There were, in two generations, three Chamberlains in the first rank of British politics. Joseph, the greatest of them in personality and in the special gifts that qualify for the highest success in public life, would almost certainly have succeeded Gladstone in the leadership of the Liberal party had they not separated in 1886 on the question of Home Rule for Ireland. O f his two sons, Austen was educated for a public career and Neville for business. Austen twice, of deliberate choice, declined a course that might and probably would have led to the Premiership. It was to the younger son Neville that the great prize came, though he had no Parliamentary ambitions during the larger part of his life, and did not enter the House of Commons till he was within a few months of fifty. He did not go to the university as Austen had done but, on leaving Rugby, returned to his home in Birmingham and, after a short time at Mason College, entered an accountants’ office. In 1890 his father bought land in the Bahamas for the cultivation of sisal which, he was advised, would produce the best quality of hemp. Neville went out at the age of twenty-one to take charge of the estate. He lived plain and worked hard for seven years and then had to admit failure. The soil was too thin and, after heavy financial loss, the enterprise was abandoned.