If Mr. Balfour had dissolved, the Liberal leader would have come back at the head of a great majority, and could have formed his Administration as he chose; but, by resigning, Mr. Balfour compelled his successor to form his Administration out of existing materials.  So the cabals took a new form.  The Liberal Imperialists were eager to have their share in the triumph, and had not the slightest scruple about serving under a leader whom, when he was unpopular, they had forsaken and traduced.  Lord Rosebery put himself out of court by a speech which even Campbell-Bannerman could not regard as friendly; but Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey were eager for employment.  The new Premier Was the most generous-hearted of men, only too ready to forgive and forget.  His motto was Alors comme alors, and he dismissed from consideration all memories of past intrigues.  But, when some of the intriguers calmly told him that they would not join his Government unless he consented to go to the House of Lords and leave them to work their will in the House of Commons, he acted with a prompt decision which completely turned the tables.

The General Election of January, 1906, gave him an overwhelming majority; but in one sense it came too late.  His health was a good deal impaired, and he was suffering from domestic anxieties which doubled the burden of office.  Lady Campbell-Bannerman died, after a long illness, in August, 1906, but he struggled on bravely till his own health rather suddenly collapsed in November, 1907.  He resigned office on the 6th of April, 1908, and died on the 22nd.

His brief Premiership had not been signalized by any legislative triumphs.  He was unfortunate in some of his colleagues, and the first freshness of 1906 had been wasted on a quite worthless Education Bill.  But during his term of office he had two signal opportunities of showing the faith that was in him.  One was the occasion when, in defiance of all reactionary forces, he exclaimed, “La Duma est morte!  Vive la Duma!” The other was the day when he gave self-government to South Africa, and won the tribute thus nobly rendered by General Smuts:  “The Boer War was supplemented, and compensated for, by one of the wisest political settlements ever made in the history of the British Empire, and in reckoning up the list of Empire-builders I hope the name of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who brought into being a united South Africa, will never be forgotten.”

II

IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP

I

GLADSTONE—­AFTER TWENTY YEARS