CHAMBERLAIN, JOSEPH (1836-1914), British states man, third son of Joseph Chamberlain, master of the Cordwainers' Company, was born at Camberwell Grove, London, on July 8, 1836. His father carried on the family business of boot and shoe manufacture, and was a Unitarian in religion and a Liberal in politics. Young Joseph Chamberlain was educated at Canonbury and at University college school, London (1850 52). After two years in his father's office in London, he was sent to Birmingham to represent his father's interest in the firm of Nettlefold, screw manufacturers. Nettlefold and Chamberlain em ployed new inventions and new methods of attracting customers. After years of success Chamberlain himself, with daring but sure ability amalgamated rival firms so as to reduce competition. In 1874 he was able to retire with an ample fortune. Taking a more and more important part in the municipal and political life of Birmingham, in 1868 when the Birmingham Liberal Association was reorganized, he became one of its leading members. In 1869 he was elected chairman of the executive council of the new National Education League. He took an active part in education, started classes for his workmen, and himself taught history, French and arithmetic in a Unitarian Sunday school. In 1869 he was elected a member of the town council. He married in 1868 his first wife's cousin, Florence Kendrick (d. In 1870 he was elected a member of the first school board for Birmingham ; and for the next six years, and especially after 1873, when he became leader of a majority and chairman, he actively championed the Nonconformist opposition to denomina tionalism. He was then regarded as a republican—the term signi fying rather that he held advanced Radical opinions, which were construed by average men in the light of the current political developments in France, than that he really favoured republican institutions for Britain. His programme was "free Church, free land, free schools, free labour." At the general election of 1874 he stood as a parliamentary candidate for Sheffield, but without success. Between 1869 and 1873 he worked in the Birmingham town council for the realization of the projects of municipal reform preached by Dawson, Dr. Dale and Bunce (of the "Birm ingham Post"). In 1873 his party obtained a majority, and he was elected mayor, an office he retained by re-election until June 1876. As mayor he had to receive the prince and princess of Wales on their visit in June 1874, an occasion which excited some curiosity because of his reputation as a republican; but the be haviour of the Radical mayor satisfied the requirements alike of The Times and of Punch.
Birmingham.—The period of his mayoralty was important for Birmingham itself, and the stupendous energy which Cham berlain brought to bear on evil conditions in Birmingham had repercussions in every municipality in the country. The confer ence of local sanitary authorities summoned by him in 1874 and held in Jan. 1875 was the beginning of the modern movement for better and healthier organization of town life. In Birmingham he carried through the municipalization of the supply of gas and water, and the improvement scheme by which slums were cleared away and 4o acres laid out in new streets and open spaces. New municipal buildings were erected, Highgate park was opened for recreation, and the free library and art gallery were developed. The prosperity of modern Birmingham dates from 1875 and 1876, when these admirably administered reforms were initiated, and by his share in them Chamberlain became not only one of its most popular citizens but also a man of mark outside. An orator of a practical but consummate type, cool and hard-hitting, his spare figure, incisive features and single eye-glass soon made him a favourite subject for the caricaturist; and in later life his aggressiveness made his actions and speeches the object of more controversy than was the lot of any other politician of his time. In private life his loyalty to his friends, and his "genius for friendship" (as John Morley said) made a curious contrast to his capacity for arousing the bitterest political hostility. It may be added here that the interest taken by him in Birmingham re mained undiminished during his life, and he was the founder of Birmingham university (1900), of which he became chancellor.
In 1876 Dixon resigned his seat in parliament, and Chamberlain was returned for Birmingham in his place unopposed, as John Bright's colleague. He made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on Aug. 4, 1876, on Lord Sandon's education bill. At this period, too, he paid much attention to the question of licensing reform, and in 1876 he examined the Gothenburg sys tem in Sweden, and advocated a solution of the problem in Eng land on similar lines. During 1877 the new federation of Liberal associations, which became known as the "Caucus," was started under Chamberlain's influence in Birmingham, the results of which were clearly shown in the general election of 1880.
