"Words"? How should we? He
was always so wonderfully accommodating, so polite, so apologetic even.
Nobody ever had a finer contempt for his party than he--not even old
Dizzy, or Salisbury, or Churchill. So he could always say the handsome
thing to one--behind its back--even when he was making burnt-offerings to
its prejudices.
JESSE COLLINGS. And when you left him?
CHAMBERLAIN. When I left him he did the thing beautifully. So genuinely
sorry to lose me; so sure of having me with him again, before long. How
could I have gone out and worked against him after that? But it's what--as
a business politician--I ought to have done.
JESSE COLLINGS. If you had--should we have won, straight away?
CHAMBERLAIN. We should have won the party, and the party-machine too. For
the rest it wouldn't have mattered waiting a year or two. Yes, we should
have won. But here's this, Collings: we should have won then; we shan't
win now. Times are changing: the time for it is over. Something else is
coming along--what, I don't know. My old fox-scent has gone: wind's
against me. The Colonies are growing up too fast. They won't separate, but
they mean to stand on their own feet all the same: in their own way--not
mine. We ought to have got them when they were a bit younger: we could
have done it then. Once it flattered them to be called "Dominions "; now
they are going to be "Sovereign States." And he--he doesn't mind. He is
never for big constructive ideas--only for contrivances: takes things as
they come, makes the best of them--philosophically--and gets round them;
and sometimes does it brilliantly.
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