ABSTRACT
Salisbury had analyzed the failure of the British in the campaign to date, at several levels and as if he were in opposition. The office of first lord of the Treasury, which he had held briefly in 1886–7, carried a salary, but without a prime ministerial presence in the Commons it did not give Salisbury what he sought. Unlike the public, politicians and diplomats were acutely conscious of the decline of Britain's prestige resulting from the army's failures in South Africa. It was not long since the interception of British supplies of imported food in wartime had been the subject of a cabinet memorandum from Ritchie at the Board of Trade. Renewed discussion of a formal alliance with Germany, for the last time in Salisbury's long official life, was not cut short by his statement of the case against it, circulated to the cabinet in May 1901.
