chiefly consisting in the effort to keep the Radical party together
in the midst of its pronounced differences. In this he was successful,
although the advent of the Boer War of 1899-1902 created new
difficulties with the Liberal Imperialists. The leader of the Opposition
from the first denounced the diplomatic steps taken by Lord Milner and
Mr Chamberlain, and objected to all armed intervention or even
preparation for hostilities. Sir Henry's own tendency to favour the
anti-war section, his refusal to support the government in any way, and
his allusion to "methods of barbarism" in connexion with the conduct of
the British army (June 14, 1901), accentuated the crisis within the
party; and in 1901 the Liberal Imperialists, who looked to Lord Rosebery
(q.v.) and Mr Asquith (q.v.) for their political inspiration, showed
pronounced signs of restiveness. But a party meeting was called on the
9th of July, and Sir Henry was unanimously confirmed in the leadership.

The end of the war in 1902 showed the value of his persistency
throughout the years of Liberal unpopularity and disunion. The political
conflict once more resumed its normal condition, for the first time
since 1892. The blunders of the government were open to a united attack,
and Mr Chamberlain's tariff-reform movement in 1903 provided a new
rallying point in defence of the existing fiscal system. In the Liberal
campaign on behalf of free trade the real leader, however, was Mr
Asquith. Sir Henry's own principal contribution to the discussion was
rather unfortunate, for while insisting on the blessings derived by
England from its free-trade policy, he coupled this with the rhetorical
admission (at Bolton in 1903) that "12,000,000 British citizens were
underfed and on the verge of hunger." But Lord Salisbury's retirement,
Unionist divisions, the staleness of the ministry, and the accumulating
opposition in the country to the Education Act of 1902 and to the
continued weight of taxation, together with the growth of the Labour
movement, and the antagonism to the introduction of Chinese coolies
(1904) into South Africa under conditions represented by Radical
spokesmen as those of "slavery," made the political pendulum swing back.
A Liberal majority at the dissolution was promised by all the signs at
by-elections. The government held on, but collapse was only a question
of time (see the articles on BALFOUR, A.J., and CHAMBERLAIN, J.). On the
4th of December 1905 the Unioni