He told me that the Speakership
was the one post in public life which he should have most enjoyed,
and which would best have suited his capacities. But his colleagues
declared that he could not be spared from the Cabinet, and, true to
his fine habit of self-effacement, he ceased to press his claim.
In October, 1896, Lord Rosebery, who had been Premier from 1894
to 1895, astonished his party by resigning the Liberal leadership.
Who was to succeed him? Some cried one thing and some another. Some
were for Harcourt, some for Morley, some for a leader in the House
of Lords. Presently these disputations died down; what logicians
call "the process of exhaustion" settled the question, and
Campbell-Bannerman--the least self-seeking man in public life--found
himself the accepted leader of the Liberal party. The leadership
was an uncomfortable inheritance. There was a certain section of
the Liberal party which was anxious that Lord Rosebery should return
on his own terms. There were others who wished for Lord Spencer,
and even in those early days there were some who already saw the
makings of a leader in Mr. Asquith. And, apart from these sectional
preferences, there was a crisis at hand, "sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,
and of the joints and marrow.
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