from the British occupation, and had led him to modify his earlier opinions. In a speech urging the retention of Uganda (20 March 1893) he anticipated his future rôle as colonial secretary. He laid stress on the need for following in the footsteps of our ancestors, who had not been ashamed to ‘peg out’ claims for posterity, thereby creating that foreign trade without which the population of Great Britain would starve. Very characteristic of the future colonial secretary was his defence of Captain Lugard, whose pledges for the continuance of the protectorate were then in danger of being repudiated by the Gladstone Cabinet: ‘Captain Lugard was on the spot—Let me say in passing that I sometimes think we do not do justice to our bravest and noblest citizens. Any man, who reads his accounts impartially, will agree in this, that he was at all events a man of extraordinary power, capacity, tact, discretion, and courage.’ Equally characteristic was the statement: ‘Make it the interest of the Arab slave-traders to give up the slave trade, and you will see the end of that traffic. Con-
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