The Duke of Devonshire, speaking on the same evening as Mr. Chamberlain (Jan. 19) at a demonstration of the Free Food League in Liverpool, said that when he justified the position of the Government in regard to the fiscal question in the House of Lords he believed there was to be a real inquiry; he did not think it would be limited to the production of a mass of undigested statistics and the issue of an academic treatise by the Prime Minister, or that one member of the Government would organise a plan of campaign to secure the support of a large portion of the Press and the political organisations. In reference to Mr. Chamberlain's commission, the danger was that the highly organised industries represented on it, if they agreed on a general tariff, would be able to bring great pressure to bear in support of their proposals, while the general body of consumers and the less highly organised industries would find themselves at a disadvantage. He suggested the holding of an inquiry on the other side on the lines of the famous Import Duties Committee of 1840. While he did not believe so firmly as the Prime Minister in the probable efficacy of retaliation, he was more disposed than formerly to approve the object of that policy, which was absolutely opposed to the dangerous and mischievous policy of Preference or Protection. It was not easy to discover Mr. Balfour's attitude towards Mr. Chamberlain's proposals; sometimes he seemed to have two policies, sometimes only one; but the Duke was unable to reconcile Mr. Balfour's action in regard to Unionist candidates pledged to Mr. Chamberlain with his own weighty words. If the present electioneering process went on, the Unionist party would be pledged to the adoption of a policy which Mr. Balfour considered dangerous, and Mr. Balfour himself would have to adopt it or make way for Mr. Chamberlain. As to the criticisms passed on the election policy of the Free Food League, he asked how a political organisation could work at all except by making its political support dependent on the adoption of its principles. As for the charge brought against them of breaking up the Liberal Unionist party, the position was similar to that of 1885, when they held that it was Mr. Gladstone and not they who broke up the Liberal party. Contrasting the rival policies of Free Trade and Protection, the Duke said, in conclusion, that Robin Hood and his merry men professed that they only took from the rich to give to the poor; but Protection tended to tax the poor for the benefit of the rich. Lord George Hamilton also spoke, dwelling on the marvellous growth of the shipping trade under the existing system, and enumerating some of the benefits now enjoyed by the Colonies, among them fiscal freedom.

All this time the opinion of the electorate, as expressed in the bye-elections, appeared to be increasingly adverse both to the Government and to Mr. Chamberlain. The election for the Ashburton Division of Devonshire (Jan. 7) had resulted in the return of Mr. H. T. Eve, K.C. (L.), by 5,034 votes, Sir R. Harri

son (C.) polling 3,558. This majority was nearly double that of the election of 1900, though the deceased member, Mr. Seale Hayne, had undoubtedly gained many votes by his personal popularity. The Norwich election (Jan. 15) had resulted in the return of Mr. Tillett (L.) by 8,576 votes, Mr. Wild (a follower of Mr. Chamberlain and a prominent barrister on the Norfolk Circuit) receiving 6,756 votes, and Mr. Roberts (Labour) 2,444. At Gateshead (Jan. 20) Mr. Johnson, the Free Trade and Labour candidate, received 8,220 votes, Lord Morpeth (Tariff Reformer and Unionist) 7,015. These results were the more surprising because at Norwich the Free Trade forces were divided, while the Tyneside industries were alleged to have suffered heavily from dumping." " dumping." The Tariff Reform League took an active part in all these elections, using various novel and amusing devices to enforce its views, including lantern slides (nightly displayed in the Norwich market-place) and a megaphone, while one of its speakers "made-up" in imitation of Mr. Chamberlain. But its proceedings were unfavourably criticised by a section of the Ministerialist electorate, and the Unionist candidate in the Ayr Burghs declined its aid.

