EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10264, 6 February 1899, Page 5

EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD.

SECOND NOTICE,

[By thk Hok. C. C. Bowen*. M.L.C.j

It has been noticed already that in June, 1838, when the Now Zealand Association Bill was thrown out in the House of Commons. Wakerield was in Nmth America. In 1837 a rebellion luid broken out in Lower Canada. Next your an Act was passed in the Uritish Parliament suspending the Canadian Constitution, and Lord Durham was sent out a≤ High Commissioner with extraordinary powers to deal with ponding difficulties. A wtw-k Goveimr.Mst was probably anxious to get rid for a lime of this too independent ally, whose high spirit and impetuous temper made him troublesome to the Cabinet. However this may be, it was fortunate that a man was appointed who hud the- courage and patriotism tit net on his own responsibility and at his own risk, wlien the public interest was at stake. Lord Durham was one of the public men who had been deepiy impressed by Wakefleld's theories on the subject of colonisation, and hud taken an active interest in all efforts to reform the existing system. On his appointment aa High Commissioner to Ccuuda. he tock with him as his chief advisers, Waketield and Charles Buller, the brilliant young Member of Parliament, whose too early death iv 1848 deprived the country of one of its most promising statesmen. Buller was appointed Chief Secretory. Wakeiield hud no recognised office, tot was eonsultod on all important occasions. Lord Durham nnd his advisera soon got to the bottom of the trouble in Canada; he proposed to giye veal responsible Government to the French "liabituns," and at the same time suggested as a check on disloyal or factious tendencies on their part the union of all the North American colonies. These proposals were thought sufficiently alarming in England. Lord Dux-ham's ordinance dealing with the captured rebels whom he found awaiting trial fairly exasperated the Home Government. Their guilt was undoubted, but they were looked on as patriots in Lower Canada, and they would nut have been convicted by a French Canadian jury unless the Government had recourse to a packed tribunal. Lord Durham solved the difficulty by an. act of clemency, and the prisoners were sent out of the country without trial, greatly to their own relief and that of the whole community. But the High Commissioner had exceeded his legal prowers; the Cabinet was not prepared to defend him, and disallowed the ordinance. Lord Durham sent in Wβ resignation, after issuing a proclamation which occasioned his recall. He did not, however, wait for this, but sailed for England in November amid demonstrations of goodwill and gratitude from both English and French, from Upper as well as from Lower Canada. Thus ended what Dr. Garnett calls Lord Durham's meteoric administration; On his amv-aLin.England, he was bitterly attacked and strongly defended. John Stuart Mill thus summed up his defence : —"Hβ has been thwarted, but he bu not failed. H» has shown how Canada ought to be governed, and if anything can allay b«* dissensions and again attach her to the Mother Country this will. Hβ hae at the critical moment taken the initiative of » healing:* policy. Hβ hae disposed of the great immediate embarrassment, the political offenders. He has shown to the well-inten-tianed of both sides an honourable basis on which they may accommodate their differences. He has detached from the unreasonable of one party their chief support, the sympathy of the United States, and it is reserved for him to detach from the other the sympathy of the people of England, Hβ comes home master of the details of those abuses which he has recognised as th» original causes of the disaffection, prepared to expose these as they have never before been exposed, and to submit to Parliament, after the most comprehensive enquiry which has ever taken place, the system on which the North American colonies may be preserved and well governed hereafter." : Lord Durham's famous report appeared early in 1839. That Wakefield and Charles Buller had a great part in its composition has never been doubted. What share each took is not known. It -was epigrammatic* ally said that "Wakefield thought it, Buller wrote it, and Durham signed it." Both Durham and Buller were confessedly disciples of Wakefield in colonial policy, and Lord Durham once wrote that he had never erred except when he rejected Wakeneld'i advice. Dr. Garnett thinks that art equal share of credit belongs to the three collaborators, an opinion which I have heard expressed by well-informed contemporaries who were interested in the question. Hβ points out that although Buller probably wrote a great portion of the report, there is much in it that resembles the style of Lord Durham's proclamation announcing the disallowance of ha ordinance, "which bears throughout the impress of strong personal feeling, and whieli it is scarcely probable that the high-spirited Durham would have delegated to a subordinate/ The history of its publication, at any rate, was characteristic of Wakefield'* methods. The report had fallen like a bomb' shell into the Cabinet; Ministers were heai* tating as to what was to be done with it* and it is very probable that the report in full would not have been laid before Parliament, had not Wakefield cent a copy of it to "The Times." This irregular action left the Ministry no option. The publication of this "rank and infectious report," ac the Quarterly Eeviewer (Croker?) called it, evoked a storm of criticism, as it was far in advance of public opinion. But the principles laid down in it formed the basis, not only of the Canadian Constitution, but of that of every self-governing colony. It was,' per- , haps, for the British Empire the most epochmaking state paper of this century, and Wakefield's share in it entitles him to lasting fame as a Constitutional statesman..

