upright, and connected with each other by a kind of backstroke. The legend ran : With very best wishes and Albert Edward. So great were the crowds which assembled at the church and outside the house in Berkeley Square, so numerous were the public notices taken of this interesting wedding, that the newspapers on the following day nearly all contained mention of the public exhibition of feeling as a striking proof of the popularity of the Earl of Rosebery. CHAPTER XXXIV A LESSON IN LIBERALISM-WHAT IS IMPERIALISM?—A GREAT CHANGE NATIONS-THE OVERCROWDING PROBLEM-MUNICIPAL DWELLINGS- D URING last year, although Lord Rosebery maintained the attitude of "private citizenship," there were influences at work which compelled his public utterances to turn a good deal more in the direction of politics. He went, for example, on May 5 to a dinner at the City Liberal Club, and when he rose to speak he had not, as he said, any idea of delivering a political manifesto. Lord Rosebery, however, is too sincere a man always to be able to hide his feelings and bury his opinions; and on this occasion he found himself invading the political arena again. He indicated then that he had no immediate intention of returning to the political arena, but he had been thinking about political questions, and he gave his party the benefit of his thoughts. It was a lesson in Liberalism and success, showing why, and also telling how, Liberalism was to recover the ground which it held before 1886. And the growing Imperial spirit, it will be seen, was an important feature of the address. At this house dinner of the City of London Liberal Club there was a numerous company, including Earl Carrington, Lord Burghclere, Sir J. T. Woodhouse, M.P., Mr. Albert Spicer, M.P., Mr. W. A. McArthur, M.P., Mr. Provand, M.P., Mr. R. W. Perks, M.P., Mr. J. H. Roberts, M.P., Mr. Causton, M.P., Sir James Blyth, Sir Clarence Smith, Sir Henry Mance, Sir Patteson Nickalls, Sir John Jardine, Mr. E. W. Grimwade, Mr. A. M. Torrance, and Mr. J. Renwick Seager. Lord Rosebery proposed the toast of "The City Liberal Club." He said: "My lords and gentlemen, I rise to propose to you the health and prosperity of the City Liberal Club. I have always found in one respect the audience of the City Liberal Club a difficult one to speak to, because it is not entirely unanimous on points of politics. I found it difficult in the days when I was in active political life, and I thought that when I had retired I should find it easier to address the audience than it was before. On the contrary, I am inclined to think I find it more difficult. One is expected by those who know one's mind so much better than one's self to deliver political manifestoes. I assure you that nothing is more remote from my mind. I am thinking more A Tribute to Lord herschell 955 to-night of when I first came to the City Liberal Club. It was in company with two members, now both gone, who were, I think, pillars of the City Liberal Club; one, at any rate, was a moving spirit in it. The first you will guess probably was our old friend Mr. Rogers, of Bishopsgate. I never enter this club without thinking of Mr. Rogers. I really do not know to which of the so-called sections of the Liberal party he belonged, and I very much doubt if he knew himself. What I do know is that if I had to seek anywhere for an for an embodiment of what I think true Liberalism in mind and spirit is, I should think of Mr. Rogers. Well, I know we were here; we were sucked into a house dinner a much smaller house dinner than to night-and the other guest was my lamented friend Lord Herschell. "Now, gentlemen, I have thought as much as I can with the endeavour to estimate what the exact measure of Lord Herschell's loss is-not to the Liberal party, for that is not in question in my mind at this moment, but to the nation at large, and I have come to the deliberate conviction, which I express without any disrespect to the eminent public servants who are now in politics and in Parliament-I have come to the deliberate conviction that Lord Herschell was the first public servant of his country at the time when he died. He knew no holiday, he served his country in season and out of season, not for honour or emolument, but with a pure anxiety to serve the Empire in which he was born. I remember the last time I saw him. He came to speak to me about his negotiations in America, to which he was proceeding, and I asked him if it would be a long business. He said 'No,' he hoped that it would be over so as to enable him to return to England at the end of the year in time for the Venezuela arbitration. That was Lord Herschell's idea of dividing his time. I cannot, on this occasion, when I think of the first dinner of this club, help recalling to my mind-for I have few opportunities of speakingI cannot help recalling to my mind the memory of his great and exemplary public service. "There is another loss upon which I must touch, because, as I say, I have so few opportunities of speaking, and that is the loss of one who of course is not comparable to Lord Herschell as a public servant, for he had not the time, and he had not the opportunity. But coming so soon after the loss of Lord Herschell, it struck me with profound melancholy when I read, while in the Mediterranean, of the loss of the services, and more than the services, of Thomas Ellis. was at once reminded, and the more I think of it the more I am reminded, of another young man who died in Parliament of exactly the same age as Thomas Ellis-I mean Francis Horner, I |