CHARACTER SKETCH.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1715, 11 January 1905, Page 2

CHARACTER SKETCH.

A LOYAL LIFE LORD ROSEBERYTRIBUTE TO LORE SALISBURY. HIS HIGH SERVICES. An eloquent tribute to tlie big'll services rendered by tbe late Lord Salisbury to his Sovereign and his country was paid by the —arl of Rosebery in unveiling a bust of tue Marquis in the Debating Hall of the Oxford Union Society.

After the formal unveiling of the bust, for which the artist, Mr Frampton, had several sittings shortly before his subject’s death, Lord Rosebery said:—Lord Salisbury’s career was not a career of promise cut short before performance was possible. It was not prematurely severed. It was drained to the last drop of life, and drained in the service of his country. (“Hear, hear,” and cheers.) Never was a life more complete. We could speak of him without a feeling of regret. Happy those who had mixed so long in public life of whom that might be said. One dominant feature in Lord bury wa3 his devout religious feeling and zealous Churchmanship, lout that was an allusion to a topic upon which it would be almost sacrilegious for a mere acquaintance to intrude. The same might be said of his domestic happiness and love of family life. It was his lordship’s custom and special relaxation all through his laborious Parliamentary life to gather around him on Sunday evenings at dinner every member of his family who l could be collected for the purpose, and some who assisted at those reunions testified that never was Lord Salisbury seen to such advantage as among those he so dearly loved and cherished. HIS BRILLIANT PEN.

He now came to paints upon which it was more permissible to touch. Lord Salisbury wielded the most brilliant pen of any Prime Minister of the nineteenth century with the exception of Canning, and with Canning and Lord Beaconsfielcl he thought Lord Salisbury’s pen must be ranked. Stories had been told of how in his youth he maintained himself largely by his pen. No doubt that was the fact, but to the end of his life he never made a speech or wrote a dispatch which did not show pre-eminently the literary gift. (Hear, hear.) His public speaking at one time rose to great heights of eloquence. It might not be oratory in the highest sense of the word, but it always showed pre-eminently the literary faculty. Lord Salisbury’s sentences were always polished, his speeches were always literary gems, and though towards the end lie was no longer equal to himself, those who had heard him in his prime realised that there was nothing that appealed more to their intellect and to their enthusiasm than that deep rich voice, rolling out brilliant sentence after brilliant sentence as if the fountains of eloquence within him could never run dry. (Cheers.) There was another point in which Lord Salisbury differed from most men —his absolute scorn of wealth and honours. (Hear, hear.) They were dross to him. His relaxations were not those of a great prince or a wealthy man. His only relaxations were science, and the love of his family, and, above all. never-failing, ardent, " uncompromising work. (Cheers.) TOO PROUD TO SHOW PRIDE. Of course, there were criticisms of his character; lie was thought to be a proud man. If he were, he was too proud to show his pride. (Cheers.) Was he a sliy man? He was certainly a shy man. Had they met Lord Salisbury in the streets of London, they would have taken him to be some learned literary recluse, hurrying from a visit to the British Museum hack to the study he had regretted to leave. He was charged with cynicism. Yvlm was cynicism in speech? It seemed to amount to this —the parching up of a subject by the application to it of a wit so dry as to be almost bitter. (Hear, hear.) Was not that often a very convenient faculty? (A laugh.) Was it not a priceless advantage when some untimely or importunate question was up, or some subject was up which it was not desirable to discuss, to have the acid of cynicism to apply to it, and to dissolve it at any rate for the moment?

