LATE SIR FRANCIS BELL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18991, 16 April 1936, Page 15

LATE SIR FRANCIS BELL

LORD BLEDISLQE'S TRIBUTE LONDON;, March 21. Lord Bledisloc sends to The Times the accompanying appreciation of tlKlate Sir F. 11. D. Bell: New Zealand's Grand Old Man lias died at flic ago of 84, and although he was a stubborn and uncompromising political ■tighter it is sate to say that bis passing will be universally deplored throughout the Dominion, and will leave a gap which none of his compatriots can adequately fill. His sterling patriotism, his wide * experience in public administration, his legal erudition, his sound judgment, and bis transparent and irreproachable integrity gained for him a measure of esteem and respect unequalled in the case of any other statesman ill recent New Zealand history. "He was a man of strong character and clear, emphatic, and eloquent exponent of his views- views which be never attempted to conceal if he deemed any Parliamentary proposal or Government project fo threaten the true welfare of the Dominion or to be repugnant to ihc principles of British jurisprudence. "T have been thrown with public men in manv parts of the world as well as m i.his country, and T can confidently say that I have known none possessing in combination to such .a marked degree the intellectual vigour, erudite scholarship, sound judgment, and dialectical brillnncy coupled with perfect old-world courtesy, which characterised Sir Francis Dillon Bell, who was the doyen of the elder statesmen of the Empire."