s to describe.

[* The title of one of Masterman's books was _In Peril of Change_.]

At the succeeding General Election, Masterman was not re-elected. And
he failed again in a couple of by-elections. In all these elections,
the League for Clean Government campaigned fiercely against him.
There was certainly in the feeling of Belloc and Cecil Chesterton
towards Masterman a great deal of the bitterness that moved Browning
to write, "Just for a handful of silver he left us," and I do not
think there is anything in the history of the paper that created so
strong a feeling against it in certain minds. There seemed something
peculiarly ungenerous in the continued attacks after a series of
defeats, in the insistence with which Masterman's name was dragged
in, always accompanied by sneers. Replying to a remonstrance to this
effect, Cecil Chesterton, then Editor of the _New Witness_, stated
that in his considered opinion it was a duty to make a successful
career impossible to any man convicted of selling his principles for
success.

I dwell on this matter of Masterman for two reasons. The first is
that it was one of the rare occasions on which Gilbert Chesterton
disagreed with his brother and Belloc. Gilbert was a very faithful
friend: it would be hard to find a broken friendship in his life. He
had moreover much of the power that aroused his enthusiasm in
Browning of going into the depths of a character and discovering the
virtue concealed there. And as with Browning his explanation took
account of elements that really existed but could find no place in a
more narrowly adverse view.

"Many of my own best friends," he wrote of Masterman, "entirely
misunderstood and underrated him. It is true that as he rose higher
in politics, the veil of the politician began to descend a little on
him also; but he became a politician from the noblest bitterness on
behalf of the poor; and what was blamed in him was the fault of much
more ignoble men. . . . But he was also an organiser and liked
governing; only his pessimism made him think that government had
always been bad, and was now no worse than usual. Therefore, to men
on fire for reform, he came to seem an obstacle and an official
apologist." After G.K. became Editor of the _New Witness_ the attacks
on Masterman ceased, but he did not differ from the two earlier
Editors in his views on the ethics of political action or the
principles of social reform.

The second reason for which t