Doubtless the other causes already mentioned contributed largely to the Unionist defeat. The most prominent was the question of the Education Act. Early in the year the Welsh County Councils were concerting means to frustrate the administration of the clauses designed to secure the maintenance of denominational schools. "Passive resistance" continued, and the proceedings at Leicester (Jan. 27) may be taken as typical. "One hundred and fifty passive resisters," said the Times' report, "including the mayor and several aldermen, town councillors, Nonconformist ministers, and medical men were summoned for non-payment of rates. For two and a half hours they poured out strong protests against the Education Act, which was said to be based on the morals of Robin Hood and Dick Turpin in order to uphold priestcraft. . . . Orders were made in all cases" for distraint. The opposition to the Act counted for much in the election at Norwich, where differences between the Church and Nonconformity are traditionally acute, and in a less degree at Gateshead, where an unavailing attempt was made to secure the Irish vote for the Unionist candidate on the ground of the favourable treatment of denominational schools under the Act. In the Ayr Burghs, though the Act did not apply to Scotland, it was made so prominent a feature in the contest that Mr. Balfour was moved to write to Mr. Younger, the Unionist candidate, in its defence. He claimed for it that it gave Nonconformists more than they had before, that the policy of giving rate aid to denominational teaching was practised far more extensively in Scotland than the Act would allow in England, and that great confusion of ideas underlay the terms "rate aid" and "denominational teaching": no valid principle of distinction could be found between rate aid

and aid from taxes, and a strict interpretation of the term "denominational teaching" would make all Christian teaching "denominational." The Scotch system would be inconsistent with the Cowper-Temple clause and would be unacceptable to the English Nonconformists. Similarly, the Archbishop of Canterbury, presiding on January 23 at the annual meeting of the Diocesan Education Society at Canterbury, said he had tried, and was trying, very hard to understand the position of those good men and public-spirited citizens-who declared that, whatever Parliament might do or say, they would never consent to contribute to the support of what they believed to be error. He, too, failed to see the distinction between contributions through taxes and through rates. The religious teaching in Board schools, which was keenly upheld by some of the strongest supporters of passive resistance, must be regarded as erroneous by every unbeliever, agnostic, Jew and Roman Catholic in the land. Should Churchmen ever be conscientiously opposed to the system of education in force, they would yet be fundamentally wrong if they refused to bear burdens constitutionally laid on them. The distinction which the Archbishop found unintelligible was defended on the ground that rates are, and taxes are not, specifically apportioned to their various purposes; and while Dr. Clifford and other Nonconformist leaders continued their opposition, some Liberal High Churchmen, among them the editor of the Pilot, urged the abandonment of specifically "Church" schools in exchange for facilities of giving optional and dogmatic religious teaching in all elementary schools whatever.

Keen misgivings were aroused by the prospect of licensing legislation, in the sense of Mr. Balfour's declarations of the previous year (ANNUAL REGISTER for 1903, p. 69). It may here be noted that Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, who had taken a prominent position as one of the defenders of the existing right of the magistrates to refuse the renewal of licences judged superfluous, lost his post as deputy-chairman of the Birmingham justices on January 6; Mr. A. M. Chance being elected by 40 votes to 20.

But the question of Chinese labour now began to come to the front. The resolutions adopted by the Transvaal Legislative Council at the end of December excited apprehension, inasmuch as, under the proposed scheme, the labourers were to be bound by contract for a term of years, and the rights over them were to be transferable while there seemed to be inadequate security for their humane treatment as against the renewal of the horrors of the old coolie traffic, and it was feared that they would introduce new vices and new sanitary perils, and decrease the opportunities for white labour in South Africa. Major Seely, M.P., who had served throughout the South African war, protested energetically in a letter to the Times (Jan. 12) against the adoption of any such policy until after a full discussion

in Parliament. Its adoption, he said, would destroy the ideals of every soldier who fought in South Africa. The desired discussion was promised by the Colonial Secretary: but the Government of New Zealand, through the Governor (the Earl of Ranfurly), expressed a strongly hostile view, and Colonial opinion, except in Canada, was generally adverse. Mr. Lyttelton replied to Lord Ranfurly (Jan. 25) that the Government desired to treat the Transvaal as a self-governing Colony, and could not refuse to accede to its wishes in deference to the representations of a part of the Empire not directly interested. But it was doubted in England whether these wishes had been correctly ascertained.

