In June 1885 the Liberal administration broke up, but Lord
Salisbury's ministry, which succeeded, was beaten early in
February 1886, and when Mr Gladstone adopted Home Rule,
Lord Rosebery threw in his lot with the old leader, and was
made secretary of state for foreign affairs during the brief
Liberal ministry which followed. He rather distinguished
himself in the Lucia Bay negotiations then being carried on
with Germany. If Busch is to be believed, Prince Bismarck's
view was that Lord Rosebery had “ quite mesmerized ” Count
Herbert Bismarck; and the latter, from his father's standpoint,
conceded too much to Lord Rosebery, who proved himself to
be, in Bisn1arck's language, “ very sharp.” His views on foreign
policy differed materially from those of Granville and Gladstone.
His mind was dwelling constantly upon the political legacy of
the two Pitts; he was a reader of Sir John Seeley; he had himself
visited the colonies; had predicted that a war would not,
as was commonly said, disintegrate the empire, but rather
the reverse; had magnified the importance of taking colonial
opinion; and had always been a convinced- advocate of some
form of Imperial Federation. He was already taunted with
being an Imperialist, but his independent attitude won public
approval. Cambridge gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1888;
in January 1889 he was elected a member of the first county
council of London, and on the 12th of February he was elected
chairman of that body by 104 votes to 17. The tact, assiduity
and dignity with which he guided the deliberations of the
council made him exceedingly popular with its members. In
the spring of 1890 he presided over the Co-operative Congress,
but with a view to the impending political campaign he found it
necessary to resign the chairmanship of the county council in
June. In November of this year, however, Lady Rosebery died,
and he withdrew for a period from public business. In 1891
he made some brief continental visits, one to Madrid, and in
October he saw through the press his little monograph upon
William Pill, in the Twelve English Statesmen Series, of
which it may be said that it competes in interest with Viscount
Morley's Walpole. In January 1892, upon a new election, he
again for a few months became chairman of the county council.
It was already recognized that in him the country possessed
not only a public man of exceptionally attractive personality,
but one whose literary tastes were combined with a gift for
expression which was at once original and fluent. In October
the Garter was conferred upon him by Queen Victoria.
Meanwhile, in August, upon the return of Gladstone to power,
he was induced with some difficulty (for he was suffering at the
time from insomnia) to resume his position as foreign minister.
His acceptance was construed as security against the suspicion
of weakness abroad which the Liberal party had incurred by
their foreign policy during the 'eighties. He strongly opposed
the evacuation of Egypt; he insisted upon the exclusive control
by Great Britain of the Upper Nile Valley, and also upon the
retention of Uganda. In 1893 the question of Siam came near
to causing serious trouble with France, but by the exercise of
a combination of firmness and forbearance on Lord Rosebery's
part the crisis was averted, and the lines were laid down for preserving
Siam, if possible, as a buffer state between the English
and French frontiers in Indo-China. In the spring of 1895 he
was clear-sighted enough to refuse to join the anti-japanese
League of Russia, France and Germany at the end of the ChinaJapan
War.
Lord Rosebery's personal popularity had been increased at home by his successful intervention in the coal strike of December 189 3, and when in March 1894 the resignation of Gladstone was announced, his selection by Queen Victoria for the premiership was welcomed by the public at large and by the majority of his own party. On all hands he was then considered dignus 'imperio-it was only as the new administration went to pieces that people began to add nisi imperassel. The conditions he had to face were by no means hopeful. The Liberal majority of 44 was already dwindling away, and the malcontents, who considered'that Sir William Harcourt should have been the prime minister, or who were perpetually intriguing against a. leader who did not satisfy their idea of Radicalism, made Lord Rosebery's personal position no easy one. A systematic policy of detraction was pursued by the small section of the Radical party who objected to a peer premier as such, and a great deal of adverse criticism was also aroused by a speech in which the prime minister, taunted for not again bringing forward a Home Rule measure, insisted upon the truism that the conversion of' England, the “ predominant partner, ” was a necessary condition of success. The support of the Irish Nationalists was by no means secure. Lord Rosebery's foreign policy, moreover, was too Tory for his Radical followers; he insisted upon “ continuity of policy in foreign affairs, ” which meant carrying on the Conservative policy and not upsetting it. The premier was thought to have shown a restlessness and a rawness at the touch of censure which did not increase his reputation for reserve power or strength, but this was undoubtedly due in large measure to the recrudescence of the insomnia from which he had suffered in 1891. The government effected little. In Mr Asquith's phrase, it was “ploughing the sands.” The Parish Councils Act was only passed by compromising with the Opposition. Local Veto and Disestablishment of the Welsh Church were put in the forefront of the party programme, but the government was already to all appearances riding for a fall, when on the 24th of June 1895 it was beaten upon an adverse vote in the Commons in regard to a question of the supply and reserve of small arms ammunition.
The general election which followed after Lord Salisbury had formed his new ministry was remarkable for the undisciplined state of the Liberal party. At the Eighty Club and the Albert Hall Lord Rosebery- advised them to concentrate upon the reform of the House of Lords, that assembly being, as he said, a foremost obstacle to the passing of -legislation on the lines of the Newcastle programme; but he was unable to suggest in what direction it should be reformed. Sir William Harcourt and Mr John Morley, on the other hand, concentrated respectively upon Local Option and Home Rule. The Liberals were quarrelling among themselves, and the result was an overwhelming defeat. In Opposition Lord Rosebery was now at a serious disadvantage as head of a parliamentary party; for in any case he could not rally them as a loyally followed leader in the House of Commons might have done. But his followers were not all loyal, and his rivals in leadership were themselves in the House of Commons. Added to this there was still in the background the veteran statesman to whom Liberalism owed an -unequalled obligation. When the “ Armenian atrocities ” became a burning question in the country in 1896, and Mr Gladstone himself emerged from his retirement to advocate intervention, Lord Rosebery's difficulties had taken their final form. He declined to support this demand at the risk of a European war, and on the 8th of October 1896 he announced to the Liberal whip, Mr Thomas Ellis, his resignation of the Liberal leadership. On the following day he made a farewell speech at the Empire Theatre, Edinburgh, to over four thousand people, and for some time he held aloof from party politics, “ ploughing his furrow alone, ” as he afterwards phrased it. In 1898, on the death of Mr Gladstone, he paid a noble and eloquent tribute in the House of Lords to the life and public services of his old leader. He was a pall-bearer at his funeral on the 28th of May, as he had previously been at the burials of Tennyson and Millais. His influence in the country was still a strong one on personal grounds, and he came forward now and again to give expression independently to popular feeling. In the autumn of 1898 he gave valuable support to the attitude taken up by Lord Salisbury upon the Fashoda question. He was indeed bound by consistency to withstand what his own government, by the words of Sir Edward Grey, had declared would be an unfriendly act on the part of France. Again, after Mr Kruger's ultimatum in October'1899, Lord Rosebery spoke upon the necessity of the nation closing its ranks and supporting the government in the prosecution of war in South Africa. After Nicholson's Nek he reiterated the resolution of the country “ to see this thing through.” Nevertheless, in a letter to Captain
