The necessity for showing a united front justified the diplomatic inexactitude; but the powers were agreed on little except the need for agreement.
The failure of the government in Ireland (where the only success was Mr Birrell's introduction of the Universities Bill in April 1908), their internal divisions as regards socialistic legislation, their variance from the views of the selfgoverning colonies on Imperial administration, the admission after the general election that the alleged "slavery" of the Chinese in the Transvaal was, in Mr Winston Churchill's phrase, a "terminological inexactitude," and the introduction of extreme measures such as the Licensing Bill of 1908, offered excellent opportunities of electioneering attack.
As a historian, Beza, by his chronological inexactitude, has been the source of serious mistakes; as an administrator, he softened the rigour of Calvin.