THE LATE LORD CURZON.

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 108, 11 May 1925, Page 2

THE LATE LORD CURZON.

STORIES OF HIS CAREER

A BALKED AMBITION

SOME OF A GREAT MAN'S

FAILURES.

(rKOM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 24th March,

Many writers during this past week have tried to explain why the late Marquess Curzon failed to reach the zenith of his ambition.

A few months ago. in one of his rare light moods, lie composed a whimsical epitaph for himself. It was : "Here lies a Superior Person, in intelligent anticipation of the life to come." It was a sly reference to that epigram, made by a witty undergraduate, which pursued him all his life :—

"My name is George Nathaniel Curzon, I am a most superior purzon; My hair is sleek and smooth my cheek^ I dine at Blenheim twice a week." -

"I have groaned for a life-time," Lord Curzon said a little while ago, "under the brand of an undergraduate's gibe." ._ ' ,

It must be agreed (says a writer in the "Evening Standard") that the popular appraisement of his character had some justification. With all his capacity^ his industry, his clear nnd capacious intellect, his power of weighty and luminous eloquence, there went, tempitameutal deficiences which-explain why all the promise- of the 'nineties was not redeemed. There was not enough warmth in him to make colleagues more than colleagues, and it -was not given to him to reach tho mind and the heart of the ordinary man.

t He was scarcely aloof in the sense that Lord Balfour was. He riot only read the papers, but was interested in all sorts -of things, and would write endless letters concerning them in his own • emphatic hand. But he had not that gift of urbanity which enabled Lord Balfour to project a sense of charm far beyond the circles that actually experienced it, and the shyness which had much responsibility for the legend of hauteur prevented him getting any kind oi touch with the popular mind. *

MISTAKEN DERIVATION,

One story will suffice to illustrate this detachment. . Some Cabinet Ministers, it is said, were discussing the Armistice celebrations. Lord Curzon deprecated any encouragement of organised "mafficking. ' "I should deprecate," he said, "anything in the nature of a bay-ah-no. ' "A what?" was the not unnatural query. "A bay-ah-no," repeated Lord Curzon complacently, with an air of being at home in all Latin tongues. It then dawned on his colleagues that he had used the vulgarism beano- under the impression that it was_ a respectable foreign import. When he was a student at Oxford he had no intention of entering for the Arnold Essay prize until he saw a friend working hard for it in. the Bodleian Library. George Nathanial Curzon made up his mind instantly to enter for the prize, went at once to London, and lived like a hermit for four months. On the last day he took his unfinished essay back to-'Oxford;-and completed it just before •midnight. Then ho knocked up the janitor of the Old Schools, who was »i bed, and handed him the essay, with the bland assurance that this would be the winning entry. . ■ ' : It was. .'■'•■■

'THE IMPERIAL BLIGHTER."

Lord Curzon was a tireless worker. He drafted long documents in his own hand, wrote letters himself, answered his own telephone. One young Foreign Office official once Tang up his house, and, thinking the voice answering was only that of a, secretary, asked airily, "Is the Imperial Blighter there?" "Imperial Blighter speaking," said the voice.

Lord Curzon did not possess a keen senife of humour. The Shah of Persha did once say of him that "he was witty and full of humour, and we often laughed at his amusing- stories." But the Shah knew no English, and Lord Curzon no Persian! Equally strange was the report that he had privately printed a shm volume of his own verse, and had distributed it to the elite of Mayfair. It was not so strange—in fact, it was true—that he superintended the household accounts of his country mansion.

TWO GBEAT REFORMS.

'ln my opinion," says Lord Hardmge, writing in the "Sunday Times," two of Lord Curzon's greatest reforms m India were the institution of the Agricultural College at Pusa, and the appointment of a Department for the preservation of archaeological remains. The first succeeded by scientific research in multiplying by five times the fertility of corn lor distribution to the people "The second arranged that all the ancient monuments m India,, which till then had been neglected, should Toe catalogued visited, and kept from falling into a state of decay. Lord Curzon's handiwork is to be seen in all the most inter-

eatiii X cities of India in the care which ■js now bestowed on the preservation of ancient historical monuments. -■ The peop c of India owe him a deep debt of gratitude for these two important meas-

"The aloofness which showed itself sometimes m his manner was, I believe often due. to shyness, but I am sure hat nobody realised it leM lha n 1"m sell. The tault of his svstein of work was centralisation, due. I am sure to ,bil-f COIt Cl.°"! neSS Of his ow» Skater ibility, but it must have been a serious handicap. He preferred to rely upon fcf', a"d , l° WOrk at «s wE should have been left to others. Even occuXt" d "**• — WS °™ 1-

HEART OF PURE GOLD. "He was on the whole, a beneficent and successful Viceroy," says the "Daily ■»lail ; but he was not popular Hp was oo much the stately 4^' The military classes were offended beennae he publicly humbled a famous English re-f inent which would not disclose «L Me£ txty of a private who had murdered \ native cook. The_civilian classes e ,it rf Col 0"",- } et ,°" c °f the mcml*™ i jr. ncll who knew h 'm vest declared that all his faults were on the surface and that beneath the man hm but T TV"*' an »tellectua? fit but a heart of pure gold. He organised wh eh Tnn. 6T 8S big Delh* DmC" DwbaT"^^elephUof ail

BALKED AMBITION.

