Again, I remember how the Conservatives
grumbled at Lord Salisbury from the first moment of his accession to
the leadership right up to 1885. I can recall as well as if it were
yesterday a young Tory friend of mine--he has become a distinguished
man since, and I am not going to give him away--telling me, who was at
that time a Liberal, in the year of grace 1883 or 1884, that it was
absolutely hopeless for the Tory party ever to expect to come back
into power with such a leader as Lord Salisbury. He called him a
"Professor." He said, "No doubt he is a very able man and an excellent
speaker, but he is a man of science. He has no popular gifts whatever.
There is not a ghost of a chance of a Conservative victory so long as
he is in command." Yet that was not more than two years before Lord
Salisbury commenced a series of Premierships which kept him, for some
thirteen and a half years out of seventeen, at the helm of the State.

With all these experiences to look back upon it is really impossible
for me to be much affected by the passing wave of dissatisfaction with
Mr. Balfour. Men of first-rate ability and character are rare. Still
rarer are men who, having those qualities, also have the knack of
compelling the attention and respect even of a hostile House of
Commons. When a party possesses a leader with all these gifts, it is
not likely to change him in a hurry.

But if I refuse to take a gloomy view of the Unionist leadership, I
must admit that I am not altogether an optimist about the immediate
prospects of Unionism. There is no doubt a bright side to the picture
as well as a less encouraging one. The bright side, from the party
point of view, is afforded by the hopeless chaos of opinion in the
ranks of our opponents--by the total absence of any clear conviction
or definite line whatever in the counsels of the Government, which
causes Ministers to dash wildly from measure to measure in
endeavouring to satisfy first one section and then another section of
their motley following, and which prevents them from ever giving
really adequate attention to any one of their proposals.

I am not speaking of Ministers individually. Granted that some of them
have done excellent work at the heads of their several departments--I
think it would not be fair to deny that. I am thinking of their
collective policy, and especially of their legislative efforts. For
monuments of clumsy opportunism, commend me to the legislative
failures, a