n his
brain. Subsidiary points of utility, such as the formation of the London
and Liverpool schools of tropical medicine from 1899 onwards, were taken
up by him with characteristic vigour. But the next step was to prove a
critical one indeed for the loyalty of the party which had so far been
unanimous in his favour.

The settlement after the war was full of difficulties, financial and
others, in South Africa. When Mr Arthur Balfour succeeded Lord Salisbury
as prime minister in July 1902, Mr Chamberlain agreed to serve loyally
under him, and the friendship between the two leaders was indeed one of
the most marked features of the political situation. In November 1902 it
was arranged that Mr Chamberlain should go out to South Africa, and it
was hoped, not without reason, that his personality would effect more
good than any ordinary official negotiations. At the time the best
results appeared to be secured. He went from place to place in South
Africa (December 26-February 25); arranged with the leading Transvaal
financiers that in return for support from the British government in
raising a Transvaal loan they would guarantee a large proportion of a
Transvaal debt of L30,000,000, which should repay the British treasury
so much of the cost of the war; and when he returned in March 1903,
satisfaction was general in the country over the success of his mission.
But meantime two things had happened. He had looked at the empire from
the colonial point of view, in a way only possible in a colonial
atmosphere; and at home some of his colleagues had gone a long way,
behind the scenes, to destroy one of the very factors on which the
question of a practical scheme for imperial commercial federation seemed
to hinge. In the budget of 1902 a duty of a shilling a quarter on
imported corn had been reintroduced. This small tax was regarded as only
a registration duty. Even by free-trade ministers like Gladstone it had
been left up to 1869 untouched, and its removal by Robert Lowe (Lord
Sherbrooke) had since then been widely regarded as a piece of economic
pedantry. Its reimposition, officially supported for the sake of
necessary revenue in war-time, and cordially welcomed by the Unionist
party, had justified itself, as they contended, in spite of the
criticisms of the Opposition (who raised the cry of the "dear loaf"), by
proving during the year to have had no general or direct effect on the
price of bread. And the more advanced Imperialist