had to compete both with other British ports and with formidable and subsidised rivals on the Continent. The Bill proposed to set up a Port Authority chosen mainly by those trading in the port, but with municipal and public elements; this body would take over the functions of the Thames Conservancy below Teddington Lock and would immediately take steps to improve the condition of the river, and, if necessary, construct new docks. Additional revenue would be obtained from duties on goods, and barges would have a registration fee. Unlike previous Bills, this would not provide a municipal subsidy, and the controlling body under it would be smaller. The Port Authority would be able to acquire land by a summary and cheap process. Provision would be made for housing dockers, and for the registration of casual labour. That afternoon the last of the dock companies, the Surrey Commercial, had come to terms.

An official memorandum subsequently published showed that the governing body would consist of twenty-five members, with a chairman and vice-chairman who might be appointed from outside; five members would be appointed by the London County Council, three from among its own members and two from outside; two by the Board of Trade, and one apiece by the Admiralty, the City Corporation, and Trinity House (two of these ten being experienced in dock management), and fourteen would be elected by the payers of dues, owners of river craft, and wharfingers voting together. The first Port Authority, however, would be appointed. The docks would be paid for in redeemable Port Stock. The port would extend from Teddington to a point fifty-one miles below London Bridge. Above Teddington the Thames Conservancy was reconstituted.

The Government had thus made considerable headway with its programme, and proposed to take the second reading of the Licensing Bill on April 6; and it was reviving from the shock of Peckham. The Budget prospects, moreover, were hopeful; the financial year had ended with an increase of 1,501,000l. as compared with its predecessor, and of 3,703,000l. above the estimates. The political situation was reviewed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at a dinner given by City Liberals to Lord Swaythling (Sir Samuel Montagu) at the Hotel Cecil on April 1. After deploring the illness of the Prime Minister, he declared that the Liberal party had never been in better fighting trim. They would rather lose fifty seats than win such a victory as Peckham. They were sensibly abating the inflated expenditure of their predecessors, and endeavouring to reduce the national liabilities. As to the Licensing Bill, they were ready to discuss details; but the liquor interest claimed to defy the interest of the community at large. He referred to the attacks made on him in the City (p. 69), and remarked that Consols and all gilt-edged securities had risen since the introduction of the Bill. Doubtless this was due to other

causes also, but it was nonsense to denounce the Bill as a first step in a campaign of plunder. No greater disservice could be done to the cause of property than to associate it with the perpetuation of the liquor monopoly. The Government was quite unmoved by the clamour, and meant to persevere.

However, an event foreseen for some weeks now occurred at an unexpected moment, postponed the second reading of the Licensing Bill, and set up a new stage in the career of Ministers. Early on Sunday morning, April 5, a courier arrived at Biarritz, where the King had been for a month, bearing the Prime Minister's resignation, tendered "on the urgent representations of his medical advisers." It had been understood for some time that Mr. Asquith would succeed Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and that several changes would be made in the Government, among them the promotion of Mr. LloydGeorge to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and of Mr. Winston Churchill to Cabinet office. Departing from the constitutional tradition, the King did not return; but, having accepted Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's resignation with expressions of regret and esteem, he summoned Mr. Asquith to Biarritz. Parliament was adjourned on April 7 for a week; and the second reading of the Licensing Bill was postponed perforce.

The resignation had been announced in both Houses on Monday, April 6. The Marquess of Ripon alluded to the late Prime Minister's singular influence over the Commons, based on perfect temper, earnest sympathy with the feelings and principles of his party, and unfailing courtesy to opponents. The Marquess of Lansdowne added a few words of sympathy. In the Commons Mr. Asquith declared that no Prime Minister resigning had ever been more universally or deservedly beloved; and that every member had come that day under the shadow of a personal loss. Mr. Balfour fully endorsed all that the Prime Minister had said; and Mr. John Redmond, speaking for the Nationalists, declared that in Sir Henry CampbellBannerman's retirement the Nationalists had suffered a loss second only to that of Mr. Gladstone.

Mr. Asquith was not popular among the extreme Labour party and the Irish Nationalists, but it was thought that he would, as The Times said, "pull the party into line." His acceptance of the Premiership was announced on April 8. The fact that the King received him on foreign soil was commented on by The Times as "an inconvenient and dangerous departure from precedent," and its comments were fully endorsed by the leading Liberal weekly, The Nation.

The Opposition view of the change was expressed by the Marquess of Lansdowne, at a complimentary dinner given him by the Conservative Club on April 8. The Radical party, he said, was taking a fresh departure under less favourable conditions than when they started in 1905. Free discussion had

been curtailed in Parliament, the Army and Navy were made subjects of experiment, Ireland was disturbed, and he predicted that they would come to grief on finance. There had been a taint of vindictiveness in their policy on education, licensing, the land question and the House of Lords; and the attack on that House was a failure. He hoped the new Government would deal with these problems in a spirit of moderation. Lord Curzon of Kedleston, speaking at Basingstoke at a political meeting for the first time for ten years, on April 9, thought that the Government was decaying, and that all sections of Unionists could unite on Mr. Balfour's fiscal platform. This announcement caused some sensation in view of the attitude of the Indian Government on the fiscal question in 1904.

Mr. Asquith arrived in London on April 10. The list of the reconstructed Cabinet was published on April 13, and the Ministers kissed hands on appointment on the return of the King from Biarritz three days later. The changes are most conveniently given in tabular form.