The expedition to Somaliland, also, was viewed with dissatisfaction, and that to Tibet aroused considerable misgiving. Ostensibly a peaceful mission, it was accompanied by a military escort, which (it was held) involved a violation of the provision of the Government of India Act (1858), under which the Indian Army may not be employed for military purposes outside India without the consent of Parliament. This objection was insisted on in particular by a distinguished Indian Civil servant, Sir H. J. S. Cotton (Times, Jan. 9 and 18), who also laid great stress on the difficulties of the advance and on the fact that the treaty obligations the expedition was to enforce were incumbent not directly on the Tibetans, but on China, while he scoffed at the notion of "Russian intrigue" at Lhasa.

The fiscal question, however, took by far the largest space in the political speeches of the month. Mr. John Morley, speaking at Arbroath on January 18, described the Government as "a scratch crew on a raft," deplored their weakness in view of the impending war in the Far East, and, after commenting on the unsatisfactory condition of South Africa and the dangers of Chinese labour, dealt with the difficulties that would be set up by Mr. Chamberlain's scheme; and at Forfar (Jan. 20) while recognising the significance of the speech of the Duke of Devonshire, coming as it did from a great ironmaster, condemned his suggestion of a further inquiry on the ground that there was no emergency now, as there was in 1840, and vindicated Cobden's policy against Mr. Chamberlain's attack. Mr. Bryce at East Grinstead (Jan. 21) declared that, stripped of its rhetoric, Mr. Chamberlain's Guildhall speech came perilously near to cant; and the Bishop of Hereford in a letter dated December 26, but published January 21, denounced "this raging, tearing, Protectionist propaganda manufactured at Birmingham," and declared that its success would involve harder conditions of life for the poorer classes, the corruption of politics and the domination of trusts. On January 22 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, speaking to the Eighty Club, declared that the country was sick of the fiscal question, and said that in spite of the temptations offered by Mr. Chamberlain's policy to manufacturers, the common sense of the country was rejecting the fallacious

scheme. Mr. Robson, who followed, argued that tariff reform would obstruct social reform. Mr. Asquith, speaking on the same evening at Southport, said that the bye-elections showed that the country was rejecting Mr. Chamberlain's scheme, and that his Guildhall speech contained only exploded arguments. As preferable aids to British trade, Mr. Asquith suggested the reconstruction of our consular system, retrenchment and higher taxation of land. On January 25 Mr. Winston Churchill, addressing the Dublin Institute of Bankers, urged that Ireland had no interest in Protection, but had great reason to fear Colonial competition in her cattle trade with Great Britain. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman devoted his speech at Glasgow (Jan. 27) mainly to an exposition of the successive transformations of Mr. Chamberlain's scheme, and described it as "a bankrupt speculation." Lord Goschen at Halifax (Jan. 28) strongly contested Mr. Chamberlain's arguments, declaring that "dumping was the child of Protection and high prices one of its results"; and at Newcastle, on January 29, he pointed out that the increase in imports in 1903 had not been in manufactured goods, but in food stuffs, raw materials, and requisites for the community. Sir Edward Grey at Manchester (Jan. 29) strongly deprecated retaliation as likely to be ineffectual, and invited the Government to disclose its tariffs before the country was called on to decide the issue.

On the other side, Mr. Bonar Law, who was coming to the front as one of the ablest of fiscal "reformers," declared at Bradford (Jan. 20) that technical education was the result, not the cause, of German industrial development, that it was not an adequate remedy for the state of British trade, that our success in the past had been due partly to cheap raw material and partly to our geographical position, and that though he was not despondent as to the future, the true field for commercial expansion was within the Empire. On January 23 the cause of fiscal reform received an influential recruit in the Duke of Bedford, who expounded his reasons at Bedford, and Dr. Cunningham, the eminent economic historian, speaking at Cambridge, advocated a food tax, partly as enabling capital to find new forms of employment on the land. On January 26 Professor Ashley, lecturing at the London Institution, urged that the Cobdenite policy of "fighting hostile tariffs by free imports would lead to the use of poorly paid unskilled labour of a low class, while the Colonial Secretary at Leamington argued that the campaign against "Free Imports" was a kind of supplement to factory legislation, being necessary for the protection of the British worker against the cheaper labour of foreign countries.

But the point of most immediate importance in the controversy was not the economic arguments, but the relation of the Free Food Unionists to the Government. Speaking at Stalybridge on January 20 the Chancellor of the Exchequer made light of the Liberal Unionist secessions; insisted that it was