When Gladstone formed his last Administration, Campbell-Bannerman returned to the War Office, and it was on a hostile vote concerning his Department that the Government was defeated in June, 1895.  He resented this defeat more keenly than I should have expected from the habitual composure of his character; but it was no doubt the more provoking because in the previous spring he had wished to succeed Lord Peel as Speaker.  He told me that the Speakership was the one post in public life which he should have most enjoyed, and which would best have suited his capacities.  But his colleagues declared that he could not be spared from the Cabinet, and, true to his fine habit of self-effacement, he ceased to press his claim.

In October, 1896, Lord Rosebery, who had been Premier from 1894 to 1895, astonished his party by resigning the Liberal leadership.  Who was to succeed him?  Some cried one thing and some another.  Some were for Harcourt, some for Morley, some for a leader in the House of Lords.  Presently these disputations died down; what logicians call “the process of exhaustion” settled the question, and Campbell-Bannerman—­the least self-seeking man in public life—­found himself the accepted leader of the Liberal party.  The leadership was an uncomfortable inheritance.  There was a certain section of the Liberal party which was anxious that Lord Rosebery should return on his own terms.  There were others who wished for Lord Spencer, and even in those early days there were some who already saw the makings of a leader in Mr. Asquith.  And, apart from these sectional preferences, there was a crisis at hand, “sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow.”

The Eastern Question of 1876 had rent the Liberal party once; the Irish Question of 1886 had rent it again; and now for the third time it was rent by the South African Question.  Holding that the South African War was a wanton crime against freedom and humanity, I wished that my leader could declare himself unequivocally against it, but he felt bound to consider the interests of the Liberal party as a whole rather than those of any particular section which he might personally favour.  As the campaign advanced, and the motives with which it had been engineered became more evident, his lead became clearer and more decisive.  What we read about Concentration Camps and burnt villages and Chinese labour provoked his emphatic protest against “methods of barbarism,” and those Liberals who enjoyed the war and called themselves “Imperialists” openly revolted against his leadership.  He bore all attacks and slights and impertinences with a tranquillity which nothing could disturb, but, though he said very little, he saw very clearly.  He knew exactly the source and centre of the intrigues against his leadership, and he knew also that those intrigues were directed to the end of making Lord Rosebery again Prime Minister.  The controversy about Tariff Reform distracted general attention from these domestic cabals, but they were in full operation when Mr. Balfour suddenly resigned, and King Edward sent for Campbell-Bannerman.  Then came a critical moment.