As

Ward, who represents the Crewe division of Cheshire. Second Lieutenant of the Worcester Yeomanry he receives in pay and allowance £4: 19s. a year.

The House of Commons will begin to understand why the gallant member has gone to the Cape, exciting the concern of Mr. Swift MacNeill at his prolonged abstention from Parliamentary duties. A man

can't get on in London on £5

a year minus one shilling.

The present Earl of Derby is one of the few members of the House of Lords

An Unknown
Poet.

who can bring to discussion of affairs in Crete personal knowledge of the island. Just twenty years ago, when he was Secretary of State for War, he made a semi-official tour in Eastern waters, accompanied by that gallant seaman Mr. W. H. Smith, at the time First Lord of the Admiralty. The event was celebrated in the following verse, the manuscript of which, in an unrecognised hand, I turned up the other day among some papers relating to the epoch:-

"

"THE HEAD OF THE ARMY AND
CHIEF OF THE FLEET.
MARS: COL. THE HON. A. F. STANLEY.
NEPTUNE THE LATE W. H. SMITH.

The head of the Army and chief of the Fleet

Went out on a visit to Cyprus and Crete.

The natives received them with joyful hurrahs,

Called one of them Neptune, the other one Mars.

They ran up an altar to Stanley forthwith,

And ran up a bookstall to W. H. Smith.

To the sensitive ear the rhyme of the last couplet is not everything that might be desired. But the intention is good.

Lord Salisbury's

CHAPTER XIV

JUNE

DURING Mr. Gladstone's stay at Bournemouth in the early days of March conversation turned upon the prognostications about the next Unionist Premier. Asked whom he thought would succeed Lord Successor. Salisbury, Mr. Gladstone replied in that deep chest note he uses when strongly moved: "The Duke of Devonshire."

In reviewing probable candidates for the post, the authority whose opinion I was privileged to quote did not glance beyond the House of Commons. I fancy that, fascinated by consideration of possible rivalry in the running between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour, he "forgot Devonshire," as Lord Randolph Churchill on an historic occasion "forgot Goschen." Mr. Gladstone, who forgot nothing, seems to have hit the right nail on the head. The succession of the Duke of Devonshire to the post of the Marquis of Salisbury-men of all parties and politics will hope the occasion may be far distant-would, save from one aspect presently noted, be as popular as it would be meet. The Duke's promotion, on whatever plane or to whatever height it may reach, would never evoke the opposition instinctively ranged against the advance of a pushful man. Every one knows that, if the Duke followed his natural impulse and gratified his heart's desire, he would stand aside altogether from the worry and responsibility of public life.

As it is, he compromises by strolling in late to meet its successive engagements.

It was under personal persuasion of Mr. John Bright that he first essayed public life. In deference to party loyalty and a sense of public duty he, on the retirement of Mr. Gladstone in 1874, undertook the thankless task of leading the disorganised and disheartened Liberal Party. Having twelve years later, for conscience' sake, withdrawn from the Leadership of Mr. Gladstone, he again caught a glimpse of the land where it is always afternoon. Mr. Chamberlain at this crisis braced him up to meet the new call of duty.

In a long and not unvaried political

career no one

has ever hinted

at suspicion that

"STROLLING IN LATE."

He

the Duke of Devonshire was influenced in any step by self-seeking motive. He may have been right, he may have been wrong. always did the thing he believed to be right, irrespective of personal prejudice or desire. Neither on the public platform nor in either House of Parliament has he met with the success that marks the effort of some others. But it would be impossible to exaggerate the width and the depth of the esteem with which this shy bored man, who would chiefly like to be let alone, is held in the hearts of the people. A Ministry

formed under his Premiership would start with an enormous and sustaining access of popular confidence.

Apart from that, the arrangement would recommend itself by shelving off that otherwise inevitable conflict for final pre-eminence between Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain the prophetic soul of my Mentor discovered, and disclosed in his conversation recorded in an earlier chapter. Whatever

may be the views of those statesmen with respect to playing second fiddle one to the other, there would be no possible objection to either serving under the Duke of Devonshire as Premier.

A Tory

The quarter from which opposition to the Duke of Devonshire's advancement to the Premiership will come is the Tory wing of the Unionist camp. Just before Protest. Easter, a story with circumstance was circulated, indicating the immediate retirement of Lord Salisbury from the Premiership and the succession of the Duke of Devon

shire. That was certainly not a ballon d'essai from Downing Street. It equally well served the purpose. It drew forth unmistakable testimony that proposal of such arrangement would occasion unpleasant protest.

Objection was not taken on the ground of personal disqualification on the part of the Duke. What was bluntly said in private conversation was that, in the division of the spoils of office, the Liberal Unionists had secured something more than their full share. To confer the Leadership upon a member of their body, however distinguished and, on personal grounds, however acceptable, was too great a sacrifice to be claimed for the altar of Unionism. This demonstration will, doubtless, have due influence in directing the final arrangement whenever circumstances call for its settlement.1

Mr. Goschen has, I believe, made considerable progress with a labour of love, his solace in the comparative leisure of the recess. It is preparation of the life and Mr. Goschen's correspondence of his grandfather, a publisher in Literary Work. Berlin a century ago. He lived through the time of the First Empire, his literary connections bringing him in contact with some of the principal men of the age. These letters he preserved, together with copies of his own correspondence.

Nobody wishes the First Lord of the Admiralty that prolonged leisure which would result from dismissal of Her Majesty's Ministers from office. Still, it would be a loss to the country, equal to the non-completion of a new ironclad, if he failed to find time to finish his book. I never read the First Lord's Theory of the Foreign Exchange, and am not in a position to judge of his literary style. But he is a man of keen literary taste, who certainly has to his hand the materials for a memorable book.

One of the fables about Mr. Balfour that endear him to the public mind is that which pictures him as never reading

1 When in 1902 Lord Salisbury retired, the legacy of his Ministerial vesture was parted in twain. The Duke of Devonshire succeeded him in the Leadership of the Lords, Mr. Balfour in the Premiership.