He returned to Canada for a short time, and in 1843 was elected a member of the Assembly by a county of Lower Canada. His influence was chiefly exercised in his usual manner as unofficial adviser of the GovernorGeneral, and ac a prolific, powerful, but unsystematic writer. In January, 1844, the aad newe of the Wairau massacre in New Zealand, and of his brother Arthur's death, recalled Mm from (to quote Dr. GarnettV suggestive expression) "the pleasant occupation of exercising irresponsible Government iv Canada as the secret counsellor of Sir Charles Metcalfe."

We have seen how taa original design of the promoters of New Zealand colonisation, were thwarted by the Government in Kng» land, and bow a New Zealand Governor,

Capt. Fitzrov, made the settlement of these island* a matter of the utmost difficulty. The Wakefield system of dealing with the waste lands did not get fair "lay during the regime of the Now Zealand Company. From the time of his return from Canada in January, 1814, till he was struck down by severe illness in March, 1846, Wakefield fought the battle of New Zealand colonisation before Parliamentary Committees and in the public Press. Ho indoctrinated friends in both Houses of Parliament, who were anxious to promote colonisation, but knew little about it. Although he never completely got over this illness, wliich temporarily paralysed his brain, he returned as soon as he could to trie work of his life. While staying at Malvern lor his health, he made the acquaintance of a man with whom he had many interests in common, and the acquaintance soon developed into friendship. Mr Godley h:id taken a grii.it i;iime>t m \V airfield's writings on colonisation —he had himself written a book on America wliich attracted much intention—and had proposed a scheme for meeting the emergency of Uic Irish famine by an organised cm.yralfon to Canxda on a large scale. The ouldness of the scheme, and the arguments oy wliich it was supported, had. niarktd liiin in j>olitic:ii circles us. uu ordinal thinker arui practical iUte-viiuui; but ais delicate health precluded him from an juctive Parliamentary co:ver. Wal;eliulil and Godley were soon together by «i common interest in colonial reiorm ; tit jy uisaiasci together thu wholu history of c olo;iisution from the faroil' times, when tfie I'ltojnicians and Greeks

tttr.l oul their organised swarms, to the emigration from in thy seventeenth century cf cGmniinii.it.-s bound together by tome coininjii tie oi leligiun or <>i pjlitkal interests; and they determined that something should bo iloiie to set the example of Bystsiiutic em.giation. It was men and thc-ro that tho I .>undalit;ii oi tho Canterbury settlement wad laid. -Mr Godley entered enthusiastically into thu iiruject of v Church of Kugland settlement in New Zealand; Wakilield, who had long hid tho germs of nomo such scheme in view, was equally earueit. But it was the systematic colonisation he cared for. All was grist that came to his mill. Before the scheme for a Church of England Colony was developed, a Presbyterian Settlement woe organised in Scotland, and in 1847 a party of Free Kirk Colonists landed in Otago, under the leadership of Captain Cargill, a I'eninsula veteran, who boasted his descent from a Militant Covenanter, who wus beheaded in t!ie Grass Market in Edinburgh. Otago to this day bears the distinctive stamp ot its origin; the great incursion of gold diggers was not able to ewamp the individuality of the sturdy Scotch •ettlers. In thia settlement the Wakefield ■ystem got a partial trial, but the price of land wan too soon reduced from two pounds to ten shillings.

