hall not
be wanting. And, for my part, I should be quite content to see the
battle joined as speedily as possible upon the plain, simple issue of
aristocratic rule against representative government, between the
reversion to protection and the maintenance of free trade, between a
tax on bread and a tax on--well, never mind. And if they do not
choose, or do not dare to use the powers they most injuriously
possess, if fear, I say, or tactics, or prudence, or some lingering
sense of constitutional decency, restrains them, then for Heaven's
sake let us hear no more of these taunts, that we, the Liberal Party,
are afraid to go to the country, that we do not possess its
confidence, and that we are impotent to give effect to the essential
purposes of our policy.

Subject to such a constitutional outrage as I have indicated, his
Majesty's Government will claim their right and use their power to
present the Liberal case as a whole to the judgment of the whole body
of electors. That case is already largely developed. How utterly have
all those predictions been falsified that a Liberal Government would
be incapable of the successful conduct of Imperial affairs! Whether
you look at our position in Europe, or at the difficult conduct of
Indian administration, or the relations which have been preserved, and
in some cases restored, with our self-governing Colonies, the policy
of the Government has been attended with so much success that it has
not only commanded the approval of impartial persons, but has silenced
political criticism itself.

It was in South Africa that we were most of all opposed and most of
all distrusted, and by a singular inversion it is in South Africa that
the most brilliant and memorable results have been achieved. Indeed, I
think that the gift of the Transvaal and Orange River Constitutions
and the great settlement resulting therefrom will be by itself as a
single event sufficient to vindicate in the eyes of future generations
the administration of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and to dignify his
memory in Parliaments and periods which we shall not see. But our work
abroad is not yet completed, has not yet come to its full fruition. If
we should continue, as I expect we shall, to direct public affairs for
the full five years which are the normal and the healthy period of
British Administrations, we may look for a further advance and
improvement in all the great external spheres of Imperial policy. We
may look