terrible_. And although he addressed them more with sorrow than with
anger, to Balfour and Chamberlain he daily administered advice and
reproof, while mere generals and field-marshals, like Kitchener and
Roberts, blushing under new titles, were held up for public reproof and
briefly but severely chastened. Nor, when he saw Lord Salisbury going
astray, did he hesitate in his duty to the country, but took the Prime
Minister by the hand and gently instructed him in the way he should go.

This did not tend to make him popular, but in spite of his unpopularity,
in his speeches against national extravagancies he made so good a fight
that he forced the Government, unwillingly, to appoint a committee to
investigate the need of economy. For a beginner this was a distinct
triumph.

With Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord Percy, Ian Malcolm, and other clever young
men, he formed inside the Conservative Party a little group that in its
obstructive and independent methods was not unlike the Fourth Party of
his father. From its leader and its filibustering, guerilla-like tactics
the men who composed it were nicknamed the "Hughligans." The Hughligans
were the most active critics of the Ministry and of all in their own
party, and as members of the Free Food League they bitterly attacked
the fiscal proposals of Mr. Chamberlain. When Balfour made Chamberlain's
fight for fair trade, or for what virtually was protection, a measure
of the Conservatives, the lines of party began to break, and men were no
longer Conservatives or Liberals, but Protectionists or Free Traders.

Against this Churchill daily protested, against Chamberlain, against his
plan, against that plan being adopted by the Tory Party. By tradition,
by inheritance, by instinct, Churchill was a Tory.

"I am a Tory," he said, "and I have as much right in the party as has
anybody else, certainly as much as certain people from Birmingham. They
can't turn us out, and we, the Tory Free Traders, have as much right
to dictate the policy of the Conservative Party as have any reactionary
Fair Traders." In 1904 the Conservative Party already recognized
Churchill as one working outside the breastworks. Just before the Easter
vacation of that year, when he rose to speak a remarkable demonstration
was made against him by his Unionist colleagues, all of them rising and
leaving the House.

To the Liberals who remained to hear him he stated that if to his
constituents his opinions were obnoxious, he