THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1940 LORD LOTHIAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23839, 14 December 1940, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1940 LORD LOTHIAN

Whenever the wide renown of the late Lord Lothian is recalled in the coming years, as it will often be, emphasis will he gratefully laid upon the fine service he rendered, in a critical period, as Britain s Ambassador to the United States. The many other public tasks he notably performed will lose distinction in comparison. His sudden removal from this scene of action, when he was splendidly busy as an interpreter of each of the two nations to the other, will appear to have been untimely, but he had accomplished so much in this essential role that second thoughts may dwell most on the signal honour that came to him, as a rich reward, at the last. To die in Washington, in the very setting of his unique ministry to American thought on world affairs, and to have gone out of its stirring life within a few hours of his writing there a ringing speech about the mutual duties of the two nations as they faced a common peril and opportunity, was not only an impressive climax of a brilliant career —it was the most solemn and sacred seal upon the testament of AngloAmerican fellowship that he had long felt moved to indite. Could anything have more aptly crowned this special labour in which he had delighted ? He will be sorely missed, nowhere more than in the councils

of that hub of American statesmanship, and on both sides of the uniting Atlantic—for it no longer divides—English-speaking men and women will, alert and unforgetting. con the words that remain to carry, far and sure, his wise belief in their unbreakable fellowship. Throughout the widespread Empire that it was his ruling passion to serve there is to-day remembered with proud thanksgiving his devotion to divers needs. He was one of the young men whom Lord Milner called to his aid in the difficult but necessary job crying to be done when the last South African War closed. That end was made a beginning, for the deep gain of South Africa and the Empire, in an inspired and inspiring peace, the best fruits of which are being harvested in these exacting days. Milner's selection of him, among others, was surely prophetic as well as sagacious. Others, too, were to set their confident choice upon him—his pen was valued for the insight it brought to national perplexities; Lloyd George enlisted his help in a wartime private secretaryship and as an intimate confidant at the Versailles Conference; in the framing of a hopeful Constitution for India he took a zealous share, as many in India now respectfully realise; and in various aspects of the pressing problems left by the First World War he proved himself both expert and patient. Yet his activity was not merely a cloistered interest, for on occasion he could and did take a leading, practical, positive part in the applying of remedies to ills. He had eager hopes of a fraternal understanding with Germany, hopes not abandoned until, by first-hand acquaintance, he learned beyond all doubt the sinister purposes of the Nazi regime. Then, true as ever to established convictions, he uncompromisingly set himself against the universal danger. So, in due time, he was sent to Washington on as eminent and responsible an errand as any man of strong moral fibre and great intellectual capacities could wish. His social graces, his happy ease even among strangers, gave him not the least of his qualifications for the post that Bryce had filled so well long before ; indeed, it is inevitable to couple their names as a review is taken of ambassadorial relations between London and Washington. If a third is to be added, it must be Walter Hines Page, that veritable conduit of sympathy from White House to the Court of St. James in delicate days of the last World War. In the elect company of diplomats gifted with a genius for warm friendship Lord Lothian had a lofty place. Yet weak accommodation to tendencies that he deemed wrong was alien to his habit. Possessed of an international mind, he could nevertheless see and uphold profound rights in national policy. The speech that is now fresh in contemporary regard, the speech sadly chronicled as a final pronouncement and plea, is utterly honest and sturdy. Its recital of obstinate and challenging facts is, to employ one of its own phrases, " nakedly clear," and its deduction of America's duty is unfaltering, "It: is for you to decide whether it is in your interest to give us whatever assistance is necessary to make certain that Britain will not fall. ...

Nobody can share this responsibility ■with you." That shaft, winged with his own heart's desire, will surely find its mark.