In the meantime, through Mr Uodley's influence with his personal friends, the Canterbury Association was formed, and in 1848 Captain Thomas was sent out with a sufficient staff to make tne preliminary surveys. The price of land was fixed at three pounds an acre. Of this ten shillings had to be paid to the New Zealand Company for the land; thirty shillings were to be devoted to sending out carefully chosen emigrants and prosecuting the first necessary public works; the other pound was given to church and educational purposes. This pound an acre was, in fact, a subscription by the first settlers for these purposes, and disappeared when the constitution came into force, when the Provincial Council fixed the price of land at two pounds. A leader was still wanted to conduct the enterprise to a successful issue, when at the last moment Mr Godley undertook the task himself. This was fortunate, for he was, as Dr. Garnett says, as muoh a born leader of men as Wakeneld wag of thought. His health iiad broken down in 1849, and he was ordered to winter in Italy. Wakefield strongly urged that the climate of New Zealand would be as beneficial as that of Italy, and the result was that Mr Godley •greed to go out for two years to start the young colony on its way. Few men could have so successfully pulled the settlement through difficulties which it was impossible to foresee, but which had to be met promptly and firmly when they aid occur. In looking back on the history of the Canterbury Settlement, it v evident that the original suggestion came from Wakefield, who induced the "renegades,' as he deemed them, of the old New Zealand Company to dispose of sufficient land for the purpose. But the • two men who practically secured the success of the undertaking were Lord Lyttelton and Mr Godley. Of Lord Lyttelton, Wakefield wrote to Godley after the latter hod sailed for New Zealand, that "his indifference to power and fame keep in obscurity his singular ability and public spirit. Ever since you left England he has made himself a slave to the. business of promoting New Zealand colonisation and the reform of Colonial Government, always ready to give his whole time, his whole attention, and money without stint, to the work in hand; and this without appearing to suppose that he deserves the least credit for these sacrifices. I cannot recollect another instance of equal modesty and gentle simplicity of character, combined with great talents" The absolute confidence of Mr Godley's friends in him, and their affection for him, helped the settlement through its many difficulties, when unfriendly voices were ready to proclaim a failure. More than once Lord Lyttelton and Sir John Simeon and' Lord Richard Cavendish came forward to advance considerable sums of money to save the scheme from ruin. How different was the relation between the Association and the Canterbury settlers to that which existed between the Cook Straits settlers and the New Zealand Company! One ot the first acts of the Provincial Council, when the new constitution came into force, was to provide for the repayment of £30,000 thus advanced, with interest; and though this was a large burden for the infant colony in those days, not a dissentient voice was raised when tlie vote was passed recognising the grmt services rendered by the active members of the Association at their own personal risk. The anxiety and responsibility of the first two years of the settlement taxed all the clear judgment and resolute will of Mr Godley— '"Mot with coffers full and facilities abundant," says Mr FitxGerald in the sketch which he wrote of Godley's life, "but in poverty of funds, amidst great difficulties, amidst much discontent, amidst the disappointment of many sanguine expectations, and the illconcealed hostility oi a Government (Sir George Grey's), which appeared vexed at the additional trouble imposed on it by the founding of a new colony within its jurisdiction, Mr Godley guided the future fortunes of Canterbury, in the full and entire conviction of the result which must one day come." He found it necessary from time u> time to ignore the instructions sent from the Association's office in London, which were issued without sufficient local knowledge, at a time when the course of post back and forwards took seven or eight months to complete. One of the first steps he had to take was to reverse some of the Asociation's land regulations, which forbade leasing land except to laud purchasers. Settlers began to arrive from Australia and elsewhere, with Hooks and herds. If $fcey were driven away the greater part of the land of the Canterbury oiock would have remained unoccupied. Mr Godley consulted the "Land Purchasers' So-

ciety," which he had organised, and with their consent put in force a set of regulations «* squatting on unpurchased land—not allowing anyone, to t___. up mot* Uua 20,0v0

acres. Xo lease was given, only a license to occupy, subject to the right of any purchaser to select land where he liked. Mr Deans, who had settled on tne Canterbury Plains before the arrival of the settlers, and the settlers themselves considered that Mr Godley had saved the colony by taking this responsibility on himself. But this action, and others wliich Godley thought it necessary to take, in order to fit the toachinery contrived in England for work in a new country, made Wakefield very angry. It is curious that, altnough his life-long complaint against the then Colonial Office was its constant attempt to rule from London in even,- detail, ajnd to keep colonists in leading strings, the author of the "Art of Colonisation" should liimself have tried to be a Mr "Mother Country to the young Canterbury Colony. God ley wrote to Mr Adderiey in Maw 1851: "I often think what fun we should" all have taken in old times out of the didactic despatches which are written to mc, if they hud emanated from Downing street. , ' In Mi'irch, 1852. he wrote to the same correspondent: "Wukeiield says this is not a t-olonv. and should therefore, have its affairs managed for it at Home. I should like to kmiw how often I have heard liirn say, "Numbers don't signify —the first ship's company is the colony. They should make laws l<,r "thoniM'ivtfJS on board ship. Look at the Pilgrim Fathers-; —how many of them were there?' He cannot bear to have his theories applied to himself. He would make the most intolerable Colonial Minister that ever lived in Downing street. On another ocuiision he wrote to Mr Adderiey that he expected to be roundly abused by Wakefield and Sewell for taking a necessary but independent line of action, and added, "I look to Lyttelton and Simeon and you to defend mc."

