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Chamberlain (GEORGE EARLE an American)

GEORGE EARLE, an American legislator, born near Natchez, Miss., Jan. 1, 1854. He graduated from Washington and Lee University in 1876. In December of that year he removed to Oregon, which he has since made his home. He taught school and practiced law until 1880, when he was elected to the State Legis- JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN lature. He was appointed State Attor- 1836.

He was educated at University ney-General in 1891 and was twice College School, and entered his father's elected Governor, in 1902 and 1906. On screw factory at Birmingham, from Jan. 19, 1909, he was elected to the which, however, he retired in 1874. He CHAMBERLAIN CHAMBERS had by this time acquired considerable from the Cabinet in 1903 in order to adcelebrity as a Radical politician. In 1868 vocate these proposals. He reorganized he was appointed a member of the Bir- the Liberal-Unionist party in 1904 as a mingham town-council, was mayor of tariff-reform party. The party was de- Birmingham from 1873 to 1876, and feated in 1906, but Chamberlain was rechairman of the Birmingham school- elected to the House of Commons. Ill board from 1874 to 1876. After unsuc- Birmingham without opposition in June, Roebuck in 1874, he was returned for Birmingham without opposition in June, 1876. He soon made his mark in Parliament, and on the return of the Liberals to power in 1880 he was appointed president of the Board of Trade, with a seat in the cabinet. To Mr. Chamberlain's exertions was due the passing of the Bankruptcy Bill, but his efforts to amend cessful. Meanwhile his influence was increasing rapidly outside the House; he came to be regarded as the leader of the extreme Radical party. During the last hours of Mr. Gladstone's government he was understood to be opposed to the renewal of the Irish Crimes Act; and during the general election of 1886 he was most severe in his strictures on the moderate Liberals, and produced an "unauof Mr. Gladstone), which included the re- thorized" program (in opposition to that of Mr. Gladstone), which included the readjustment of taxation, free schools, and the creation of allotments by compulsory purchase. He was returned by the western division of Birmingham. On Feb. 1, 1886, he became president of the Local Government Board, but resigned on March 26, because of his strong objections to Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule measures for Ireland, and after the "Round Table" conference had failed to reunite the Liberal party he assumed an attitude of uncompromising hostility to his old leader's new policy, and was bitterly assailed by Home Rulers as a renegade.

He became leader of the Liberal-Unionists when the Duke of Devonshire went to the Upper House. Lord Salisbury sent him to Washington as commissioner on the Canadian fishery dispute, and in 1895 he was made Colonial minister in the Unionist Cabinet. As such he had, besides leagues, to face the troubles in South ing with the Colonies, as by welcoming the colonial ministers and colonial troops lee" (1897), and by concessions to Canalee" (1897), and by concessions to Canathe Australian Federation measure in Parliament (1900), and later had to face opposition from within the Liberal party.

In 1903 he brought forward proposals for a system of preferential tariffs with the Colonies and advocated the imposition of a tax on foreign goods. He resigned health prevented active participation in politics after 1906, but he continued as a member of the House until 1914, in which year he died. In 1888 he was married to Mary, daughter of William C. Endicott, Secretary of War in President Cleveland's first administration. RENCE, an American army officer and