THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1928. THE EARL OF OXFORD AND ASQUITH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20334, 16 February 1928, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1928. THE EARL OF OXFORD AND ASQUITH.

A statesman of distinguished parts and, at one time, of conspicuous celebrity, who rendered service of high value to the State during the early stage of Gie ever-memorable ordeal of 1914-18, has passed away. If the success and fame of the Eal’l of Oxford and Asquith underwent some degree of eclipse in the closing period of his public career, it will not be forgotten to-day by fairminded people that for many years he was the admired and trusted head of a great political party, and that at a season when partisanship vanished before the imperious exigencies of the national peril and the national obligation ho was the admirably capable spokesman of Britain in the face of Europe and the world. It may be true, as John Buchan asserts in his “ History of the Groat War,” that in the years prior to 1914 the Government, by timidly neglecting the requirements ol national defence, helped to precipitate the disaster. “ It was certainly folly not to endeavour so to guide policy that the .country should not be caught handicapped and unprepared. Mr Asquith and his colleagues erred in being too optimistic about Germany and too pessimistic about their own countrymen. The result was that on the eve of war Britain cut a figure in the eyes of Europe which,, by aggravating German arrogance, materially expedited the catastrophe.” Granting this, —granting also that a time came when the national spokesman and director of 1914 seemed to have lost something of his vim and vision, and had to make way for a more vigorous Minister, —let it nevertheless bo acknowledged that when the hour of decision arrived, and afterwards, there was no wavering. The same critic admits that “ the Prime Minister, after his fashion, when convinced at long last of the reality of a crisis, did not suffer from a divided miud.” Previously to 1914 Mr Asquith (as he then was) had been a very notable figure in public life, but it is beyond question that his fame and prestige jmet enormously increased

timing- that ever-memorable period. It is not too much to say that the first six months, or perhaps the first year of, the. war, marked the highest point of usefulness and renown. His public utterances, his bearing and demeanour, his resolute yet tactful control of governmental and national activities in a situation of unexampled difficulty, were almost universally recognised. And if we have dwelt rather lingeringly on this consideration now that his life and work are over, it is because we feel that his country and the Empire owe to his memory a debt of gratitude for high service and duty faithfully performed, —a debt which later circumstances of a more or less polemical character have perhaps tended to obscure.

