Having now made my position clear, I will at once plunge in medias res with a few artless observations.  You hear all this grumbling which is going on just now against the Unionist leader.  Well, gentlemen, a party which is in low water always does grumble at its leader.  I have known this sort of thing happen over and over again in my own lifetime.  And the consequence is, it is all like water on a duck’s back to me; it makes no impression on me whatsoever.  I remember as long back as the late sixties and early seventies the Conservative party were ceaselessly grumbling at Lord Beaconsfield, then Mr. Disraeli, right up to his greatest victory and the commencement of his longest tenure of power—­almost up to the moment when he became the permanent idol of the Conservative party.  I remember how the Liberals grumbled at Mr. Gladstone from 1873 and 1874 almost up to the opening of the Midlothian campaign.  Again, I remember how the Conservatives grumbled at Lord Salisbury from the first moment of his accession to the leadership right up to 1885.  I can recall as well as if it were yesterday a young Tory friend of mine—­he has become a distinguished man since, and I am not going to give him away—­telling me, who was at that time a Liberal, in the year of grace 1883 or 1884, that it was absolutely hopeless for the Tory party ever to expect to come back into power with such a leader as Lord Salisbury.  He called him a “Professor.”  He said, “No doubt he is a very able man and an excellent speaker, but he is a man of science.  He has no popular gifts whatever.  There is not a ghost of a chance of a Conservative victory so long as he is in command.”  Yet that was not more than two years before Lord Salisbury commenced a series of Premierships which kept him, for some thirteen and a half years out of seventeen, at the helm of the State.

With all these experiences to look back upon it is really impossible for me to be much affected by the passing wave of dissatisfaction with Mr. Balfour.  Men of first-rate ability and character are rare.  Still rarer are men who, having those qualities, also have the knack of compelling the attention and respect even of a hostile House of Commons.  When a party possesses a leader with all these gifts, it is not likely to change him in a hurry.

But if I refuse to take a gloomy view of the Unionist leadership, I must admit that I am not altogether an optimist about the immediate prospects of Unionism.  There is no doubt a bright side to the picture as well as a less encouraging one.  The bright side, from the party point of view, is afforded by the hopeless chaos of opinion in the ranks of our opponents—­by the total absence of any clear conviction or definite line whatever in the counsels of the Government, which causes Ministers to dash wildly from measure to measure in endeavouring to satisfy first one section and then another section of their motley following, and which prevents them from ever giving really adequate attention to any one of their proposals.