It was stated that Mr. John Morley had declined the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and that he and Sir Henry Fowler would keep their posts as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary for India, but would receive peerages. The Earl of Crewe replaced the Marquess of Ripon as leader of the Upper House, and the Earl of Elgin retired altogether, refusing a marquessate.

Outside the Cabinet the changes were :-

The Earl of Portsmouth, Mr. Lough, and Mr. Edmund Robertson retired from the Government, the second becoming a Privy Councillor and the last-named being raised to the Peerage as Lord Lochee of Gowrie.

The new appointments met with general approval. It was thought that Mr. Asquith was more in sympathy than his predecessor with Sir Edward Grey's foreign policy, that a settlement might be reached on the education question, and that there would be a slackening in the campaign against the Lords.

F

Both Houses of Parliament reassembled on April 15, after the adjournment, to hear the Royal Assent given to the Army Bill, and to adjourn over the Easter recess. New writs were issued in the Commons for the seats vacated, and, on the motion for adjournment until April 27, there was a debate on the alleged dumping of American hops, initiated by Sir Gilbert Parker (Gravesend), whose information, however, proved to be greatly exaggerated. Demonstrations had been held in the hopgrowing districts in favour of the imposition of a duty of 40s. per cwt. on imported hops; but the matter was under consideration of a Select Committee, which reported later in the year adversely to this proposal.

CHAPTER III.

FROM EASTER TO WHITSUNTIDE.

THE abridged Easter recess was a period of unusual interest, due to the change of Government and the miniature general election. The Ministerial changes, or the elevation of Ministers to peerages, would necessitate fresh elections in North-West Manchester, Dewsbury, West Wolverhampton, Dundee and Montrose; while West Derbyshire, Central Sheffield and Kincardineshire were vacant respectively through the succession of Mr. Victor Cavendish to the Dukedom of Devonshire and the deaths of Sir Howard Vincent (April 7) and of Mr. J. W. Crombie (March 22). Of these West Derbyshire and Central Sheffield were uncontested, the Liberal candidates applied to preferring to wait till the general election. Of the seats contested, it was only in North-West Manchester and West Wolverhampton a fortnight later that the Ministry ran any great electoral risk. Mr. Churchill's success in a normally Unionist constituency had been one of the earlier surprises of the general election of 1906, and the education controversy in all Lancashire had been specially acute; but the result of the election was believed to depend largely on the vote of a body of FreeTrade Unionists. Mr. Churchill had thrown himself at once into the fray, and his spirited address, published April 13, was an appeal to the special interests of the City, admirably calculated to rally the forces of Liberalism and Free Trade. The two years since the general election (he said) had been the best years Manchester had ever known. To him they had been years of exacting labour. South Africa was now moving towards a strong Afrikander federation under the Union Jack; Nigeria and Uganda were being developed as cotton-growing regions; and his new office at the Board of Trade was of special importance to Manchester, more especially by its connection with the solution of trade disputes, with patents, and with the question of unemployment. He defended the Licen

sing Bill in its integrity, and appealed for a compromise on the education question. Finally, he condemned the practice of opposing the re-election of Ministers, and laid stress on the successes achieved by the Government. However, he was strongly opposed by the women suffragists, who declared, in an "open letter" to the women of Great Britain, that Mr. Asquith would only yield to political force as exercised at the ballot box; and a Socialist, Mr. Dan Irving, came forward to divide the Free-Trade vote. The Unionist candidate was Mr. Joynson Hicks, Mr. Churchill's opponent at the general election-a prominent London solicitor, a fervent temperance advocate, and an ardent motorist.

On both sides the election produced curious cross-currents and interesting tactical developments. Sir Alfred Jones, a Tariff Reformer, urged Mr. Churchill's claims to support at Manchester on the ground of his services to cotton-growing in Africa; but the leading elements of uncertainty were the attitude of the Free-Trade Unionists and of the Irish. Mr. Churchill wished to make the fiscal issue prominent; Mr. Joynson Hicks, while accepting Mr. Balfour's fiscal platform, preferred at first to keep Tariff Reform in the background and to attract the support of the Free-Trade Unionists by giving prominence to licensing, education, and the general policy of the Government. On the licensing question, however, it was remembered that he had given evidence in 1898 before Lord Peel's Licensing Commission advocating a five years' timelimit. He defended his consistency by saying that the timelimit advocated in 1898 differed from that proposed in 1906; and, on April 16, he gave way to the Tariff Reformers by declaring himself independent of the support of the Unionist FreeTrade League.

On the Irish attitude, Mr. John Redmond, addressing the United Irish League at Dublin on April 15, had deprecated the disappointment felt in Ireland at the result of the Home Rule debate (p. 75). The Liberal party (he said) had supported Home Rule by an enormous majority, which included Mr. Asquith, Mr. Birrell, and Sir Edward Grey. It was known before that the existing Parliament was pledged not to deal with the subject. But whereas the late Premier had been not only a convinced, but an enthusiastic, Home Ruler, Mr. Asquith, though intellectually a Home Ruler, was not enthusiastic. Again, whilst Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's policy involved a direct challenge to the Lords, Mr. Asquith would probably be conciliatory and try to remain in office for some years. That meant an unfortunate change in Liberal policy. The Irish members would not defeat their own Bills, but it was their interest to force a dissolution, and he did not think they could ask the Irish electors at Manchester to support Mr. Churchill. In conclusion, he urged more vigorous action amongst the Irish party.