Mr. T. P. O'Connor, in . ttn eifiU : column article in the "Daily Telegraph," deals with some of the latter-day dfc appointments of Lord Curzon It would be absurd to deny that too, by petty though invincible reasons: He said to me once that it was cruel that a peerage conferred- some hundreds of years before should bo regarded as a. bar to a man's reaching that position which his genius and his services entitled him to hold. That peerage, indeed, seemed to haunt Lord Curzon almost throughout his life. H o knew instinctively thnt the House of Commonswas the Chamber where his great debating powers would, have their freest s«°pe. and. where,.as. democracy knew, •the_ different parties would have to find their leader in the Government. Over and over again he gave evidence of the iret with which he tried to break through his golden cage. . "I do not suppose that the inner reflections of Lord Curzon were altogether agreeable at finding himself subordinate to Mr. Bonar Law—though they mi->ht be less poignant than those he felt under Mr. Lloyd George; but assuredly he would have been more than human if he did not regard it as a cruel paradox cf political life that he, with his wide and dignified experiences, his infinitely greater knowledge of affairs, and especially of Foreign Affairs, should nave had to sit under an iron merchant from Glasgow, who had entered public life at a comparatively Into age, and whose knowledge of- .Foreign Affairs must have been gathered by occasional visits as a tourist to the Continent. But Lord Curzon had to grin and bear it—with this compensation, at least, that he would have a freer hand in tho 1( oreign Office than under his other chief.

THE FINAL HUMILIATION.

■ -••And then came-a. final humiliation. When Mr. Baldwin was malting up hi* second Cabinet it begun soon to ba apparent that the new Prime Minister was not .disposed-to^send Lord,.Curzon-back. to the Foreign Office. Ho felt this humiliation very' keenly; to him it seemed a repudiation of his actions as Foreign Secretary in the preceding Administrations, lie made no,concealment to his friends of how bitterly ho felt upon tho subject, and he even spoka of refusing to accept again the position of Leader of tho House of Lords. It was then that he deplored once more his old grievanco that a peerage conferred centuries ago should bo allowed to stand, between a man and his ultimate and, as he thought, justifiable ambition. '-Tha Foreign Secretaryship, as is known, went to Mr. Austen Chamberlain. Lord Curzoti did not carry out the hostile intentions, he had played with when the humiliation of being refused the Foreign Secretaryship was still rankling in his mind, and he resumed his place as Leader of the House of Lords, and was satisfied with the inoffensive office of Lord President of the Council. , "

ILL-HEALTK AND IRRITABILITY.

"What, then, is the explanation o£ what after all was, in spite of extraordinary success, something of a failure in the career of this remarkable man? H is at bottom a tragedy of temperament. I discussed the problem one night with a colleague of his, who, though lie had had some passages with Lord Curzon, retained his liking and, of course, his respect for him. When I mentioned the. peerage as the chief cause of Lord Curzon's failure to reach the Premiership the reply was: 'It wasn't the peerage; it was the man.' Which confirmed the statement I have just made, that it was a. tragedy of temperament. I never found him anything but courteous and good and true, as I will presently show: but I was never his colleague "nor his subordinate. It may have been 'the irritability that came from continuous ill-health: it may have been a natural arrogance; but all his subordinates, I believe, are united in saying that he was sometimes irritating—almost intolerable. I heard an official- who had seen the Lausanne Conference from' close at hand declare that if there were a sensitive corn on any foot among the members of the Conference Lord Curzon was sure to rush and trcud on it. It must have been his sense of these defects that made ilr. Baldwin .prefer leaving the conduct of our foreign affairs at a very critical moment in the hands. of so much nioro even tempered a man as Mr. Chamberlain." < . -

On the day before his operation Lord Curzon worked on the proofs of a book just ready for publication, entitled "British Government in India; The Story of the Viceroys"; and the last proofs, with a letter, reached the office of Cassell's, the publishers—tho proof* read and ,the letter written on the very day before his operation.

MR, BEN TILLKITS TRIBUTE.

Mr. Ben Tillett. the Labour leader, pays v warm tribute to Lord Curzon. "I have the kindest" recollections nf Lord Curifou,"' h a said. "In the days when the agitator was a. pariah in this country and thn whole of Europe, Lord Curzon stood by the right of freedom. He resented my incarceration in' Belgium. While I knew he had no sympathy for my political attitude and outlook on life, lieqause 1 was a British subject he stood by my rights as a British citizen against the impositions of Belgium. Far from his being the stupidly haughty aristocrat, ho "was one of the most humane men 1 have met. and in social amenities had the most chivalrous and generous manner, even towards such political and class opponents as myself. I am sure that to thoso who knew him best his death will come as a great shock."

Tho.OUki seat will in nil probability be contested :it the next General Eleeli.jn by Mr. \Y. 11. Bowileti, a supporter ol Uic Labour interest-