After the general election of 188o the Liberal party numbered 349 against 243 Conservatives and 6o Irish Nationalists. Glad stone was compelled to recognize the services of the Radicals in the election by the inclusion of Dilke and Chamberlain, who were sworn allies, in the new ministry. They had resolved together that one of them must be in the cabinet. The prime minister had not contemplated the admission of either, and was determined not to have both. Chamberlain, willing to give the preference to Dilke, was himself chosen as president of the Board of Trade. Dilke became under-secretary for foreign affairs but, at the end of 1882, he too entered the cabinet as president of the Local Government Board, and the alliance between the two rising ministers was more powerful than ever. The position of the Radicals in the 188o-85 Government was extremely difficult. Gladstone natural ly turned rather to his old friends, Granville and Spencer, and had little personal sympathy with the new men. Dilke and Chamberlain stood for more far-reaching social reforms at home than their elder colleagues, and on foreign affairs there were many difficulties. In Egypt Chamberlain demanded more vigorous measures after the massacre at Alexandria (1882), yet insisted that the Government must not be tied to the bondholders' inter est, but must give legitimate effect to Egyptian nationalist aspir ations. Again in Feb. 1884 he would have given instructions to Baring to arrange for the relief of the Sudan garrisons, but no steps were taken, and, when at last a much more elaborate expe dition than that at first urged by Chamberlain was sent, it was too late to avoid the tragedy of Gordon.
Irish Policy.—But the deepest fissure was on Irish policy. Chamberlain hated coercion, and held a positive view of Irish affairs. He made a personal effort in 1882 to heal the Irish sore. On the understanding that he would be disavowed if he failed, he was authorized to negotiate with Parnell and succeeded. The result was the "Kilmainham treaty." Parnell, on May 2, 1882, was released from Kilmainham gaol, having agreed to advise the cessation of outrages and the payment of rent, while Gladstone's ministry was to relax its coercive administration. Thereupon, W. E. Forster, the Irish secretary, resigned. His successor, the blameless Lord Frederick Cavendish, was immediately murdered in Phoenix park. This tragedy darkened the whole aspect of Irish affairs. Chamberlain, conspicuously marked out for the post of danger, was prepared to face the risk, but was not ap pointed. He refused to allow the tragedy to divert him from a definitely remedial policy. Eventually in 1885, after indirect negotiation through Capt. O'Shea with Parnell, he placed before the cabinet a scheme for Irish government on lines of semi-Home Rule without weakening, however, the imperial connection. A "central council," or national elective board was to be set up in Dublin, and Parnell was to forego obstruction to a bill which would reduce coercion to a minimum. The Irish bishops were thought to favour the plan. When these proposals for devolution came bef ore the cabinet (May 9) all the peers, except Granville, voted against them; of the commoners only Hartington opposed them. Proposals for a Coercion bill and a land purchase bill were then put forward. Dilke and Chamberlain resigned, the latter being definitely opposed to land purchase unaccompanied by local autonomy. But the resignations did not take effect before the Government was defeated on the budget (June 8) .
Both before and after the defeat Chamberlain associated him self with what was known as the "unauthorized programme," i.e., free education, small holdings for agricultural labourers, graduated taxation and local government. In June 1885 he made a speech at Birmingham, treating the reforms just mentioned as the "ransom" that property must pay to society for the security it enjoys. In October Chamberlain defined his ideas to Glad stone. They were that local authorities must have the right of appropriation for public purposes, that a radical readjustment of taxation was necessary, and that ministers must be free to ad vocate free education, even if some of their colleagues opposed it. At the general election of Nov. 1885 Chamberlain was returned for 'Vest Birmingham. The Liberal strength in the nation gener ally was, however, reduced to 335 members, though the Radical section held their own; and the Irish vote became necessary to Gladstone if he was to command a majority. Chamberlain still had an open mind on the Irish question. He foresaw that be tween Home Rule and separation there was but a step, and in a letter written on Dec. 26 he went so far as to discuss a federalist scheme for the British Isles with five separate parliaments. In December it was stated that Gladstone intended to propose Home Rule for Ireland, and when the new parliament met in Jan. 1886 Lord Salisbury's ministry was defeated on the address, on an amendment moved by Chamberlain's Birmingham hench man, Jesse Collings, embodying the "three acres and a cow" of the Radical programme. Lord Hartington (afterwards duke of Devonshire) and some other Liberals, declined to join Gladstone in view of the altered attitude he was adopting towards Ireland. But Chamberlain—stipulating for liberty of judgment on the prime minister's Irish policy when embodied in definite legisla tive shape—entered the cabinet as president of the Local Govern ment Board (with Jesse Collings as parliamentary secretary) . On March 15, 1886, he resigned, explaining in the House of Commons (April 8), that while he had always been in favour of the largest extension of local government to Ireland consistent with the integrity of the empire 'and the supremacy of the im perial parliament, and had therefore joined Gladstone when he believed that agreement might be possible, he was unable to recognize that the scheme communicated by Gladstone to his colleagues maintained those conditions. At the same time he was not irreconcilable, and invited Gladstone even then to modify the bill so as to remove the objections of Radical dissentients. This indecisive attitude did not last long, and the split in the party rapidly widened. At Birmingham Chamberlain was sup ported by the local "Two Thousand," but deserted by the national "Caucus" of the Liberal party and by its organizer, his own former lieutenant, Schnadhorst. In May the Radicals who followed Bright and Chamberlain, and the Whigs who took their cue from Lord Hartington, decided to vote against the second reading of the Home Rule bill, instead of allowing it to be taken and then pressing for modifications in committee, and on June 7 the bill was defeated by 343 to 94 Liberal Unionists—as they were generally called—voting against the Government. Chamber lain was the object of the bitterest attacks from the Gladstonians for his share in this result; and open war was proclaimed by the Home Rulers against the "dissentient Liberals"—the description used by Gladstone. The general election, however, returned to Parliament 316 Conservatives, 78 Liberal Unionists, and only 276 Gladstonians and Nationalists, Birmingham returning seven Unionist members. When the House met in August, it was de cided by the Liberal Unionists, under Hartington's leadership, that their policy henceforth was essentially to put in the Tories and to keep Gladstone out. The old Liberal feeling still prevail ing among them was too strong, however, for their leaders to take office in a coalition ministry. For them as a whole it was enough to be able to tie down the Conservative Government to such measures as were not offensive to Liberal Unionist prin ciples ; but Chamberlain from the first was determined to impose on that Government a progressive policy in British social ques tions as the price of his indispensable support on the Irish question. It still seemed possible, moreover, that the Gladstonians might be brought to modify their Home Rule proposals, and in Jan. 1887 a Round Table conference, suggested by Chamberlain, was held between him and Sir G. Trevelyan for the Liberal Union ists, with Sir William Harcourt, John Morley and Lord Herschell for the Gladstonians, but no rapprochement was effected.
Reform.—The influence of his views upon the domestic legisla tion of the Government was bringing about a more complete union in the Unionist party, and destroying the old lines of political cleavage. Before 1892 Chamberlain had the satisfaction of see ing Lord Salisbury's ministry pass such important acts, from a progressive standpoint, as those dealing with coal mines regula tion, allotments, county councils, housing of the working classes, free education and agricultural holdings, besides Irish legislation like the Ashbourne Act, the Land Act of 1891, and the Light Rail ways and Congested District acts.
In Oct. 1887, Chamberlain, Sir L. Sackville West and Sir Charles Tupper were selected by the Government as British plenipotentiaries to discuss with the United States the Canadian fisheries dispute, and a treaty was signed by them at Washington on February 15, 1888. The Senate, however, refused to ratify it ; but a protocol provided for a modus vivendi giving American fishing vessels similar advantages to those contemplated in the treaty. This arrangement, prolonged from year to year, proved to be a real settlement. Chamberlain returned home in March, his already strong feelings of friendliness to the United States much strengthened. This sentiment was reinforced in Nov. 1888, by his marriage with his third wife, Miss Endicott, daughter of the United States secretary of war in President Cleveland's first administration.
At the general election of 1892 Chamberlain was again re turned, with an increased majority, for West Birmingham, but the Unionist party as a whole was narrowly defeated; the Irish Nationalist vote again held the balance in the House of Com mons and, with a small and precarious majority, Gladstone re turned to office, pledged to Home Rule for Ireland. • On Feb. 13, 1893, that wonderful veteran, now in his 84th year, introduced his second Home Rule bill, which was read a third time on Sept. I. During the 82 days' discussion in the House of Commons Chamberlain was its most acute, ceaseless, unsparing critic, and he moved public opinion outside the House. His chief contribu tion to the discussions during the later stages of the Gladstone and Rosebery ministries was in connection with Asquith's abor tive Employers' Liability bill, when he foreshadowed the broader method of "compensation for accidents," afterwards carried out, in favour of the working classes by the act of 1897. Outside par liament he was busy formulating proposals for old age pensions, which had a prominent place in the Unionist programme of 1895. After his visit to America in 1889 he was developing the impe rialist outlook which profoundly modified his future activity.
