Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1933. A TRIUMPH OF CHARACTER

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 60, 8 September 1933, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1933. A TRIUMPH OF CHARACTER

In his autobiographical volume entitled "The.End of a Chapter" Mr. Shane Leslie, himself a member of King's College, Cambridge, which he says has been affectionately termed "The Cambridge Balliol" and less affectionately "Balliol without Balliol men," pays a high compliment to the real Balliol in the great days of Jowett.

The men of Balliol, he says, have obtained an uncanny share of success oven among Oxford men. Joivett, their great master, seemed to bo ablo to stamp his pupils with intellectual efficiency in class, followed by an effortless superiority when they, entered the world. His pupils included Milner, Curzon, Lansdowne, Grey, • Asquith. Tho Balliol typo succeeded because it did not pitch its ideal too high. Selfsufficient and .self-supporting, their combined advance in Church and State culminated in the hour that Premier Asquith gavo Cosmo Lang the Archbishopric of York.

In all that brilliant company Grey was certainly the least brilliant, if indeed the epithet was fairly applicable to him, either then or at any other time. Writing of him when his Parliamentary reputation had been firmly established, Mr. A. G. Gardiner said: "There are many brilliant men in the House of Commons: 'Sir Edward Grey is not one of them." The "intellectual efficiency in class" which Mr. Leslie attributes to the whole of Jowett's team failed to get Grey higher honours than a second in one of his Oxford schools and a third in the other. But in "effortless superiority" Grey stood second to none of his rivals, cither at Oxford or at Westminster or anywhere else. No term could more happily describe the outstanding feature of Grey's public career which made it almost unique. Elected as a Liberal for the first time at the age of twenty-three, Grey's first Parliament was Gladstone's last, and the impression that he at once made was such that his chief, who spoke with an authority based upon more than fifty years of Parliamentary service, said of him: "I never remember so signal a capacity for Parliamentary life and so small a disposition to it." v And in defiance of the main body of contemporary opinion the veteran also credited -the novice with "the true Parliamentary manner." Time has confirmed the diagnosis of Gladstone. Long before failing health compelled Grey to seek the relative seclusion of "another place," he had acquired an early mastery over the House of Commons which was in' some respects unique, but assured success never changed the paradox to which Gladstone knew no parallel. Certainly nobody in recent years would have said of him, as was said forty years ago, that "his interest in politics was rather languid," but he has never either concealed or paraded the fact that his dominant interests were elsewhere. His enthusiasm for sport was conspicuous at the time when his politics were regarded as languid, and it was after he had served his three years as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs that he won the amateur tennis championship: In public life Grey always found a laborious and irksome duty. Angling, literature, and Nature were his ruling passions to the end. "Fly-Fishing" was'one of his first books, "The Charm of Birds" one of the last.'

One may turn to Pope's picture of a very different man for a parallel to such high competence in public affairs combined with a much keener interest in other and apparently discordant pursuits. Godolphin was personally a spendthrift, but as Lord High Treasurer he was a sagacious and efficient guardian of the public interests. "Most of the time which he could save from public business,'' says Macaulay, "was spent in racing, card-playing, and cock-fighting." Pope's tribute is as follows: —

Who would not praise Patritio's high desert, His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart, His comprehensive head! all Int'rests weigh 'd, All Europe Bav'd, yet Britain not betray'd. He thanks you not, his pride is in Piquet, New-market-fame, and judgment at a Bet.

Grey's diversions were of a higher character. Duty took him to Downing Street and Westminster^ but his heart

was in his garden, in his trout stream, in the countryside, and in the companionship of the flowers and the birds, of Izaak* Walton and Gilbert White, of Peacock and Wordsworth. Yet the love of power and of doing what he can do well is so natural to man that it is hard to understand how Grey found the arena in which he exercised such immense power so little to his taste.

•In a Parliament which included Asquith and Balfour, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. A. G. Gardiner describes Grey as "the weightiest speaker of his time." Other men spoke from the Bar, he only from the Bench. "He does not argue; he delivers a judgment." A remarkable instance of "this note of final authority" is given by Mr. Gardiner: —

It was during tho time- when Mr. Balfour was holding his Ministry together by liis arts of evasion and agility. The attack w:is hot and furious; the temper of the House high and passionate. But it seemed that nothing could tear away the veil of falsity behind which, Mr. Balfour concealed his evolutions. Late at night Sir Edward Grey rose. It was as though a visitor from another planet had invaded the House. He spoke briefly, quietly, without heat, and without emotion. But it was as if the House had listened to a rebuke that was almost a sentence. Mr. Balfour" was silenced. There seemed nothing to do but to go home.

In "Westminster Voices" Mr. James Johnston gives similar testimony:—

No other recent House of Commons man has been heard with such obvious deference and attention. Other men have got as full, perhaps a fuller audience, and they have received far more cheers. Yet good judges of hearings would unhesitatingly say that the most remarkable one and tho one perhaps to be coveted most was given to him. When he spoke, tho House did not cheer or laugh; it listened with a strange air of engrossment which immediately attracted notice. Tho concentration of the hearing was the striking quality of it. It reminded one of the attention which a great preacher exacts from his congregation. Members sat forward— with every mark of eagerness and with extraordinary signs of expectation. It seemed as if they expected golden wisdom from him.

And according to both these witnesses these astonishing effects were produced without any apparent effort, with no display of rhetoric or emotion. How is it that one jwhom Mr. Gardiner describes as "the least democratic as he is the least demonstrative of men" could exercise such power over a Liberal Cabinet and a Liberal House? Mr. Gardiner supplies the key to the mystery when he describes Mr. Asquith as the brain of the Cabinet, Mr. Lloyd George fas its inspiration, I and Sir Edward Grey as its character. Brain, inspiration, character, these three; and we are surely entitled to add that the greatest of these is character. The glory of Grey's career was a triumph of character, a kind of triumph not to be matched in the public life of our time and probably not to be easily matched in any time. It is not merely that he was disinterested, selfless, loyal, and as straight as a die, but without art lor effort he conveyed an impression of these qualities to his fellow men. The perfect trust which his statesmanship and diplomacy inspired enabled him to render invaluable service to hjs country and to the Empire, but the greatest gift of all is the memory of a noble character and a stainless career.