ABSTRACT
Shortly afterwards Parliament was dissolved, electioneering began, and Mr. Gladstone commenced his famous Midlothian campaign. The Tory seats went down one after another, and finally the Conservative majority was replaced by an enormous Liberal majority. A few days afterwards Mr. Joseph Chamberlain went straight into the new Gladstone Ministry, with a seat in the Cabinet, without having ever held a subordinate ministerial office, and with barely four years of parliamentary life behind him. Among the comments to which this rapid elevation gave rise, some accounted for it by the services which Mr. Joseph Chamberlain had rendered to the Liberal party by the introduction of the Caucus, and which Mr. Gladstone was anxious to acknowledge. In interfering on all important occasions, for the purpose of supporting the Government, the Liberal Associations controlled by the Birmingham Caucus considered that they were simply discharging their duty of serving as the organ of public opinion.
