PUBLIC LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 46, 18 November 1907, Page 9

PUBLIC LIFE.

Sir Edward Grey, tho Foreign Sccret«rv, unveiled a portrait, of Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P., m the Newcastle Liberal Club, recently, and.said that Mr. Burt had Iwcn a most happy instance of tho union of Liberalism and Labour, a union which bad been one of tho most satisfactory, featuifeo of Liberal work. For politicians, Sir Edward continued, a question as important as what thev had said or .done was: What had thev in the struggle become? It would be good if they put a little .catechism to themselves every live or _ ten years how thoy had got on from the private point of view. Perhaps they did put the question about other people. He could not imagino anyone entering public life unless, he had more than the normal stock of courage; but after somo years, had somo of it been knocked out by opponents or squeezed out by friends? Tho fear of giving offence to | friends sometimes mado a larger draft upon courage than the difficulty of standing up to opponents. Again, public men found themselvos when they had to make a speech • affected by two impulses—one to tell the truth, tho other to say what was agreeable to their audience Sometimes they coincided; somctimos thoy conflicted; when they conflicted, which won ?

Again, did, the patriotic motivos with which they began increase or shrink, until they .wero in. danger of falling back upon nothing but the desire of personal success? Did continual conflict and contact with public lifo and .their opponents broaden their view or make more partisan? In the duel of public lifo, which, when sessions were prolonged, came to seem liko grinding in a prison house, did thoy loso thoir feeling for literature and art" and .all that is beautiful and pleasant in the world ? Sometimes he thought that in tho strain of politics something crushed out all those finor plensures of tho imagination.- Ho ought, perhaps.. to except golf. Between it and politics there seemed to be some subtle affinity, which made both flourish together. They ought to cultivato the ideals nnd fineness of spirit without which public lifo was apt to degenerate.