not ripe for the Government or the country to go to the
extreme length of his Preferential policy.

Mr. Chamberlain's action and policy gave a thrill of pleasant
hopefulness to Imperialists everywhere; it stirred up innumerable
comments in the British, Colonial and Foreign press; it made Germany
pause in a system of fiscal retaliation and tariff war into which she
had intended to enter with Canada--and with Australia and South Africa
if they presumed to grant a tariff preference to Britain. Meanwhile, the
King had suffered the loss, a personal as well as national one, of Lord
Salisbury's retirement from office and his death not long afterwards;
the Balfour-Chamberlain Government had struggled along until the Tariff
Reform movement, as above described, broke in upon and dissipated the
party's unanimity of opinion and uniformity of action; a long series of
Liberal victories at bye-elections reduced the Conservative majority
from 134 as it was in 1900 to 69 in November, 1905; Mr. Balfour, in his
Newcastle speech of November 14th, defined his fiscal policy as (1)
Retaliation with a view to compelling the removal of some of the
restrictions in Foreign markets and (2) the calling of a Conference of
Empire leaders to arrange, if possible, a closer commercial union of the
Empire. As to himself he had never been and was not now "a
protectionist." In December he resigned and the King called on Sir H.
Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Leader in the Commons, to form a
Government.

A general election followed in which the Liberals swept the great towns
of the country--excluding London and Birmingham--and came back with the
largest majority in modern English history; the total of the Labour,
Home Rule, Liberal and Radical majority being 376 over the supporters of
Tariff Reform. The result, however, evoked on February 14, 1906, a
declaration from Mr. Balfour in favour of "a moderate general tariff on
manufactured goods and the imposition of a small duty on Foreign corn,"
and this united the Conservative or Unionist party with the exception of
about sixteen Free-trade members who still followed the Duke of
Devonshire. The rise of the Labour Party began at this election; the
serious illness of Mr. Chamberlain followed and hampered Conservative
work and progress; the retirement of the Premier took place early in
1908 and, on April of that year, the King called on Mr. Asquith to form
the Ministry which carried its election in 1910 by so sm