JESSE COLLINGS. You made friends--and kept them.
CHAMBERLAIN. So does he. He has been successful all round: art, politics,
letters, society--he has friends in all. I've only been successful in
business.
JESSE COLLINGS. My dear friend, aren't you forgetting yourself? You came
_out_ of business.
CHAMBERLAIN. No, I only changed to business on a larger scale--carried it
on under a bigger name. That's how I found myself. I had to make things
into a business in order to make a success of them. That was my method,
Collings: glorify it as much as you like. And up to a point it was good
business, I don't deny. That's how we ran local politics, invented the
Caucus: Corporation Street is the result. That's how we managed to run
Unionism: made a hard and fast contract of it, and made them stick to it.
That's how I ran the Colonies--and the Boer War. That's how I was going to
run the Empire on a Preferential Tariff. That came just too late. I'd made
a mistake.
JESSE COLLINGS. What mistake?
CHAMBERLAIN. Collings, the Boer War wasn't good business. It might have
been; but it lasted too long. Any modern war that isn't over in six months
now is a blunder, you'll find. They were able to hold out too long. That
did for me. There have been bees in my bonnet ever since--all because of
it. Boers first; then Bannerman; then--Balfour. Just once my business
instinct betrayed me, and I was done!
JESSE COLLINGS. But--wasn't the war necessary?
CHAMBERLAIN.
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