rime minister, would before long
succeed to the Liberal leadership; and on the 5th of April Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman's resignation was formally announced. He died on the
22nd of the same month. He had spoken in the House of Commons on the
13th of February, but since then had been prostrated and unable to
transact business, his illness dating really from a serious heart attack
in the night of the 13th of November at Bristol, after a speech at the
Colston banquet.

From a party-political point of view the period of Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman's premiership was chiefly marked by the continued
controversies remaining from the general election of 1906,--tariff
reform and free trade, the South African question and the allied
Liberal policy for abolishing Chinese labour, the administration of
Ireland, and the amendment of the Education Act of 1902 so as to remove
its supposed denominational character. In his speech at the Albert Hall
on the 21st of December 1905 it was noticeable that, before the
elections, the prime minister laid stress on only one subject which
could be regarded as part of a constructive programme--the necessity of
doing something for canals, which was soon shelved to a royal
commission. But in spite of the fiasco of the Irish Councils Bill
(1907), the struggles over education (Mr Birrell's bill of 1906 being
dropped on account of the Lords' amendments), the rejection by the peers
of the Plural Voting Abolition Bill (1906), and the failure (again due
to the Lords) of the Scottish Small Holdings Bill and Valuation Bill
(1907), which at the time made his premiership appear to be a period of
bitter and unproductive debate, a good many reforming measures of some
moment were carried. A new Small Holdings Act (1907) for England was
passed; the Trades Disputes Act (1906) removed the position of trades
unions from the controversy excited over the Taff Vale decision; Mr
Lloyd-George's Patents Act (1907) and Merchant Shipping Act (1906) were
welcomed by the tariff reformers as embodying their own policy; a
long-standing debate was closed by the passing of the Deceased Wife's
Sister Act (1907); and acts for establishing a public trustee, a court
of criminal appeal, a system of probation for juvenile offenders, and a
census of production, were passed in 1907. Meanwhile, though the
Colonial Conference (re-named Imperial) of 1907 showed that there was a
wide difference of opinion on the tariff question between the fr