I have had to dwell for a while on these historical facts, facts of course known already to all my readers, as a prelude to the most important passages in the Parliamentary career of Campbell-Bannerman. When Gladstone resigned office and withdrew from public life, the question of reconstituting the Liberal administration had to be taken into account. There could be no doubt whatever that the Liberal administration had been much weakened and even discredited by the manner in which it had put up with the domineering action of the House of Lords. The effect on public opinion was all the greater and the more disheartening because it was generally understood that the absence of any such action must have been due to the fact that some of Gladstone's leading colleagues were not prepared to sustain him in the policy he was anxious to carry out. There was therefore a state of something like apathy in the minds of advanced Radicals with regard to any arrangements which seemed likely to be made for the reconstruction of the Ministry. The new administration was formed under the leadership of Lord Rosebery, as Prime Minister, in the House of Lords, and that of Sir William Harcourt, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons. There can be little doubt that the composition of the new Ministry was regarded as unsatisfactory by the more advanced Liberals in and outside Parliament. The Liberal party is never of late years quite content with an administration which has its Prime Minister in the House of Lords. The real work must always be done in the House of Commons, and it is obviously most inconvenient that the leader of the Government should be one whose position will not allow him to have a seat in the representative chamber. The condition of things is something like that of an army whose Commander-in-Chief can never make his appearance in the encampment or take part in any of the great battles. Even at that time Lord Rosebery, although a most brilliant debater and a capable administrator, was beginning to be regarded as one whose Liberalism was somewhat losing color and whose whole heart was by no means in the advanced policy of Gladstone. There was nothing better to be done, however, at the time than to make the most of the altered conditions, and the new Ministry went to work as well as it could. Campbell-Bannerman, as Secretary for War, had an opportunity of proving his genuine capacity for the duties of his important office. He introduced a new and complete scheme of army reform, which, among other and even more important changes, proposed to bring about the retirement of the Duke of Cambridge from the post of Commander-in-Chief. The Duke of Cambridge was even then a man far advanced in years, who had never in his life shown any real capacity for the work of commanding an army, and whose chief recommendation for so great a position must have been found in the fact that he was a member of the royal family. The new measure