"We need have no doubt how it is to be done. By applying our Liberal principles, the Liberal principles from which the strength of the Empire has been derived, and on which it depends. Let us apply our Liberal principles, and whether our party be in a majority, or in a minority, I think that it is well in our power to secure that these principles shall be applied. [The General Election was imminent.] Let us restore as early as possible, and let us maintain, those rights of self-government which give not only life and vigour, but contentment and loyalty to every colony which enjoys them...." "Liberal principles," when applied to a given administrative problem, as Mr. Chamberlain took occasion to point out (June 19th), meant, for practical purposes, the opinions which prominent members of the Liberal party were known to hold upon the matter in question. Lord (then Mr.) Courtney was for autonomy--"the re-establishment of the independence of the two Republics." Mr. Bryce advocated "the establishment of two protected States, which would have a sham independence of not much advantage to them for any practical or useful purpose, but very dangerous to us." And then there was Mr. Morley. Now Mr. Morley, only a week before, at Oxford (June 10th), had condemned not only the war, but by implication, the rejection of President Krüger's illusory Franchise Bill. [Sidenote: Mr. John Morley.] "I assert," said Mr. Morley, "that the evils which have resulted from the war immeasurably transcend the evils with which it was proposed to deal.... I abhor the whole transaction of the war. I think in many ways it is an irreparable situation. We have done a great wrong--a wrong of which I believe there is scarcely any Englishman living who will not bitterly repent."[212] [Footnote 212: Mr. Morley has the doubtful merit of consistency. As recently as April 27th, 1906, he alluded to the South African War as "that delusive and guilty war," in an address to the Eighty Club. According to _The Times_ report this expression was received with cheers.] With these words fresh in his memory, Mr. Chamberlain continued: "Is Mr. Morley a Liberal? I do not know in that case what would become of the new territories if his principles were applied. But this I do know--that in that case you would have immediately to get rid of Sir Alfred Milner, who is the one great official in South Africa who has shown from the first a true grasp of the situation; and you would have also to get rid of the Colonial Secretary, which would not, perhaps, matter."[213]