His impression was that was to a large extent tile secret of Lord Salisbury’s cynicism. Some thought he was so cynical as to be a pessimist. Perhaps he was as regarded the effects of legislation. He took too broad and wide a view of human affairs, and the course of human history, to set very much emphasis on the virtues of passing legislation. He viewed the progress of humanity as a whole, nd saw in that progress how very little direct effect legislation had. Probably he forgot in that survey'that in a democracy legislation was more often an effect than a cause, that men were not always able to take so broad and exalted a view, but were anxious in their time and generation to effect by legislation some step onwards in the path of progress. He (Lord Rosebery) did not think there could be much in Lord Salisbury’s cynicism or pessimism, because no one who had even a little to do with him could fail to be touched and warmed by the essential kindness of his heart. THREE GREAT EPOCHS. Next, he (Lord Rosebery) would turn to the thorny path of politics. He wanted to take the three cardinal epochs in Lord Salisbury’s life. The first was in 1857, when he resigned office rather than agree io the Reform Bill, which he thought was an outbid by the Conservative party of what had been proposed by their Liberal opponents. lie had no language too severe for these who were guilty of what lie considered to be the breach of trust in the Conservative party. He used language of absolute despair when the Reform Rill of 1867 was passed. He retired from office. It seemed as if ho were 1o relire from political life. He said from his place in Parliament, that the monarchical principle was dead, the aristocratic principle was doomed, that

the democratic principle triumphed. He lived to see every on© of those prophecies falsified. (Laughter.) Before ne diid the monarchical principle was infinitely stronger than it had been in 1867, the aristocratic principle was very much stronger, and the democratic principles which he thought would govern the cc untry had had rather a sickly time of it since. (Laughter.) Then came the great Conservative majority of 1874, and it was then that Lord Salisbury had to make the great cho.ce. Either he would stand on the bed-rock principle on which he had placed himself in 1867, would remain isolated, almost a political hermit, for the rest of his days, or else he would join the Govern nent of Mi’ Disraeli, who lie considered in 1867 had betrayed his party. The choice was a difficult cue, but Lord Salisbury had to consider that he was living in a world not of abstract principle, but of practical work. If he had ever to apply his high abilities to the public service, it was now or never. Ilc must in doing so no doubt abandon something of the rigidity of his original principles. He must embrace the party principle. He (Lord Rosebery) had endeavoured to put the choice before them as it appeared to him. He himself thought that Lord Salisbury chose rightly: lie thought the country would have suffered enormously if Lord Salisbury had remained an isolated figure, a prophet of whom they knew indeed by bis subsequent career 'now much they would have lost. (Cheers.) The third epoch would only demand a sentence. He thought Lord Salisbury reached the greatest moment of his life in 1878. It was not when he returned from the Congress in Berlin amidst acclaiming crowds and illuminations, and “Peace with honour.” The great moment of Lord Salisbury’s life, the moment in which he set the stamp on his country and his own fame, and achieved for himself a European reputation, was when he went to the Foreign Office (succeeding Lord Derby), shut himself up in a room, and then and there, without sc far as ho (Lord Rosebery) knew any assistance whatever from the staff of th© Foreign Office or any external source, wrote that famous dispatch of the provisions of the Treaty of San Stefano, which would remain for long generations to come one of Iho historic State papers in the English language. (Cheers.)

HIS PREDOMINATING INFLUENCE. From the time that he joined the Government in 1874, from the time that he established himself by that dispatch as a European statesman, Lord Salisbury’s career ran on greased wheels. In 1886 he saw his opponents deprived of all power for eighteen years, and during all that t.ime —Yrorvv 1886 up to the moment of his death or retirement —Lord Salisbury remained the predominant factor in English politics. (Cheers.) There he must leave him. It was not for the contemporary to probe any deeper into a career so lately ended. It was not to-day or to-morrow that we could ascertain the place and the niche in. which the honoured Minister would repose. Lord Salisbury loomed large in the history of his country; he exercised a singular and predominating influence over her destinies; he held the highest post m the State for a longer time, he believed, than any statesman since Sir Robert Walpole. Whether he was one of thos© whom history, for one reason or another, stamped as great, history alone could say. This much was certain; that he was an able, loyal, untiring servant of his Sovereign and his country—(cheers) —that he was a public servant, if he (Lord Rosebery; might so express himself, of the Elizabethan type—(cheers) —a fit representative of his great Elizabethan ancestor—(more cheers)—that he was a man of pure, exalted, and laborious life. (Hear, hear / Might there he many in that assembly inspired by his example, who would endeavour to emulate his career. They could not all be Prime Ministers; they could not all be Chancellors of that ancient University; but they could, at any rate, give themselves as loyally and entirely as he did to the work that lay to their hand to do in the service of their Kiug and their country.