After a round of electioneering speeches in various parts of the country, the diary notes:

Dec. 11th. List of Cabinet appointments out. A very good list too showing that C-B. has evidently held his own-the main point. A moment later opened a letter endorsed "secret requesting me to become Under Secretary for India under John Morley, who is anxious for it. Rather took Rather took my breath away.

12th. Called on C-B. by appointment and then back to Pont St., feeling how very kind he had been. Afterwards at his request to see J. M. at India Office. Our interview more than cordial.

Ellis was respected and popular on both sides of the House and the well-merited honour brought with it. "snow drifts," to use his term, of letters of congratulation.

Canon Scott Holland wrote in the Commonwealth:

The light breaks and confidence grows and the way lies plain before us; for it has become perfectly clear, even to our slow-witted friend, the " man in the street,' that we are in possession of a Cabinet of quite exceptional strength. The material to be used is excellent in quality and calibre. There is not a weak spot. Did we know that we had such talent at our service? And all are of such sound stuff. Mr. John Ellis, who might be the Speaker, and is as dignified as a bishop, is content to serve in silence with his chief in the same Chamber as himself.

Written with a shaky pencil in the train there came from Sir Wilfrid Lawson one of his characteristic effusions:

Three hundred millions rest,-it's true,
On

you and on John Morley too.
'Tis yours to make their lives more bright,
yours their every wrong to right.

'Tis

1906]

PRIVY COUNCILLOR

To do such work two better men
Are not within my modest ken,
Though holding widely diverse creeds,
They're wholly one in righteous deeds.

And with united heart and voice
England and India may rejoice.
Cheered by the hope to see increase
The reign of righteousness and peace.

Forgive these lines, old friend, I pray,
To wish you well upon your way.
Mohammedans, Hindoos, Parsees.
Your lot now lies amongst all these ;
I think and feel they wish you well,
Not more though than yours,

W. L.

This was probably the last communication Ellis had from the writer. They were firm friends of long standing, and as they had lived near each other in London for years it had been their habit to return home together from the House. A letter from Ellis written on July 3, 1906, on the subject of this friendship may here be quoted :—

Sir Wilfrid Lawson's departure is indeed one of the things that come home to one. One of the great privileges of my life was to have known him well, and much converse have we had together. Never any one like him. A radiant, childlike and most lovable spirit.

It was characteristic of Ellis to hold honours and titles in small esteem, but with the bestowal of office the one and perhaps the only one which he valued came to him when the Prime Minister offered him, in recogInition of his work as Chairman of Committees, the office of Privy Councillor.

Leicester, 12 Dec. 1905. I had half an hour with the P. M. this morning. I had no hesitation in accepting. Of his own motion.

he proposed I should become a Privy Councillor—not of course as an Under Secretary (since it is against all the traditions), but in relation to my position in the House.

A few weeks later, when he was formally admitted to the Council, the procedure followed in the case of John Bright, who was the first Quaker to enter its ranks, was adopted in deference to the conscientious scruples of Ellis. The deviation from the ordinary course consisted in the substitution of a simple form of affirmation for the customary oath of allegiance. He writes on January 8, the day of his admission:

To Buckingham Palace to Council. My old friend T. Burt admitted at same time. After our admission a Council held for dissolution of Parliament. Also summoning a meeting of new Parliament on 13th February.

In January 1906 Ellis made his sixth appeal to the electors of Rushcliffe, which constituency he had now represented for over twenty years. He referred his constituents to his record in their service as being a far more reliable indication of his opinions than anything he might say in speeches made on the eve of an election. Apart from this he determined that his appeal should be in no sense a personal one. "It will be," he writes to a friend, "so far as I can do it, removed from J.E.E., of whom I get a little sick sometimes." The main lines of his campaign are disclosed in the opening sentences of one of his speeches :

The record of the last ten years was summed up in the few words, restless militarism, dangerous finance and paralysed administration. On the top of