uch programme. From
the middle of May, when Mr Chamberlain began to press the matter, Mr
Balfour had a difficult hand to play, so long as it was uncertain how the
party would follow the new lead. The Board of Trade was asked to supply
full figures, and while its report was awaited the uncertainty of attitude
on the part of the government afforded grateful opportunity for opposition
mischief-making, since the Liberal party had now the chance of acting as
the conservative champions of orthodox economics. Another opportunity for
making political capital was provided by the publication of the report of
the royal commission on the Boer War under Lord Elgin's chairmanship, which
horrified the country by its disclosures (August 26th) as to the political
and military muddling which had gone on, and the want of any efficient
system of organization.

The session ended in August without any definite action on the fiscal
question, but in the cabinet the discussions continued. On the 16th of
September Mr Balfour published a pamphlet on "Insular Free Trade," and on
the 18th it was announced that Lord George Hamilton and Mr Ritchie had
resigned, Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Mr Arthur Elliot following a day or
two later. These were the strait free-traders, but at the same time Mr
Chamberlain resigned also. The correspondence between Mr Chamberlain and Mr
Balfour (September 9th and 16th) was published, and presented the latter in
the light of a sympathizer with some form of fiscal union with the
colonies, if practicable, and in favour of retaliatory duties, but unable
to believe that the country was yet ready to agree to the taxation of food
required for a preferential tariff, and therefore unwilling to support that
scheme; at the same time he encouraged Mr Chamberlain to test the feeling
of the public and to convert them by his missionary efforts outside the
government. Mr Chamberlain on his side emphasized his own parliamentary
loyalty to Mr Balfour. In his pamphlet on "Insular Free Trade" the prime
minister reviewed the economic history since Cobden's time, pointed to the
falsification of the promises of the early free-traders, and to the fact
that England was still the only free-importing country, and insisted that
he was "in harmony with the true spirit of free-trade" when he pleaded for
"freedom to negotiate that freedom of exchange may be increased." This
manifesto was at first taken, not only as the platform of the government,
bu