That most instructive monthly History Today includes in its Issue,
published this week a very interesting account of Mr. Gladstone's last Cabinet in 1894, and in particular of the impas- sioned discussions as to the succession. It ultimately fell to Lord Rosebery, and what is published is the first instalment of an account left by the new Prime Minister himself. Apart from details, it contains little that is not to be found in the official biography of Rosebery by his son-in-law, Lord Crewe, who pretty clearly had access to this document, or to papers on which it is based. And Crewe could be supplemented by half-a-dozen major political biographies or autobiographies. But some of the details- are of considerable interest in themselves—notably the account of the tireless background activities of Lewis Harcourt, son and private secretary of Sir William Harcourt, Rosebery's rival and antagonist within the Party, and the bait dangled by the Harcourt faction before John Morley—the suggestion that he should take the Foreign Office, which Rosebery actually held. If he had accepted and thrown his influence in the desired direction, Har- court might conceivably have become Prime Minister instead of Rosebery, in spite of the opposition of most of the Cabinet.
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