ing landlordism. In Germany, on the other hand, the Labour and Socialist party, which was fighting its great fight, was going to come through in triumph.

Meanwhile, the plan for the revised organisation of the Field Army for service abroad, and of the Regular Army in peace, foreshadowed by Mr. Haldane on July 12, 1906 (ANNUAL REGISTER, 1906, p. 183), was announced by him as forthcoming in a speech at Glasgow on January 11, and embodied in a special Army Order published on January 14. Its leading feature was the abandonment of the continental model of Army Corps, each comprising three divisions of two infantry brigades apiece, and the substitution for them of the Japanese and Indian model of large divisions, each containing three infantry brigades with divisional cavalry and artillery. The Order announced that the organisation for war of the Field Army for service abroad would be one cavalry division of four brigades, six divisions, army troops, and troops for a line of communication. The corresponding organisation of the Regular Field Army in peace would be four cavalry brigades, six divisions, and army troops. The last-named were defined as "those units which form part of an expeditionary force but are not included in the organisation of a cavalry division, division, or lines of communication," and included balloon and telegraph companies. There would be six large divisional areas of command, with headquarters respectively at Aldershot, Tidworth, London, Dublin, Edinburgh, and York, and two smaller commands. Of these one-artillery-would have its headquarters at Pembroke Dock, and the other, the London district, would be made up of the Guards, Household Cavalry, and a battery of Royal Horse Artillery. But the Order was not to come into effect for some considerable time, and so it attracted only slight attention.

It was generally understood that Army reorganisation would occupy a considerable part of the session; but during the recess it became increasingly evident that both education and the tariff question would be much less prominent than Ireland and the modification of the Lords' veto. Speaking at Newcastle on January 15, Mr. Bryce sketched and defended the lines on which the Ministry had governed Ireland. He said that all the arguments on which Liberals had relied in advocating changes in the government of Ireland in 1886 or 1893 had been strengthened by his experiences in the last year. But the Castle officials had been much maligned. His own experience was that they had been perfectly loyal in carrying out every direction the British Government gave them; but the strength of the laws lay in the consent of the people. Nothing but good could come from the grant of a large measure of local self-government such as would enable an Irish authority to deal with education, and allow the Irish a pretty wide latitude in spending a certain sum of money in their own way and for the purposes they thought good. The present tranquil state of the country, the new outburst of

patriotic spirit, and the crusade in favour of temperance were most reassuring symptoms. The extension of self-government to Ireland would not cause political danger to England. "Those in Ireland who desire separation are an insignificant minority; the great bulk of the people have the common sense to know that they must continue linked with Great Britain. The idea of a serious movement in favour of separation is a mere chimera."

Two days later, in bidding farewell to his constituents and to Parliamentary life, Mr. Bryce referred, among other questions of urgency, to reform of the House of Lords, the plural vote, and a large extension of Irish self-government. He expressed his hope that the Nationalist leaders would accept something less than Home Rule. An Irish Government Bill of the character that he indicated was generally expected to receive prominence in the King's Speech, and a new League was consequently formed to defend the Union.

A question little inferior in importance was brought to the front by the final report of the Royal Commission on Trinity College, Dublin, issued January 21. It made many recommendations, but the differences of view among the Commissioners seemed rather to multiply difficulties than to clear the way for a solution of the problem of Irish University Education. The Commissioners agreed that Trinity College was satisfactory for the education of Protestant Episcopalians, but not for that of Roman Catholics, and that it could not be so altered as to satisfy the Roman Catholic bishops. But of the nine Commissioners four recommended the admission of additional colleges to the University of Dublin, which had hitherto comprised Trinity College only; one approved of the step in principle, but desired to postpone action, and the remaining four disapproved of it.

