Established 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Monday, August 24, 1903. LORD SALISBURY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 199, 24 August 1903, Page 2

Established 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Monday, August 24, 1903. LORD SALISBURY.

Lord Salisbury's death robs the Empire of one of the most distinguished of its sons. For nearly half a century the deceased gentleman was prominent in politics, and no one—not even Lord Beaconsfield himself—fought more ably to sustain the prestige of his nation. In early years, none too greatly blessed with wealth, Lord Robert Cecil, as he was then called, bad a brief experience of colonial life, and assisted, it is said, in the actual working of a claim on the Ballarat goidfields. Later on, he dabbled in journalism, and was a frequent contributor to the Saturday Review when that famous weekly journal was at its strongest and beat. Born in 1830 he first entered parliamentary life in 1853 as member for Stamford, and succeeding his father in 1868 took his seat in the House of Lords. He was Seoretary for India in 1866 67, and again from 1874 78. It was, however, as joint representative with Lord Beaconsfield at tbe Berlin Congress of 1878 that LordSaKabury first gained national popularity, the joint efforts of the British plenipotentiaries resulting in their return to London bearing with them the guarantee of a " peace with honor," which came as an immense relief to those who dreaded a war with Russia. As Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and as Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury served "his country for many years. He was Gladstone's most formidable opponent after Beaconsfield's death, and it is now a matter o£ common knowledge that Queen Victoria regarded him as her moat trusted private adviser. Lord Salisbury was never what might b© called a great orator. He had neither the magnificent gifts of eloquence that were possessed by Gladstone, nor that marvellous private fascination of manner which made his great confrere Beaconsfleld so popular with the rank and file of his parby. To

the very end of his public career he retained a power of satire and sarcasm, which he sometimes displayed at inopportune moments when the interests of his party were concerned ; but though sharp tongued his authority over his party was never questioned; save, perhaps, by that will-of-the-wisp of politics, Lord Randolph Churchill, who more than once felt the weight of his leader's scornful phrases. Succeeded a couple of years ago in the Premiership by his nephew, the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, Lord Salisbury then retired to the princely home of the Cecils at historic Hatfield —the house where centuries ago his most famous ancestor had entertained the great Queen Elizabeth, of whom he was the trusted Chief Minister. .His private hobby throughout life was chemistry, and it was only a few months ago that a President of the Royal Society declared that had not politics claimed so much of his time Lord Salisbury might have been known to the world as one of the moat able scientific authorities of his century. With Lord Salisbury disappears the last of the great political leaders of the Victorian age. Palmerston, Bright, Gladstone, Beaconsfleld, each passed away and left the nation to lament his loss. Now it is the turn of the most famous of the Cecils, and again the sorrow of the nation and tbe Empire will be most unfeigned. In the colonies regret should be specially profound, for no British statesman of his age ever took a deeper and a more sympathetic interest in the welfare of the "over sea Empire" than did the distinguished peer whose death is now reported.