From New Year 1896 (the date of the Jameson Raid) onwards South Africa demanded the chief attention of the colonial secre tary (see SOUTH AFRICA, and for details TRANSVAAL). In his negotiations with President Kruger one masterful temperament was pitted against another. Chamberlain had a very difficult part to play in a situation dominated by suspicion on both sides. While he firmly insisted on the rights of Great Britain and of British subjects in the Transvaal, he was the continual object of Radical criticism at home. Attempts were even made to ascribe finan cial motives to Chamberlain's actions, and the political atmos phere was thick with suspicion and scandal. The report of the Commons committee (July 1897) definitely acquitted both Chamberlain and the Colonial Office of any privity in the Jameson Raid, but Chamberlain's detractors continued to assert the con trary. Opposition hostility reached such a pitch that in 1899 there was hardly an act of the cabinet during the negotiations with President Kruger which was not attributed to the personal mal ignity and unscrupulousness of the colonial secretary. In fact he gave ample scope to the man on the spot, Sir Alfred (Lord) Milner, whom he had sent out as high commissioner in 1897. The Bloemfontein Conference of 1899 was a serious attempt to se cure amicable agreement ; but its failure did not deter Chamber lain from making repeated efforts to ensure peace. In the Trans vaal the original Boer burghers had become an armed minority, determined at all costs to maintain its racial ascendancy. Since the opening of the gold mines, the unenfranchised outlanders, chiefly British, had become the majority of the adult inhabitants and supplied most of the revenue. Their plight was one of "tax ation without representation." Chamberlain offered as part of a general settlement of the franchise and other outstanding ques tions, to give complete guarantees against any attack on the in dependence of the republic. But President Kruger's ultimatum demanded, in effect, the military withdrawal and political abdi cation of Britain in South Africa, and the Boer War began. It lasted for over 21 years before the two Dutch republics formally surrendered. Throughout this period, Chamberlain was the main stay of British public opinion when nearly all the world was hostile. The elections of 1900 (when he was again returned, un opposed, for West Birmingham) turned upon the individuality of a single minister more than any since the days of Gladstone's ascendancy, and Chamberlain, never conspicuous for inclination to turn his other cheek to the smiter, was not slow to return the blows with interest.
Apart from South Africa, his most important work at this time was the successful passing of the Australian Commonwealth Act (1900), when both tact and firmness were needed to settle certain differences between the imperial Government and the colonial delegates.
Chamberlain's tenure of the office of colonial secretary be tween 1895 and 1900 must always be regarded as a turning-point in the history of the relations between the British colonies and the mother country. In spirit he was an imperial federationist even before his separation from Gladstone. From 1887 onwards he worked for a rapprochement of the different parts of the empire for purposes of defence and commerce. In 1895 he struck a new note of constructive statesmanship, basing itself on the economic necessities of a world-wide empire. Not the least of the anxieties of the Colonial Office during this period was the situation in the West Indies, where the cane-sugar industry was being steadily undermined by the European bounties given to exports of Continental beet, and though the Government restricted themselves to attempts at removing the bounties by negotiation and to measures for palliating the worst effects in the West Indies, Chamberlain made no secret of his repudiation of the Cobden club view that retaliation would be contrary to the doc trines of free trade. He set to work to educate public opinion at home into understanding that the responsibilities of the mother country are not merely to be construed according to the selfish interests of a nation of consumers. As regards foreign affairs, Chamberlain more than once (particularly at Birmingham, May 13, 1898, and at Leicester, Nov. 30, 1899) indicated his leanings towards a closer understanding between the British empire, the United States and Germany. The unusually outspoken and pointed expression, however, of his disinclination to submit to Musco vite duplicity or to "pin-pricks" or "unmannerliness" from France was widely criticized. For three years from the spring of 1898 to 1901 he worked strenuously in secret for an Anglo-German alliance. He was convinced that this project was the chief key to the peace of the world. The Kaiser and Billow hoped rather by keeping free hands to become arbiters of the world.
