ientific terms. Social and economic history was gradually taking shape
as a virtually new branch of knowledge. The work of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney
Webb helped to clear up the relations between the organized efforts of
workmen and the functions of the State. The discerning observer could
trace the "organic filaments" of a fuller and more concrete social
theory.

On the other hand, in the Liberal ranks many of the most influential men
had passed, without consciousness of the transition, under the sway of
quite opposite influences. They were becoming Imperialists in their
sleep, and it was only as the implications of Imperialism became
evident that they were awakened. It was with the outbreak of the South
African War that the new development of Conservative policy first
compelled the average Liberal to consider his position. It needed the
shock of an outspoken violation of right to stir him; and we may date
the revival of the idea of justice in the party as an organized force
from the speech in the summer of 1901 in which Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman set himself against the stream of militant sentiment
and challenged in a classic phrase the methods of the war. From the day
of this speech, which was supposed at the time to have irretrievably
ruined his political career, the name of the party-leader, hitherto
greeted with indifference, became a recognized signal for the cheers of
a political meeting, and a man with no marked genius but that of
character and the insight which character gave into the minds of his
followers acquired in his party the position of a Gladstone. This was
the first and fundamental victory, the reinstatement of the idea of
Right in the mind of Liberalism. Then, as the Conservative attack
developed and its implications became apparent, one interest after
another of the older Liberalism was rudely shaken into life. The
Education Act of 1902 brought the Nonconformists into action. The Tariff
Reform movement put Free Trade on its defence, and taught men to realize
what the older economics of Liberalism had done for them. The Socialists
of practical politics, the Labour Party, found that they could by no
means dispense with the discipline of Cobden. Free Trade finance was to
be the basis of social reform. Liberalism and Labour learned to
co-operate in resisting delusive promises of remedies for unemployment
and in maintaining the right of free international exchange. Meanwhile,
Labour itself had experienced th