Lord Lyttelton, as time went on, could not attend* closely to the management of the Association's business in London, and it fell completely under Wakefields control. So, with a strong man on either side of the world, many differences arose. Godley was not the inau tv give way to interference alien to the understanding on which he liad accepted his task, and protested with gre.tt vigour against this attempt at administration from a distance. "i would rather," he s.iid, "bs governed by a Xero on the spot than by a lioard of An/els in London, because we could, if the worst came to the worst, cut off Nero's head, but we could not get at the Board in London at all. He iinally wrote, resigning nis office as Agent of the Association, but they naturally delayed accepting the resignation, and ultimately the powers under their charter were transferred by the Constitution Act to the Superintendent and provincial Council. Mr Godley, whose ability, high sense of honour and. chivalrous character were as highly appreciated in the colony as among his friends in England, was asked by the settlers to stand for the office of Superintendent under the new Act; but family affairs required his presence at home, and he felt that he had done his work. The statue erected iv Christehurch by order of the Provincial Council bears witness to the local estimation of that work. Mr Godley sailed for England in December, 1852, and Wakefield arrived in Lyttelton in January, 1853, so that they never met again. Both of them regretted the estrangement that had taken place, but it was not the fault of Godley. Wakefield was acrimonious in Ins attacks upon his friend and former coadjutor, whose straightforward directness of thought and action were sometimes a shock to the mind of the born diplomatist. Godley to the last bore witness to Wakefield's great qualities, and to the eminent services he had rendered to his country and to the colonies. There have been many discussions as to whether Wakefield's land system was a success in Canterbury. No doubt the price put oh the land by the Association (£3 an acre) was too high, and checked laud sales at the most critical age of the settlement. But the actual price fixed was not of the essence of the system, whicli required a sufficient price to introduce immigrants and to start the first necessary surveys arid public works. As we have seen the Provincial Council reduced the price to £2. At this price the land was sold and occupied steadily ; each purchaser owning a very moderate area, and the unsold lands were occupied by the squatter, profitably for himself and for the community, tinder tiie system originated by iur Godley. There were no large estates within the original Canterbury, block. To understand how the large estates in Canterbury arose we must go back to the history of the New Zealand crovernmenfc, when tiie Canterbury scheme was initiated. At that time Sir George Grey had raised Hew Zealand out of the difficulties in which Captain Fitzroy had left it, and his masterly management of the natives gave him a prestige with both races which encouraged Ins autocratic propensities. A one man rule may have had its advantages in that critical time, and when Grey coolly set aside the New Zealand Constitution, enacted by the British Parliament in 1846, the dread of a native war induced the Home Government, who had great confidence in his native administration, to adopt his views. But it was not to be expected that a British colony to whom Representative Institutions hau been griuilM. uy .farliameiK;, would tamely sudmit to seven years of Dictatorship. A strong agitation was kept up at Wellington against it, headed by Featherston and *'ox, with whom Godley strongly sympathised. The Governor, who did not like the Charter given to the Canterbury Association and the

