LORD ROSEBERY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7385, 11 February 1902, Page 4

LORD ROSEBERY.

Lord Eosebery made his first speech when he was fourteen, and the occasion was a volunteer dinner at Linlithgow, given by his grandfather. On the right of the aged earl sat the veteran captain of the company, and next to the captain sat the heir of the estates, whose health was proposed. Lord Dalmeny, as the ex.-Premier then was, rose without a suggestion of nervousness, though the elite of the county and the members of his family were present; and later in the evening Mr Dundas of Dundas, the ViceLieutenant of Linlithgowshire, pledged his reputation to the prophecy that " in that young man they had seen and heard one of Great Britain's future Prime Ministers." It miy have been the first, but it was oertainly not the last, prediotion concerning " that young man," Perhaps no man in public life has been the subjeot of so many prophecies as the Earl of Eosebery. It was Mr Gladstone who may be said to have " discovered " Lord Rosebery, and introduced him to the nation. Everybody remembers the surprise which Lord Rosebery's first Cabinet appointment created among the politicians, but Mr Gladstone set the mind of the Liberal party at rest not long afterwards, at Manchester, He was reviewing the Cabinet, and, ooming to the Foreign Secretary, he said : " I will name one more -r-a man of whom you will hear even more than you have heard I pass now to the youngest member of the Cabinet, Lord Eosebery, of whom I will say to the Liberal party of this country, and I say it not without reflection, for if I said it lightly I should be doing injustice not less to him than to them — in whom Isay to the Liberal ! party of this country tbat they see the Man of the Future." It is possible that Lord Rosebery may fulfil the propheoy of the Duke of Argyll, who said of him sixteen years ago : "I am pioud of his rising ability, and I hope that, ' far on in summers , which I shall not see,' he may render signal service to the State." Or shall we realise the truth of the prediction of a Glasgow paper a few years ago thot Lord Rosebery would end, " after being the most dexterous and graceful wire-walker of the day, by turning a double somersault that I will asionish even the champion acrobats of Westminster. Lord Roeebery was not in a hurry to enter the ranks of the orators, although in a few short years he has passed most, of his rivals. For three years he wa3 a silent peer, whose voice was never heard in the gilded Chamber. His maiden speech in tha Lords was made thirty year 3 ago, ten years after his speech at the volunteer dinner at Linlithgow. The times were remarkably like those in whioh we live. Europe wa3 watching a war v/ith great anxiety — the Franco-German conflict ; a Tientsin massacre was engaging attention ; Greece was disturbed ; and there was exceptional interest in the Boyal Family, due to the marriage of the Princess Louise to the Marquess of Lome. The Queen's Speech was one of the longest ever known, and it was Lord Rosebery, a young man of twenty-four, who was asked by Mr Gladstone to second the Address in the Lords. The Times was delighted with his speech, which it described as -" even more successful than that of the mover, the Marquis oi Westminster." "He spoke with a graceful emotion which became his years," ran the tribute of Printing House Square, " and it was evident that if he controlled himself from dilating on the great events of the autumn, it was not because he was deficient in feeling, but because he was under the restraint of a discretion which had been imposed upon him."