LORD CARSON

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22247, 23 October 1935, Page 12

LORD CARSON

The late Lord Carson was a man of many parts, some of them difficult to fit into the framework of a con-, sistent personality, any of them brilliant enough to compel attention. He had a remarkable career. Son of a Dublin architect, he chose the profession of law, and won his way to the top by sheer force of ability harnessed to hard work. It was his lot to.be Crown Prosecutor in the turbulent days of the Land League, of the Fenians, of Parnell. Then his life was perpetually in danger as a marked man by reason of the enmities he aroused, and he achieved a peculiar celebrity as the only lawyer twice forced to draw a revolver in self-defence in open court. But even his enemies admired him, because his-courage could not be shaken and his alertness, resource and ingenuity were inexhaustible. Afterwards, while still earning a great reputation in legal practice and especially as an expert and relentless cross-examiner, he represented Dublin University in the House of Commons, . making an assured place for himself in politics. At first a, Liberal, he abruptly turned his back on the party when Mr. Gladstone introduced his first Home Rule Bill, for he was a staunch Unionist by innate and developed conviction. He was gifted for leader•ship, and gave proof of this when rallying Ulster to oppose the Home Rule policy. "He defies a Government," it was said of him, "that he may cement an Empire." Then, by a strange turn of events, he was found persuading Ulster to accept the new position; self-government for the loyalists of the North was preferable, he urged, to being handed over to the cruel mercies of the - South. He succeeded beyond belief, retaining the affection and trust of those he had adjured to fight in resistance of the very cause he thus persuaded them to espouse. Partly this was done by dint of a rare power of oratory, but there was a moral factor —a deep confidence in his honesty. In the House of Commons his qualities had wide recognition. When the Great War broke out he took a foremost part in urging Ulstermen to enlist for the defence of the Empire, and on Mr. Asquith's Coalition Government being formed in'l9ls he gladly consented to t.ike .office as Attorney-General. But before the year was out he resigned, in expression of his disagreement with a war policy inclined to desert Serbia. Under Mr. Lloyd George he became First Lord of the Admiralty, and later a member of the War Cabinet without portfolio. A political life full of zest was left when he was appointed a Lord Justice in Ordinary of the Appeal Court. The House of Commons was manifestly poorer by the loss of "Sir Edward Carscn." Last year, when 80, he was seriously unwell, and his wife telegraphed to Viscount Craieavon, "Edward is very ill but is still holding his own ; tell Ulster." Every phrase in that message had interest. Now the masterful chieftain, the pugnacious patriot, the sincere and sacrificing friend of causes and peoples, has gone on. Ulster remembers, and the whole Empire halts for a salute of respect. He was no ordinary man.