The Press Friday, February 11, 1927. Joseph Chamberlain.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18923, 11 February 1927, Page 8

The Press Friday, February 11, 1927. Joseph Chamberlain.

A cable printed this morning gives an account of the unveiling of a sinim; of Mr Joseph Chamberlain uy Larl Balfour —a piece of political irony that none would have appreciated more than the subject of the memor.,:i nimself. In his speech Karl Baiiuiir have felt lie was ->n .'.-.''irate ground, but when he said Ilia! " r.o :: ai; had "left a deeper impres-ii'ii -n die ie- " velopnient of the Knipi.'e " he no more than the miiversaiiy Accepted truth, lie also focused attention on the salient fact in a very strange career. For it is diflieii.t even after all these years lo discu.-s sume aspects of Chamberlain's career, but the aspect about which there ean be no dispute was his statesmanlike vision of Britain's Imperial destiny. The years between 1895 and lflO(J, when Mr Chamberlain was Secretary of State for the Colonies, are perhaps the most important in the history of the rela- | tions between the Dominions and the Mother Country. Many were surprised at his acceptance of what was then considered a minor post in the Government, but in the brief space of a year or two he raised it to the importance it occupies to-day. The visit of the Dominion Prime Ministers to the Diamond Jubilee in 1597, when, probably, the idea of the Imperial Conference was born, and to a considerable extent also the response of the Dominions in the Boer War, were the immediate fruits of a policy whieh awakened the British public to the fact that what were once colonies were now young nations, claiming the light to determine their own destinies. There were many things in national and international politics which Mr Chamberlain could not see, but he did see that this was Britain's critical period and that failure to recognise the changes that had taken place might have very grave consequences. His solution of tho problem was an' Imperial federation with an Imperial fiscal union as the first step—a solution which to-day is practically abandoned. But Mr Chamberlain's policy is unimportant. What matters is thaTl at a time when the Empire seemed to be drifting to disaster through indifference, he woke it up, and with that aggressive and uncompromising pursuit of an idea that made him so constant a source of apprehension to friends and enemies alike forced Imperial problems into the forefront of politics. He was a Jingo when Jingoes were almost needed; and although Sir William Harcourt accused him of believing that he was " Captain Cook and "General Wolfe rolled into one, that "he discovered Australia and stormed " the Heights of Quebec," this was a sneer that he could afford to ignore. We can see to-day that he was the real discoverer to the British public of the work of many generations of Eui-pire-builders.