The Government, therefore, felt justified in putting forward their own solution. On January 25, Mr. Bryce, then on the point of exchanging the Chief Secretaryship for the post of Ambassador to Washington, received deputations of Roman Catholics and Presbyterians in Dublin. He told them that the Government had decided to create and to supply with buildings and laboratories a new college in the University of Dublin, free from all theological tests. Its governors were to be appointed at first by the Crown, afterwards by the Crown and the teaching graduates; the Royal University of Ireland would be abolished, and its graduates absorbed in the reconstituted University of Dublin, which would comprise Trinity College, the new college, and the Queen's Colleges of Belfast and Cork. The university would provide teaching in all such subjects-e.g., mathematics, philology and science as did not involve theological questions; there would probably be college professorships in history and philosophy, and, in controversial subjects, alternative courses. Provision would be made to prevent any teacher using his authority to offend or influence his pupils' religious beliefs. Theological degrees would be wholly undenominational. The

Galway College, Magee College at Derry, and the Arts Faculty at Maynooth, might be affiliated to the university. The new college at Dublin would be open to every one, but would be largely used by Catholics.

This solution, however, was regarded by the members of Trinity College as tending to subordinate their body to a new organisation which would be unable to dissociate the claims of learning from the needs of politics or controversial theology, and their fears were widely shared in Great Britain. Meetings of protest or sympathy were held in Dublin, Oxford, Cambridge and London, and a defence committee was formed; on the other hand, it did not appear that the Roman Catholic hierarchy or any very large body of Irish opinion were favourably disposed to the scheme. It was, therefore, practically stifled at birth.

In view of this expected prominence of Irish questions, considerable interest attached to the selection of a successor to Mr. Bryce on the Irish Chief Secretaryship. The appointment of Mr. Birrell was officially announced on Monday, January 24. It had for some time been anticipated; though the names of Mr. L. V. Harcourt, First Commissioner of Works, and of Mr. Winston Churchill, Colonial Under-Secretary, had also been mentioned in the Press. The Presidency of the Board of Education was filled by the appointment of Mr. McKenna (North Monmouthshire), Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Mr.Walter Runciman (Dewsbury) succeeded to Mr. McKenna's post, and Mr. Charles Hobhouse (East Bristol) to the Under-Secretaryship for India, vacated by the retirement of Mr. J. E. Ellis through ill-health. Dr. T. J. Macnamara (North Camberwell), who had been spoken of as a possible successor to Mr. Birrell, succeeded Mr. Runciman as Secretary of the Local Government Board. Some surprise was expressed, though rather unadvisedly, that no promotion was found for Mr. Winston Churchill.

The question of the House of Lords was soon brought into prominence on the Liberal side. Within the party there were some advocates of a legalised appeal from the decision of the Upper House to a direct popular vote, on the model of the Swiss Referendum. This solution was advocated by Mr. John A. Hobson at the New Reform Club-a body of advanced Liberals-on January 15; and in the discussion of his paper Lord Courtney of Penwith took occasion to lay stress on the difficulty of obtaining the House of Lords' consent to the coercion of themselves, or of rousing the normally unrevolutionary temper of the British nation. But the solutions put forward by the party leaders were usually less definite.

Mr. Birrell, speaking at Bristol on January 18, attacked the Lords for their tactics in passing the Trade Disputes Bill while rejecting the Education Bill, whereby, he said, they had enormously strengthened the demand for a secular solution; and Mr. Lloyd-George at Newcastle (Jan. 23) declared that privilege

must be eliminated from the Constitution, and that, unless the Liberal party meant to fight to a finish, it was "worse than a farce" to raise the question at all. At Edinburgh, on January 24, the Lord Advocate (Mr. Thos. Shaw)- though disclaiming official authority for his suggestions-declared that the selection of a time for the dissolution of Parliament was the affair of the Government, not of the Lords; and, quoting the . well-known precedent of 1671, he suggested that the campaign should begin by the passing of a Commons' resolution limiting the veto of the Peers to a single session. Bills passed by the Commons and rejected by the Lords in one session, should, if passed by the Commons in the next session, be entitled to receive the Royal Assent and become law without alteration by the Lords. He thought that House would disregard the resolution in that case a Bill should be introduced extending the Royal prerogative, by providing that a Bill sent forward to the Lords under the circumstances just described should pass pro forma through the Upper House, and on receiving the Royal Assent should become law. This Bill might be passed either by tacking it to the Budget Bill, so that the Lords could only reject it by stopping supplies; or, preferably, by the creation of new peers, the mere threat of which would probably suffice.

