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Updated: May 27, 2025
The change of leadership from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to Mr. Asquith had damped Liberal enthusiasm. We got solid work done for Ireland in the University Act of 1908, though Redmond would have preferred a university of the residential type, like that in which he had himself been an undergraduate. A highly contentious measure was also carried in the Land Act of 1909.
His chosen form of patriotism was a quiet adhesion to the Liberal party, with a resolute and even contemptuous avoidance of sects and schisms. He was born in 1836, of a mercantile family which had long flourished in Glasgow, and in 1872 he inherited additional wealth, which transformed his name from Campbell to Campbell-Bannerman the familiar "C.-B." of more recent times.
The Liberal Imperialists were eager to have their share in the triumph, and had not the slightest scruple about serving under a leader whom, when he was unpopular, they had forsaken and traduced. Lord Rosebery put himself out of court by a speech which even Campbell-Bannerman could not regard as friendly; but Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey were eager for employment.
The section of Liberal opinion which adhered rather to Lord Rosebery than to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman probably drew the conclusion that the Irish party were prepared at least to tolerate the policy of approaching Home Rule step by step; and beyond doubt they were impressed by the prestige of Sir Antony MacDonnell's record and personality.
Some were for Harcourt, some for Morley, some for a leader in the House of Lords. Presently these disputations died down; what logicians call "the process of exhaustion" settled the question, and Campbell-Bannerman the least self-seeking man in public life found himself the accepted leader of the Liberal party. The leadership was an uncomfortable inheritance.
A provocative move on the part of the Lords was met each time by a counter-move, and thus gradually the final and decisive phase of the dispute was reached. After the loss of the Education Bill of 1906, the first note of warning was sounded by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
I instantly pulled the papers out of my pocket and flung them on to the table, saying, You are entirely mistaken if you think I want your letters for The Spectator. As far as I am concerned, they may just as well appear in The Times or any other paper. All I want is publicity. I have been accused by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman of publishing lies, and that I do not mean to endure.
"Henry came into my room shortly after this and told me the Government had been beaten by seven in a vote of censure passed on Campbell-Bannerman in Supply, in connection with small arms ammunition. I looked at him wonderingly and said: "'Are you sad, darling, that we are out? "To which he replied: "'Only for one reason. I wish I had completed my prison reforms.
It needed the shock of an outspoken violation of right to stir him; and we may date the revival of the idea of justice in the party as an organized force from the speech in the summer of 1901 in which Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman set himself against the stream of militant sentiment and challenged in a classic phrase the methods of the war.
At an official luncheon given in honour of some foreign Minister, Campbell-Bannerman, in an admirable speech in French a language with which he was familiar described Arthur Balfour, who was on one side of him, as l'enfant gate of English politics and Chamberlain, who was also at the lunch, as l'enfant terrible.
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