The settlement after the war was full of difficulties, financial and others, in South Africa. When Arthur Balfour succeeded Lord Salisbury as prime minister in July 1902, 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 Nov. 1902 Chamberlain, bent upon a con ciliatory settlement with the Boers, went out to South Africa. He travelled from place to place (Dec. 26–Feb. 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 £30, 000,00o which, by so much, should repay the British Treasury the cost of the war, and when he returned in March 1903, satis faction was general in the country over the success of his mission.
But meantime two things had happened. He desired above all things imperial union. At the Imperial Conference of 1902 the attitude of the overseas premiers had shown that the only way to the beginnings of a closer political union of the whole empire was on lines of mutually preferential commerce, deviating from the strict traditional doctrines of "free trade"—that is of equally free imports for all products, whether of foreign or British—. imperial origin. But at home—while he was still in South Africa —some of his colleagues had gone a long way, behind the scenes, to destroy one of the very factors on which the 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. The more advanced imperialists, as well as the more old-fashioned protectionists (like Lord Chap lin) who formed a small but integral part of the Conservative body, had looked forward to this tax being converted into a differential one between foreign and colonial corn, so as to introduce a scheme of colonial preference. The latter principle would be introduced even by a remission of sixpence in favour of grain grown "under the flag" overseas. Ritchie, the chancellor of the exchequer, hav ing a surplus in prospect and taxation to take off, persuaded the cabinet to abolish the corn-duty altogether. Chamberlain himself had proposed only to take it off as regards colonial, but not foreign corn—thus inaugurating a preferential system—and when he left for South Africa he did not imagine that this principle was in danger. But in his absence, a majority of the cabinet supported Ritchie. To those who had hoped so to handle the tax as to make it a lever for a gradual change in the established fiscal system, the total abolition was a bitter blow. At once there began, though not at first openly, a split between the more rigid f ree-traders advocates of cheap food and free imports—and those who desired to use the opportunities of a tariff, of however moderate a kind, for attaining national and imperial and not merely revenue ad vantages. This idea had for some time been forming in Chamber lain's mind, and now took full possession of it. For the moment he remained in the cabinet, but the seed of dissension was sown. The first public intimation of his views was given in an epoch marking speech to his constituents at Birmingham (May 15, 1903), when he outlined a plan for raising more money by a rearranged tariff, partly to obtain a preferential system for the empire and partly to produce funds for social reform at home. On May 28 in the House of Commons he spoke on the same subject, and de clared "if you are to give a preference to the colonies, you must put a tax on food." Putting the necessity of food-taxes in the forefront was injudicious; but imperialist conviction and en thusiasm were more conspicuous than electioneering prudence in the launching of Chamberlain's new scheme. His courage was heroic ; his tactics fell short of the old unfailing mastery of man oeuvre.
Meanwhile, the death of Lord Salisbury (Aug. 22) removed a weighty figure from the councils of the Unionist party. The cabinet met several times at the beginning of September, and the question of their attitude towards the fiscal problem became acute. The public had its first intimation of impending events in the appearance on Sept. 16 of Balfour's Economic Notes on Insular Free Trade, which had been previously circulated as a cabinet memorandum. The next day appeared the Board of Trade Fiscal Blue-Book, and on the i8th conflicting resignations were announced—not only of the more rigid free-traders in the cabinet, Ritchie and Lord George Hamilton, but also of Cham berlain himself for the opposite reason. His exit from the British Government after eight years of office was an event discussed with interest throughout the world.
Letters in cordial terms were published, which had passed be tween Chamberlain (Sept. 9) and Balfour (Sept. 16). Chamber lain pointed out that he was committed to a preferential scheme involving new duties on food, and could not remain in the Gov ernment without prejudice while it was excluded from the party programme ; remaining loyal to Balfour and his general objects, he could best promote this course from outside, and he suggested that the Government might confine its policy to the "assertion of our freedom in the caste of all commercial relations with foreign countries." Balfour, while reluctantly admitting the necessity of Chamberlain's taking a freer hand, expressed his agreement in the desirability of a closer fiscal union with the colonies, but questioned the immediate practicability of any scheme ; he was willing to adopt fiscal reform so far as it covered retaliatory duties, but thought that the exclusion of taxation of food from the party programme was in existing circumstances necessary, so long as public opinion was not ripe.