imperium m lniperio ib.ua set up in ins dominions was unfriendly to the < new settlement. But the deadliest blow he dealt to the Canterbury settlement was the'proclamation of his Land Regulations, after the New Zealand Constitution of 1852 had been granted by Parliament. Instead of leaving the whole question of land administration to the new legislature, he issued regulations reducing the price of land all over the colony to 5s and 10s an acre ; and retained power in his own hands to the end of his administrate i by ret using to convoke tho General Assembly before convening the Provincial Councils. The Canterbury settlers protested and petitioned in vain ; after paying a high price for their own land they had to see large areas within the province, but outside the original block, pass into the hands of speculators and capitalists. Those who knew the origin of these large estates in the Canterbury Province, and who in 1853 protested against the action of the autocratic Governor, heard Sir George Grey, the tribune ot the pcj|»le, denoummig in mo House ot Representatives a quarter of a century afterwards, the Canterbury Association and these large estates which he laid to its charge! In spite of all discouragement the Canterbury settlement was a success, and the adoption of the Wakefield land system in its general features, was justified by its results. The systematic colonisation by a number, of educated mcii who' had a common interest, accompanied by a body of carefully seclected emigrants, encouraged friends to follow, so that the young colony has been always more or less in touch with the Mother Country, and has escaped the isolation of thought and feeling which has sometimes thrown back young countries for generations. There are now no more new countries to colonise in the ordinary, sense of the word, and the young settled states of the Southern Seas are apt to forget their early history. Like "Topsy," they "'xpect they growed." But it is well that they should be sometimes reminded of the men to whose strenuous endeavours they owe their present position. Even where Wakefield's system was not adopted, the principles he "advocated hastened colonial reform throughout the British possessions.

Waketicld's life in New Zealand, from his arrival at Lyttelton in 1853 to his death at Wellington in 1862, was on the whole a melancholy ending of a great career of colonial statesmanship. He and his active Lieutenant in London, Mr Henry Sewell. attempted at once to impugn Mr Godley's actions, but their accusations met with a very cold reception in Canterbury, and brought them into collision with Mr FitzGerSd. 'lhroughout Godiey's administration in tho colony FitzGeraid tad been his right hand man, and had naturally taken the lead in his, absence. Indoed. to no man except to Mr Godley lias Canterbury owed so much as to its first Superintendent: all the resources at ins many-sided intellect, which promised a great career in England, were devoted to the service of his adopted country: and only those who remember him in his brilliant youth can understand the social and political* influence which he exercised in the early days of this colony. While his genial wit often smoothed over many a rising troabie, he could hit hard on occasion, and never harder than in defeao* of a friend. Walofetd had known him

in London, and nee:l not have been surprised at his attacks on Godley being met with all the vigour of FitzGerald's pen. But he never forgave this, and later on wrote about Fitzgerald in a style of invective which his own friends condemned. This did not prevent FitzGerald.not long before Wakefield's death, paying a most generous tribute to the splendid work done by him in the cause of colonisation and to the influence which his exceptional ability had enabled him to exercise.

