ther as a fervent
Gladstonian or a red-hot Unionist; I don't mind which, as neither have
the slightest chance of getting in now.

"If, after considering these qualifications, you are of opinion that I
would be the right man in the right place, I shall be most happy and
willing to become your chairman.--Yours, etc."

[Illustration]

I regret to have to confess that I once posed as a political prophet. I
was encouraged to prophesy the fact that six months before the election
of July, 1892, when Mr. Gladstone was confident of "sweeping the
country" and coming back with a majority of 170 or so, when both sides
predicted a decisive result, and political prophets were cocksure of
large figures, I luckily happened to be more successful in my
vaticinations than they, giving the Gladstonians a majority of something
between forty and forty-five. The actual majority turned out, six
months afterwards, to be forty-two. This encouraged me to write the
following letter to the _Times_, and it appeared July 19th:

"_A Parliamentary Prophecy._

"Sir,--I am surprised that no Parliamentary chronicler has written to
the papers to thank the electors of the United Kingdom for the happy
result of the General Election. The jaded journalist is the only person
to whom the result is pleasing, as he will have no lack of material for
descriptive matter in the coming Parliament.

"The Gladstonians are not pleased, because they have barely got a
working majority. The Conservatives are not pleased, because they have
not got one at all. The Liberal Unionists are not pleased, because they
go with the Conservatives. The Irish Nationalists are chagrined, because
of the success of five Unionists in Ireland. The Parnellites feel
mischievous but unhappy. The Labour representatives mischievous and
happy--they are the heroes of the hour--and, although the members of the
Labour Party have hitherto been nonentities in the House, they will
probably be 'named' several times in the future. But Parliament is a
refrigerator for red-hot rhetoric, and such Members will, in time, find
respectability and aspirants,[2] and grow dull.

[2] See page 212.

"A harassed leader, an ambitious Opposition, the balance of power
resting in the hands of the Irish, divided amongst themselves, a new and
probably noisy party, boredom increased, faddism intensified--such are
the ingredients of the new H