The tariff reform movement itself was now outside the purely official programme, and Chamberlain (backed by a majority of the Unionist members) threw himself with impetuous ardour into a crusade on its behalf, while at the same time supporting Bal four in parliament, and leaving it to him to decide as to the policy of going to the country when the time should be ripe. On Oct. 6 he opened his campaign with a speech at Glasgow. Analysing the trade statistics as between 1872 and 1902, he insisted that British progress involved a relative decline compared with that of protectionist foreign countries like Germany and the United States; Great Britain exported less and less of manufactured goods, and imported more and more; the exports to foreign countries had decreased, and it was only the increased exports to the colonies that maintained the British position. This was the out come of the working of a one-sided free-trade system. Now was the time for consolidating British trade relations with the colonies. A further increase of £26,000,000 a year in the trade with the colonies might be obtained by a preferential tariff, and this meant additional employment at home for 166,000 workmen, or subsistence for a population of a far larger number. His positive proposals were : (1) no tax on raw materials; (2) a small tax on food other than colonial, e.g., two shillings a quarter on foreign corn but excepting maize, and 5% on meat and dairy produce excluding bacon; (3) a i o% general tariff on imported manu factured goods. To meet any increased cost of living, he pro posed to reduce the duties on tea, sugar and other articles of general consumption.
In Jan. 1905 some correspondence was published between Chamberlain and the duke of Devonshire, dating from the pre vious October, as to difficulties arising from the central Liberal Unionist organization subsidizing local associations which had adopted the programme of tariff reform. The duke objected to this departure from neutrality, and suggested that it was becom ing "impossible with any advantage to maintain under existing circumstances the existence of the Liberal-Unionist organization." Chamberlain retorted that this was a matter for a general meeting of delegates to decide ; if the duke was out-voted he might resign his presidency ; for his own part he was prepared to allow the local associations to be subsidized impartially, so long as they sup ported the Government, but he was not prepared for the violent disruption, which the duke apparently contemplated, of an asso ciation so necessary to the success of the Unionist cause. The duke was in a difficult position as president of the organization, since most of the local associations supported Chamberlain; and he replied that the differences between them were vital, and he would not be responsible for dividing the association into sections, but would rather resign. Chamberlain then called a general meet ing on his own responsibility in February, when a new constitu tion was proposed ; and in May, at the annual meeting of the Liberal-Unionist council, the free-food Unionists, being in a mi nority, retired, and the association was reorganized under Cham berlain's auspices, Lord Lansdowne and Lord Selborne (both of them cabinet ministers) becoming vice-presidents. On July 14 the reconstituted Liberal-Unionist organization held a great demon stration in the Albert hall, and Chamberlain's success in ousting the duke of Devonshire and the other free-trade members of the old Liberal-Unionist party, and imposing his own fiscal policy upon the Liberal-Unionist caucus, was now complete.
In reply to Balfour's appeal for the sinking of differences (New castle, Nov. 14), Chamberlain insisted at Bristol (Nov. 21) on the adoption of his fiscal policy; and Balfour resigned on Dec. 4 on the ground that he no longer retained the confidence of the party. At the crushing Unionist defeat in the general election which followed in Jan. 1906, Chamberlain was triumphantly re turned for West Birmingham, and all the divisions of Birmingham returned Chamberlainite members. This, by contrast with the national disaster to the Unionist party as a whole, was one of the astonishing features of all British electoral history.
