_Economic
Review_, April, 1904. A useful work is S. H. Jeyes,
Life of Joseph Chamberlain, 2 vols. (London,
1903).]

In this situation the Liberals found their opportunity. All but
unanimously opposed to the suggested departure, they assumed with
avidity the role of defenders of England's "sacred principle of free
trade" and utilized to the utmost the appeal which could now be made
to the working classes in behalf of cheap bread. Mr. Chamberlain
denied that his scheme meant a wholesale reversal of the economic
policy of the nation, but in the judgment of most men the issue was
joined squarely between the general principle of free trade and that
of protection. Throughout 1904 and 1905 the Government found itself
increasingly embarrassed by the fiscal question, as well as by
difficulties attending the administration of the Education Act, the
regulation of Chinese labor in South Africa, and a number of other
urgent tasks, and the by-elections resulted so uniformly in Unionist
defeats as to presage clearly the eventual return of the Liberals to
power.

*164. The Liberals in Office: the Elections of 1906.*--Hesitating long,
but at the last bowing somewhat abruptly before the gathering storm,
Mr. Balfour tendered his resignation December 4, 1905. The Government
had in the Commons a working majority of seventy-six, and the
Parliament elected in 1900 had still another year of life. In the
Lords the Unionists outnumbered their opponents ten to one. The
administration, however, had fallen off enormously in popularity, and
the obstacles imposed by the fiscal cleavage appeared insuperable.
Unable wholly to follow Mr. Chamberlain in his projects, the premier
had grown weary of the attempt to balance himself on the tight rope of
ambiguity between the free trade and protectionist wings of his party.
Not caring, however, to give his opponents the advantage which would
accrue from an immediate dissolution of Parliament and the ordering of
an election which should turn on clear issues raised by the record of
the ten years of Unionist rule, he chose simply to resign and so to
compel the formation of a new government which itself should be (p. 157)
immediately on trial when the inevitable elections should come.

On the day of Mr. Balfour's resignation the king designated as premier
the Liberal leader, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who forthwith made
up a cabinet of rather excep