The Right Honorable Joseph Chamberlain, M.P. for West Birmingham, and Secretary of State for the Colonies, was born in London in 1836. As a young man he removed to Birmingham to become a partner in a manufacturing business. This enterprise he carried to such great success that in 1874 he retired definitely from its active management to devote himself to municipal affairs. Unusually honored by the city by three successive elections to the mayoralty, he was largely instrumental in bringing about such reforms as the construction of new streets and the municipal assumption of the gas and water monopolies. In 1876 he first entered Parliament as Liberal member for Birmingham; in 1886 he was returned as a Liberal opposed to Home Rule. Meanwhile he had become so prominent a member of the party that in spite of his known aversion to Home Rule, Mr. Gladstone was constrained to bid him to Government office as President of the Board of Trade, with the greatest possible latitude of independence for Mr. Chamberlain seemingly implied. Nevertheless, in March, 1886, he thought it necessary to resign his allegiance to the orthodox, Home-Rule Liberals, and with other Liberal Unionists, as they are called, he has since faithfully supported the Conservative leader, Lord Salisbury. It is this action obviously that has drawn on his head certain criticisms. At the formation of the present Ministry, in 1895, he accepted from Lord Salisbury the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies, in which he continues. In a life that has thus covered more than sixty years, Mr. Chamberlain has exhibited in a marked degree the peculiarly British qualities of great private enterprise and pronounced public spirit. He has stood always upon the broad, utilitarian platform of the British manufacturer and man of affairs,--that common-sense and the philosophy of Franklin rule the world; that it is good for the British Empire that her sons should prosper and accumulate riches; and that what is good for the British Empire is good for the outlying portions of the planet. Despite the lack of the ideal and the smack of frank Philistinism in this doctrine, as a working theory it has the merit of continual demonstration up and down life; it is a philosophy that can teach by example; and of most men it will always be the cult. Naturally, then, Mr. Chamberlain from the start has championed the ideas of Imperial Federation and Free Trade between the Mother Country and the Colonies. In a word he is the apostle of the “Open Door.” His lifelong opposition to Home Rule for Ireland proceeds not so much from inherent Conservatism as from an abhorrence of any centrifugal tendency in the Empire. Doubtless he would be willing to grant any reasonable concessions to Ireland short of the only thing the Irish insist on having. His withdrawal from the Gladstonian Liberals was consistent and inevitable.