When the* General Assembly met at Auckland in 1854, WakeSeld represented the Hutt district near Wellington. Colonel Wynyard was acting Governor during the interregnum between tne departure of Sir George Grey, who bad bean α-ppointed to the Cape of Good Hope, and the arrival of Colonel Gore Browne as his successor. Colonel Wynyard was a soldier who neither knew nor pretended to know much about Constitutional questions. Unfortunately such questions had to be faced at once as the new Act had not made provision for responsible Government. The Acting-Governor's opening speech was, no doubt, written by Mr Swainson, the At-torney-General, who was a man of great ability. I think Dr. Garnett is in error in supposing that Wakefield had anything to do with it. He certainly would not have been a party to indicating, in the Governor's speech, an allocation of the revenue without any communication with the representatives of the people, although he soon, almost as a matter of course, fell into the position of the jxiwer behind the throne. Wakeiield took the lead by moving a resolution asserting the necessity lor -Ministerial responsibility in the conduct of Legislative and Executive proceedings by the Governor, which was carried almost unanimously. He did not seek office himself. Mr Fitzgerald. Mr Weld, and Mr Sewell took office as members of the Executive Council. But'they found that the three chief Executive officers of the Crown, the Attorney-General, the Colonial Secretary, and the Colonial Treasurer had no idea of resigning their appointments, and that, owing to an oversight in the drafting of the Constitution Act, the Assembly had no power of controlling the Government by stopping supplies. Mr Swainson pointed out to them that the Constitution Act only authorised the House to control the expenditure of money raised by Parliamentary authority, and gave no control over money raised by laws enacted before the Act came into force. It is strange that under these circumstances, Wakefield, of all meiij should have declared himself satisfied. He wrote to his sister (Mrs Torlesse) "after trouble and annoyance and suffering without end, I am as happy as any one can be in this world, having a full realisation of what 1 have hoped and longed and striven for so many years. '±he only drawback is a kind of apprehension arising Irom the greatness and suddenness of tho success. On finding that the Governor was not prepared to take their advice, the Parliamentary members of the Executive resigned; the only constitutional course they could ta-ke, although Dr. Garnett appeal's Ij blaane them. The House was exasperated at finding that Wakefield was irresponsibly advising the Governor, and the excitement culminated after a most extraordinary scene, i quote Dr. Garnett's own account oi it: "A long message from the Governor came down, and was being read by tho clerk, when it was discovered that a page was missing. VVakeneld coolly pullea a duplicate lrom his pocket and coiered to supply the omission, which produced a scene oniy to be paralleled by that which occurred a lew.days later, when the House- tilled up Cue interval between reading a message lrom the Governor threatening, and a second message decreeing the prorogation, oy passing fierce resolutions, the second message meanwhile lying unread upon the table.' Dr. G-aruett appsars to mc to have departed from his usual discernment in dealing »vith the history of this first session. He insinuates a desire for place- as actuating the men who were representing the Parliament, and who had undertaken a thankless task at) great inconvenience to themselves and detrimental to their own interests. '±he whole trouble arose from the unaccountable conduct of VVakeneld, whose generally acute judgment must have been enieebled by his laiim-g health,, and. by tne extraordinary lascination the exercise ot personal and private intiuence had tor him. He no doubt thought that as long as he was behind tho scenes all would go well. In this case Dr. Garnett did not realise the actual position, or the character oi the men engaged iii the struggle. How Wakeh'eld couid Jiave ex-uec-ioct that men uke FitzGerald and Weld would betray the trust oi the representatives uf the people by accepting a lalse position and remaining in office as mere puppets, is a. mystery. Even Mr SSewell, \vakeneld's fiuus Achates, was obliged to desert him. The session broke up in uisorder. .Responsible Government disappeared lor the moment, and the permanent officials remained masters oi the position at Auckland. Wakefield returned to Wellington a broken man in heu-lth and spirits. tur more than seven years he lived there in retirement, a pathetic ngure, with intellectual faculties noo perceptibly impaii-ed, but without strength or energy to exert them seriously. The society oi his niece, the daughter of his brother Daniel, afterwards Mrs Harold Freeman, was a great consolation and comfort to him. He aid not interfere agaia in public affairs, and died in May, 1862. • It would be difficult to do full justice to so complex a oharacter. He was indeed a man as Lord Lyttelton described him "of much vicissitude of fortune and much inequality of character." He was actuated by lofty aims and unselfish aspirations for the good of humanity. His projects were noble, and he pursued them with perseverance and undaunted courage. His imaginative genius buro uuiL no tiiioUg'li all Lie. sorrow , * and disappointments of his life. Fully conscious of his exceptional abilities he did not dare for place or emolument so long as he could exercise his wonderful power over other men, and his great personal fascination attracted friends and disciples. But he alienated his friends time after time by unreasonable suspicions, and by a vindictive resentment

..uenever no w~3 tawarted in his plans. His errors are summed up by Dr. Garnett in the word unscrupulousness. "Not unscrupulousness which aimed at personal advantage, even in the great offence of his life the motive was not love of money, but love of influence ; but the unscrupulousness of a strong will intolerant of opposition either from man or morals, and of a statesmanship which, impatient of the jealousies and misunderstandings of inferior men, deems it no sin to circumvent when it cannot overthrow." Unfortunately for him he sometimes adopted these methods with men who were not to be.so treated with impunity. In'his domestic life he was affectionate and beloved by all bis relations. He kept up a very regular correspondence with his sister Catherine, the wife of Mr Torlesse, Rector of Stoke, in Surrey., This clever and accomplished lady entered into the spirit of all his great colonising enterprises with an interest which was evidently a relieFto him in times of difficulty and discouragement, and his brothers were devoted to him through all the vicissitudes of his life.

If a man's life work is to be measured by it.i results, the public career of Edward Gibbon Wakefield must be considered one of the most fruitful in good during this century. The principles he was the first to lay down are now accepted as truisms ; the reforms he fought for are now looked on as constitutional right. , ?: the visions that he dreamt are the realities of to-day. His achievements and his genius overshadow his errors and his failings; and this generation gratefully recognises his right to be placed in the foremost rank of the builders of Great Britain.