Description
The controversial public career of Joseph Chamberlain, spanning the eventful years between the second Reform Act and the outbreak of the First World War, was marked by dramatic changes of political loyalties and objectives. After making a fortune in business, he rose to prominence in Liberal politics as an educational and municipal reformer, party organizer, Radical ideologist and rebellious cabinet minister. His challenge to Gladstone's Irish policy in 1886 drove him into the wilderness, where he aligned himself with erstwhile opponents, initiated new programmes of imperial and social reform, and in 1895 regained cabinet office. As Unionist Colonial Secretary he developed new foreign and imperial policies, steered Britain into the Boer War, and eventually resigned to advocate the cause of tariff reform. Accuse d of twice betraying his leader and causing the electoral downfall of his party, this former champion of Radicalism had in his final years of illness and enforced retirement become a symbol of uncompromising resistance to the reforms of the last Liberal governments. This study sets out to account for the disruptive impact which Chamberlain had upon the politics of his age and the apparent paradoxes of his career. The author analyses the myths which have grown up around Chamberlain's role in the major controversies of the time, and reassesses his political importance. He shows how Chamberlain consistently failed to achieve his main objectives, partly through defects of political understanding, partly because of an inherent incompatibility between his own ambitions and those of the allies with whom circumstances compelled him to work more closely; but he also argues that Chamberlain possessed a unique appreciation of contemporary problems, and a flair for devising imaginative solutions to them, which has often been underestimated.