But he had no desire to set himself up as leader in Balfour's place, and after private negotiations with the ex-prime minister, a common platform was arranged between them, on which Balf our— for whom a seat was found in the City of London—should con tinue to lead the remnant of the party. The "Valentine's Day" formula was given in a letter from Balfour of Feb. 14 which ad mitted the necessity of making fiscal reform the first plank in the Unionist platform, and accepted a general tariff on manufactured goods and a small duty on foreign corn as "not in principle objectionable." It may be left to future historians to attempt a considered judgment on the English tariff reform movement, and on Cham berlain's responsibility for the Unionist debacle of 1906. But while his enemies taunted him with having twice wrecked his party—first the Radical party under Gladstone, and secondly the Unionist party under Balfour—no well-informed critic doubted his sincerity, or failed to recognize that in leaving the cabinet and embarking on his fiscal campaign he showed real devotion to an idea. In championing the cause of imperial fiscal union, by means involving the abandonment of a system of taxation which had be come part of British orthodoxy, he followed the guidance of a profound conviction that the stability of the empire and the very existence of the hegemony of the United Kingdom depended upon the conversion of public opinion to a revision of the current economic doctrine. For the second time he had staked an already established position on his refusal to compromise with his con victions on a question which appeared to him of vital and imme diate importance.
Mr. Chamberlain's own activity in the political field was cut short in the middle of the session of 1906. His 70th birthday was celebrated in Birmingham with immense enthusiasm shared in spirit by the bulk of the Unionist party in Great Britain and by idealists of imperialism throughout the British dominions. His fatigue before this apotheosis was extreme. Immediately after wards he had a stroke of paralysis. He never spoke in public again. Though, for some time, his adherents hoped that he might return to the House of Commons, he was quite incapacitated for any public work. At the general election of Jan. 1910 Chamber lain was returned unopposed for West Birmingham again. His last sad appearance in the House was in the February following when, while few members were present, the formality of signing the roll was performed for him by his eldest son.
He died at his house, Highbury, Birmingham, on July 2, 1914. His last speech had been made on July 9, 1906. In that speech he uttered words which may fairly be given as his political testa ment : "The union of the Empire," he said, "must be preceded and accompanied by a better understanding, by a better sympathy. To secure that is the highest object of statesmanship now at the beginning of the 2oth century; and if these were the last words that I were permitted to utter to you, I would rejoice to utter them in your presence, and with your approval. I know that the fruition of our hopes is certain. I hope I may live to congratu late you upon our common triumph ; but in any case I have faith in the people. I trust in the good sense, the intelligence and the patriotism of the majority, the vast majority, of my country men." Joseph Chamberlain had a singularly happy home life, and dur ing his long illness had the devoted attention of Mrs. Chamber lain. Both his sons, Joseph Austen and Arthur Neville, rose to high position amongst statesmen, and are separately noticed.
See H. W. Lucy, Speeches of Joseph Chamberlain, with a sketch of his life (1885) ; Speeches on Home Rule and the Irish Question 1881-87 (1887) ; Foreign and Colonial Speeches (1897) ; Imperial Union and Tariff Reform, 15 May—Nov. 4, 1903 (2nd ed. 1910) ; C. W. Boyd, Mr. Chamberlain's Speeches (2 vols., 1914) . The authorized Life of Chamberlain, by J. L. Garvin, is in preparation. The existing biographies were written during Chamberlain's lifetime by N. M. Marris (1900) , S. H. Jeyes (19o3) , Louis Creswick (4 vols., 1904), Alexander Mackintosh (1906) and by Viscount Milner, J. Spender, Sir Henry Lucy and others (pub. 1912). Much information, including letters and reports of conversations, is to be found in biographies of his contemporaries, notably in those of Gladstone, the duke of Devonshire, Granville, Goschen and Harcourt, which will be found noted under those heads. For the South African period see the despatches published in the parliamentary papers series, Accounts and Papers (Colonies and British Possessions, South Africa), for the years in question, and The "Times" History of the War in South Africa (edit. L. C. S. Amery, vol. i. and vi. 1900-09) ; and for the suggested rapprochement with Germany at the turn of the century, E. Fischer, Holstein's grosses Nein; Die deutschenglischen Bdndnisver handlungen von, 1898-1901 (1925); H. von Eckhardstein, Lebens erinnerungen and politische Denkwurdigkeiten (Leipzig, 1919, etc.) ; Erich Brandenburg, Von Bismarck zum Weltkriege (1924, trans. by A. E. Adams, 1927) ; Die Grossepolitik der Europdischen Kabinette, 1871-1914; and F. Meinecke, Geschichte des Deutsch Englischen Bundnissproblems, 189o-19o1 (19271.