Lord Oxford represented the fine flower of Balliol scholarship and culture, at the time when Dr Jowett, of Platonic memory, was master of that famous Oxford College. It was a predominaiitly intellectual growth, the spiritual and emotional faculties being less noticeably developed than was the case with some earlier typical products of Oxford training. Perhaps there was a strain of something not unlike intellectual hardness in Lord Oxford’s temperament to the end. Mental lucidity and definiteness of aim were observed to be his salient qualities from Ids first entrance into public life, — though none of his contemporaries then dreamed how heavy would be the tax laid upon those characteristics in dark days that were to come. The beginning of his parliamentary career nearly synchronised with the great Liberal disruption which followed upon Mr Gladstone’s conversion to the Home Rule doctrine. He himself was Gladetouian from the start, and he never wavered in his allegiance. He was a barrister in large practice at that time, having “ taken silk ” at an unusually early age; but his dominant ambitions wore definitely political, as distinct from the semi-political, semi-pro-fessional aims of the majority of forensic luminaries, whoso eyes are turned towards the great law officerships of the Crown and (in dazzling dreams) to the Woolsack itself. His parliamentary apprenticeship was passed in the shade of opposition, but it was during this period that his appearance as second counsel (under Sir Charles Russell) for Mr Parnell, before the memorable Commission, advanced him appreciably in public notice. In 1892 Gladstone (in his eighty-third year) returned to office for the last time, and Mr Asquith straightway entered the Cabinet as Home Secretary. On the face of it, this was a signal compliment, —especially as Gladstone has left it on record that he did not approve (save in very exceptional instances) of promotion to Cabinet rank without previous trial in subordinate office, In point of fact, however, the disruption had seriously restricted the veteran Premier’s range of choice, and the new Home Secretary was probably indebted in some measure to this novel exigency. The Ministry had a very brief tenure of power. When Gladstone finally withdrew from public life in March, 1894, Lord Rosebery took the helm, with Sir William Harcourt (in the sulks) as Leader of the House of Commons. The debacle came a year later, and Mr Asquith accompanied his colleagues and the Liberal Party back into Opposition, where they remained for ten long years. The ex-Home Secretary returned to his practice at the Bar, —a very unusual but presumably quite legitimate course, —while continuing to give valuable and loyal assistance to Sir William Harcourt, and afterwards to Sir Henry CampbellBannerman, in the House of Commons. The season of weary waiting ended at last; the Unionist collapse, when it came, was far more disastrous than that which the Liberals had experienced in 1895, and in the early weeks of 1906 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as Prime Minister, found himself in command of a parliamentary majority of unprecedented proportions. Mr Asquith was Chancellor of the Exchequer and chief lieutenant. His title to the second place could only have been disputed, on grounds of length and value of service, by Mr John Morley (subsequently Viscount Morley), and that philosophic statesman, though his mental qualities were perhaps of a finer type even than Mr Asquith’s, obviously lacked some of the characteristics requisite for popular leadership. The Prime Minister died in a year’s time, and Mr Asquith took the helm, nemine contradicente, the Chancellorship of the Exchequer falling to Mr Lloyd George, whose Budget schemes were destined to win such far-reach-ing notoriety. We need not linger over the records of the Asquith Government’s trials and successes and failures in domestic politics,—the long and chequered history of the Parliament Bill, with its fierce controversies, or the circumstances of two general elections, the results of which greatly reduced, but fell far short of annihilating, the huge Liberal majority returned in 1906. The Prime Minister had no easy task, but it may be sjßd generally that he thoroughly satisfied his supporters, without antagonising his opponents in an exceptional degree. Still, the Government gradually lost ground, as Governments usually do as time goes on, and in the middle of 1914, after more than eight years of Liberal rule, there was a prevalent belief that the Unionists would fare well at the not-distant General Election,

Then, like a bolt from the blue, eamo the Great War, and the Prime Minister’s responsibilities and even, so to speak his importance, were vastly enlarged. In the face of a common and stupendous peril the swiftly united nation put aside all considerations ot partisanship and internal controversy, and by tacit consent confirmed him as chief custodian of the national and Imperial destinies. As we have said, he did not fail his countrymen in that hour of need. In the following year the Coalition Government was formed, still under his leadership, and Conservative patriots such ns Mr (afterwards Ear!) Balfour, Lord Lausdowne, and Mr Bonar Law ranged themselves in cordial co-operation with their antagonists of former days. Things still went well enough for a time, but gradually the public mind became imbued, first with a suspicion, then with a conviction, that Mr Asquith’s vital force was not quite what it had been, and that he was too much under the influence of the sphit of his notorious formula, “ Wait and see.” He became unpopular, and the cloud did nos en-

tirely lift after his resignation and Mr Lloyd George’s accession to power. Ho lost his seat for Fifeshire (which he had represented for thirty-two years) at the post-war election in December, 1918, but subsequently came back to Parliament as member for Paisley, only to lose that seat at the election in 19P4. The last stage of his career in the House of Commons was colourless and slightly equivocal. He had never been a militant partisan, and advancing years developed a certain heaviness of physique and temperament which had always been more or less noticeable. His misunderstandings and reconciliations with his more aggressive colleague, Mr Lloyd George, •• will survive unimportantly in the byways of political history. The peerage conferred in 1925 was universally regarded as a richly merited recognition of eminent public service. In the House of Lords and at occasional functions Lord Oxford’s later utterances were marked by the old inherent quality of sage thought and felicity of expression, —sometimes perhaps a little spoiled by a Johnsonian over-rotundity of phrase. The distinguished statesman who has gone to his well-earned rest may not have belonged to the company of the supremely groat; he may have lacked that indefinable magnetic quality to which the title of “ genius ” is given; but he was a very able, highly accomplished, and genuinely patriotic Englishman. j