:

These attacks helped but little to define the attitude of the Opposition leaders. Sober dissentients, like Lord George Hamilton, on the occasion of a presentation to him as exmember for Ealing (Jan. 18), said that the healing of the breach in the party would be slow, and noted with dismay the disappearance of the old ideas of thrift and frugality in administration, but the Tariff Reformers generally remained bent on "social reforms" through new Customs revenue, and complained bitterly that Mr. Balfour had said nothing about Tariff Reform since the Valentine letters of February 14, 1906. Mr. Austen Chamberlain, speaking at Birmingham on January 24, deprecated both the attacks on Mr. Balfour and the proposal for a "fiscal truce" (p. 3); but Mr. Balfour, in a letter to a correspondent published on that day, merely declared that he had not altered his views and referred inquirers to his published works; and complaints were made that the Central Conservative organisation had been lukewarm in supporting tariff reform candidates. Moreover, on January 26, Lord Stanley addressing the Council of the Lancashire Division of the National Union of Conservative Associations at Liverpool, said that, in giving fiscal reform a place in the Conservative programme, Mr. Balfour had not meant fiscal revolution; other questions were more urgent, and the party should observe moderation and toleration. But the National Review for February (which went to press before this speech) described the Opposition front bench as containing organisers of disaster," and urgently demanded a policy of "constructive reform." Indeed some of its expressions suggested the possibility of a Unionist split.

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Mr. Balfour, however, replied to his Unionist detractors in a speech at Hull on February 1. He had never (he said) taken the despairing view of Unionist prospects; and no party leader after a great defeat had ever been subjected to a less amount of hostile comment than himself. But, in reply to his critics, he did not mean to put forward a detailed programme: first, because it would put the Opposition in the place of the criticised instead of in that of the critic, and next, because, for tactical reasons, a party ought not to be tied to details. Complaints were made that he had been silent as to Tariff Reform since his letter of February 14, 1906, or rather since the City election. But since the latter event, he had been fully occupied in the House of Commons except when ill. He did not see the need for a monthly bulletin of his opinions on the fiscal question. During the ten months of so-called silence he had not altered his views. He still held that the country was hampered by its self-imposed canons in its fiscal policy. The arguments on the fiscal question were not upset by a few statistics of prosperity in trade. The question concerned our relation to our great trade rivals. Moreover, the great self-governing Colonies demanded a closer relation with Great Britain through commercial union. Their representatives were coming within a few weeks, and there was no indication that their wishes would Further, we should have to broaden the basis of taxation. The present controversy was not between Free Trade and Protection. The battle of 1845 was well fought on both sides and lost; he did not think it was going to be fought again, or that, if it were, it would be won. He was in the true sense of the word a Free Trader. But Tariff Reform must not be made a test question for the Unionist party. The Christian sects who refused to compose their differences in the face of the Mohammedan invasion of Europe secured that heresy should be stamped out, but Christianity went with it. Fiscal Reform remained, in his opinion, the main constructive plank in the Unionist programme; but they must not become a party of one idea. The Government had threatened the Lords, the Church and the Union; the Unionists had to see that the country was made acquainted with the dangers of the projects; the "singular collection of parties" now governing the country were alternately playing into each others' hands. That was the real peril; the House of Lords must continue to see that the will of the people was carried out as it had on the Home Rule Bill of 1893.

This speech was gratefully accepted by Mr. Austen Chamberlain (speaking at Stirchley, Feb. 4) as exhibiting a gratifying depth of conviction; but it considerably disappointed the extremer Tariff Reformers, and was welcomed by the Spectator as an immense advance in the direction of Free Trade. Speaking at Stoke on the day following it, the Earl of Crewe remarked that as Mr. Balfour was a supporter of bimetallism, women's suffrage, and improved Catholic education in Ireland, and had done