That was the crisis--so far at least as the official career of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was concerned for the time. What may have happened in the private councils of the Government we of the outer world were not and are not permitted to know. All that we actually do know is that Lord Salisbury resigned his place as Prime Minister, that Arthur Balfour was called to succeed him in office, and that a new administration was formed in which the name of Hicks-Beach did not appear. There were other changes also made in the administration, but with these I shall not for the present concern myself. The important fact for this article is that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was no longer Chancellor of the Exchequer. All manner of conjectures were made as to the reasons why Lord Salisbury so suddenly withdrew from the position of Prime Minister, and why he could not be prevailed upon to hold the place even nominally until after King Edward's coronation. I do not suppose that the resignation of Lord Salisbury had anything to do with the fact that Sir Michael Hicks-Beach ceased to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. The vacancies were not made simultaneously, nor did there appear any reason to believe that Hicks-Beach was so closely identified with the political fortunes of Lord Salisbury as to be unable to remain in office when his leader had ceased to hold the place of command. So far as an outsider can judge, it must have been that Hicks-Beach could not get on with the new administration, or that the new administration could not get on with him. My own theory, and I only offer it to my readers as the theory of a mere observer from the outside, is that Hicks-Beach could not stand any more of the reaction towards protection principles--thought he had gone quite as far as any sense of duty to his party could exact from him, and made up his mind that if his colleagues were anxious to go any farther in what he believed to be the wrong direction they must do so without any help or countenance from him.
This theory has taken a firmer hold than ever of my mind since I read the report of a speech lately made by Hicks-Beach weeks and weeks after he had ceased to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. That recent speech might have been made by a member of the Liberal Opposition. Certainly in some of its most important and striking passages it enunciated opinions and laid down doctrines which might have come from almost any of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's colleagues on the front Opposition bench. It denounced extravagant war expenditure at a time when Imperialist politicians were calling out for something very like military conscription, and it insisted that the defense of England by the strength of her navy ought to be the main consideration of English statesmanship. That is a doctrine which used to be proclaimed in distant days by such men as Cobden and Bright, which soon became an accepted principle among all genuine Liberals, but has lately been repudiated by all Imperialists, Liberal or Tory, who seem to think that the one great business of English statesmanship is to turn England into a military encampment. The natural and reasonable conclusion to be drawn from such a speech is that during the last session or two of Parliament Hicks-Beach found it impossible to put up any longer with the reign of Jingo principles in the Cabinet, and made up his mind to set himself free from such a domination. The Tory Government has lost its ablest financial administrator, and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach has regained his position of independence.