A KNIGHTLY CAREER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21668, 11 June 1932, Page 4

A KNIGHTLY CAREER

THE LIFE OF LORD CAVE s " Lord Cave: a Memoir." By Sir Charles Mallet. Introduction by Countess Cave. Illustrated. London: John Murray. (15s net.) In 1918 Mr Healy congratulated Lord Cave on his “knightly career" in the House of Commons. « That is the correct phrase to use. His whole life was a living illustration of Chaucer's vision of a “ verray parfit gentil knight.” From his boyhood upwards he was ever the same —unpretending, sweet-tempered, courteous, truth-loving, hard-working, and, when he had mastered a subject, self-reliant. , IJossibly the most remarkable thing about George Cave is that, until the war and subsequent events -revealed his remarkable qualities, his life was of a perfectly ordinary type. During the period of -his school and university days he was of the type of ordinary good, class of boy, clever and diligent enough to do well, but not brilliant enough to gain a fellowship. He was of a happy disposition, taking things as they came, and enjoying life to the full. At the Bar he shirked nothing, and always mastered his cases. Solicitors soon saw that he was a man to be trusted, and work increased steadily. In 1883 he married and found he had chosen a helpmate whose desire for her husband's success made up for his own lack of ambition. Gradually he began to combine ■ public with professional duties, and both increased, for he continued to win confidence by his ability, steadiness, and unfailing good temper. lo the House of Commons he displayed what Sir Charles Mallet calls the “parliamentary gift”— “ the method of quiet lucid argument, a strong of reason, a gift of persuasiveness which appealed to politicians sated with all kinds of speech.” These qualities never lost their hold, .but carried Cave from triumph to triumph, surmounting all difficulties and enabling him to attain the highest honours without any pushing on his part and without a dissentient voice. In 1916 he became Home Secretary, and found a task which demanded all his evenness of temper and sanity of judgment. When he left the House of Commons, though he had been there for 12 years only, he had won the highest reputation. Id 1925 he had the signal honour of being elected Chancellor of the University , of Oxford at a time when he was Lord Chancellor of England, He performed the duties of thd double office—held by the one man for the first time since the seventeenth century—faithfully and efficiently. It is well .that England knows how to use and honour her really great men. '■ 'y. G. H. J.