OBITUARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3542, 31 January 1922, Page 18

OBITUARY.

VISCOUNT BRYCE. STATESMAN AND AUTHOR. LONDON, January 22. The death is announced of Viscount Bryce, 0.M., G.C.V.O. January 23. Lord Bryce’s death was unexpected. He was in his usual health until a couple i of days ago. He died of heart failure. [Viscount Bryce, British jurist, historian, and politician, was born at Belfast on May 10, 1838, and in the course of a long ahd useful life he brought to bear the force of his powerful intellect on many of the outstanding problems of his clay. He was a son of James Bryce, 1.L.D., of Glasgow, who for many years had a school in Glasgow, and of Margaret, eldest daughter of Jas. Young, of Abbeyville. County Antrim. After going through the High School and University courses at Glasgow he went to Trinity College. Oxford, and in 1862 he graduated with double lirst-class honours and was elected the same year a Fellow of Oriel. He went to the bur, and practised in London for a few years, but was soon called back to Oxford as Regius Professor of Civil Law. a position which he occupied from 1870 till 1893. His reputation as a historian was made as early as 1864, by bis Holy Roman Empire. In politics Mr Jas. Bryce was an ardent Liberal, and in 1880 lie was elected to Parliament for the Tower Hamlets Division of London. In 1885 he was returned for South Aberdeen, where he was re-elected on succeeding occasions. His intellectual distinction and political industry made him a valuable member of the Liberal Party. In 1886 he was made Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs; in 1892 he joined the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; in 1894 he was President of the Board of Trade, and acted as chairman of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education ; and in Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman’s Cabinet (1905) he was made Chief Secretary for Ireland; but in February, 1907, he was appointed British Ambassador at Washington and took leave of party politics, his' last political act being a speech outlining what was (hen the Government Scheme for university reform in Dublin a. acheme which was promptly discarded by his successor, Mr Birrell In America the lute j

Lord Bryce commanded the highest respect. The dignity and simplicity of his manner and a real interest in the practical working of the American Constitution won _ him the unfeigned regard of the Americans. Aided by Earl Grey and a few others, he established the Imperial Federation League. It -is an open secret that he, on the American side, Mr Fielding on the Canadian, and Earl Grey on the English favoured the idea of reciprocity between the United States and Canada. It was even hinted that Lord Bryce threw his enormous influence into the scale, hoping to outweigh the opposition to the proposal. His most ardent desire was the furtherance of a cordial understanding between all the Englishspeaking peoples. In August, 1911, he signed the Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty on behalf of Great Britain. He resigned his Ambassadorship in April, 1913, returning, after a long tour, to England. It will be recalled that, be paid a flying visit to Dunedin in the same year, and delivered a notable address before a representative gathering in the Town Hall. His interest in education never waned. He was a member of the Committee of Education for Scotland, and active in university reform. As a man of letters the late Viscount Bryce was well known in America, as well as in all parts of the English-speaking world. His great work, “The American Commonwealth,” which appeared in 1888, was the first in which the institutions of the United States were thoroughly discussed from the point of view of a historian and a constitutional lawyer, and it at once became a classic. His “Studies in History and Jurisprudence,” which was published in 1901, and his “Studies in Contemporary Biography” (1S03). were republications of essays and in 1897, after a visit lo South Africa, he published a volume of impressions of that country, which had considerable weight in Liberal circles when the Boer war was being discussed. Oliver publications from his prolific pen were “South America . Observations and Impressions,” and “Modern Democracies,” which was published last year, and which included references to Australia and New' Zealand. During a long course of years Lord Bryce’s academic honours from Home and foreign universities multiplied, and he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1894. In earlier days the late Lord Bryce was a notable mountain climber, ascending Mount Ararat in 1876, and publishing a volume on Transcaucasia and Ararat in 1897. From 1891 to 1901 he was president l of I he Alpine Club.]