BRITAIN'S STRONGEST MAN.

Evening Star, Issue 11676, 7 February 1902, Page 3

BRITAIN'S STRONGEST MAN.

The strongest man in Great Britain today is Joseph Chamberlain. In the fitness of things, one would* naturally seek the leader of the nation in Lord Salisbury or u Lord Rosebery, as once one did in Mr Disraeli or Mr Gladstone; but the pro-eminence of Mr Chamberlain is an evidence of the temper of the times, of the need of the generation. Of all present-day British statesmen the most modern, Mr Chamberlain dominates .'Great Britain by reason of his modernity, li may be that Mr Chamberlain’s exritatiorris not a permanent one, but it is none the less actual. In the country he sways elections, in the House of Commons he determines votes, in the Cabinet he decides politics. Disliked by his own party and detested by ins oppo. e?•.

Mr Chamberlain stands out from his contemporaries as the strong man of action, the man of purpose and of will'. The product of a commercial age, he presents a marked contrast to his cofieagues, who are the oSspring of generations of law makers. Rapid of thought, prompt to act. impatient of delay, he administers a State as he would organise a factory. Mr Chamberlain, with his patriotism neatly ruled with money columns, cynically distrustful of sentiment, dubious of the efficacy of international 'courtesy, and concerned only with tlx© present and the practical, has little in common with the stately statesman Lord Salisbury, or the scholarly man of affairs Lord Rosebery. Both in conception and in method Mr Chamberlain approximates more closely to the American type of politician than any other of our British statesmen of to-day.--Douglas Story, in ‘Munsey.’

Among the Christmas presents sent out from England to the troops in South Africa Mr Fred. W. Millis, the well-known Australian ventriloquist, forwarded over a thousand highly-finished briar pipes to the Australian contingents, and to the officers he sent each a silver-mounted pipe in case. The presents were accompanied by a suitable Christmas greeting of Mr Vfillis’s own composition.