m. That was my method,
Collings: glorify it as much as you like. And up to a point it was good
business, I don't deny. That's how we ran local politics, invented the
Caucus: Corporation Street is the result. That's how we managed to run
Unionism: made a hard and fast contract of it, and made them stick to it.
That's how I ran the Colonies--and the Boer War. That's how I was going to
run the Empire on a Preferential Tariff. That came just too late. I'd made
a mistake.

JESSE COLLINGS. What mistake?

CHAMBERLAIN. Collings, the Boer War wasn't good business. It might have
been; but it lasted too long. Any modern war that isn't over in six months
now is a blunder, you'll find. They were able to hold out too long. That
did for me. There have been bees in my bonnet ever since--all because of
it. Boers first; then Bannerman; then--Balfour. Just once my business
instinct betrayed me, and I was done!

JESSE COLLINGS. But--wasn't the war necessary?

CHAMBERLAIN. To put the "business" on a sound footing? Yes, I thought so;
it looked like it. No, it wasn't! But before I quite knew, there'd come a
point where we couldn't go back; and so we just had to go on--and on.
D'you know what was the cleverest thing said or done during that war?...
You'd never guess ... but it's true. Campbell-Bannerman's "methods of
barbarism" speech. We downed him for it at the time, but it caught on--it
stuck. And it was on the strength of it (with C.-B. as their hope for the
future) that the Boers were persuaded to make peace: saved our face for
us. They might have gone on, till we got sick of it, and the world too.

JESSE COLLINGS. I don't--I can't think you are right, Chamberlain. You are
forgetting things.

CHAMBERLAIN. No--I've had difficulty about thinking so myself; but, it has
come to me.

(_And so he sits and meditates over the point in his career where as a
business man he first jailed. Presently he resumes_:)

When two men, whose qualifications I used rather to despise, beat me at
business, Collings--it was a facer!

JESSE COLLINGS. Bannerman; and--the other?

CHAMBERLAIN. Comes to see me to-day. But it won't be a business meeting.
He'll not say anything about it--if he can help.

JESSE COLLINGS. And you?

CHAMBERLAIN. Perhaps I shall succumb to his charm. I've done so before
now.

JESSE COLLINGS. Have you and he--had words ever?

CHAMBERLAIN. Differences of opinion, of course. "Words"? How should we? He
was always so wonderfull