SALISBURY AS A POLITICIAN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XIII, 18 September 1897, Page 392

SALISBURY AS A POLITICIAN.

The Marquis of Salisbury is a very interesting Parliamentary figure, as much from his weaknesses as from bis strength. I have heard it said by elderly men in the House of Commons (writes T. P. C’Connor, M.P., in Harper’* Magazine}, that at one time the present leader of the Tory party in the Peers was as slender and fragile a looking man as his nephew, Mr Balfour, but it is rather hard to realise that fact now. He is extremely heavy, approaching, I should say, 250 pounds, and all his frame is on a very large and awkward scale. The head is very large, and the brows equally so ; he wears a full beard ; the eves are rather small, though bright, and underneath they have the baggy appearance which used to be so remarkable a feature in the face of the late Mr Blaine. When he stands up to speak he has a curious, far-off manner. He never consults a note, he never makes a gesture, he never looks at anybody, either before him or behind him or around him, and his voice scarcely ever has any modification of tone. In short, he seems to be delivering a monologue, with entire unconsciousness of the presence of any of the brilliant audience which so often gathers to hear him. The voice is strong and penetrating, and yet there is a certain mincingness about it, as of an undergraduate that had not got quite over the affectations of his first youth. And his speeches accordingly are not very effective when delivered. They are. too monotonous, too lifeless, too spectral, in fact, to touch those chords of emotion which are reached by the real orator. On the other hand, the speeches of Lord Salisbury read better than those of any other politician of his time, except John Morley’s. The truth is that Lord Salisbury is a literary man by instinct, and to a certain extent by training, and he has all the excellences and all the defects of the literary man turned politician. Marrying all against his father’s will, and a younger son, he had but a small income in the early days of his married life. The late Beresford Hope fortunately conceived at this critical period the idea of starting the once famous Saturday Review. Beresford Hope was a brother-in-law of Lord Robert Cecil, as the Marquis of Salisbury was then called, and Lord Robert Cecil immediately became one of the foremost contributors of the new journal. He wrote in very goodly company. It is, indeed, hard to mention any man of eminence of that period who was starting life in London who did not contribute to the Saturday. The late Lord Justice Bowen, one of the greatest of our modern Judges, Sir Fitzjames Stephen Leslie Stephen, Sir William Harcourt and John Morley are among those who at one time or another contributed to the columns of the new journal. In those days it had an enormous reputation mainly because of the cynical boldness of its comments. To a certain extent Lord Salisbury has never altogether ceased to be the Saturday Review. His state papers—written often in periods of great excitement and great peril—have all the lucidity, sharpness, and sometimes the acrimony of the articles he used to contribute to the great satirical journal in his early days. His wit continues to be somewhat sardonic and to be literary rather than political—that is to say, he thinks more of the turn of the phrase than of the living -flesh and blood—the mighty network of emotions, passions and susceptibilities —into which the phrase may sometimes drop like molten lead on living flesh. He, too, has carried to a certain extent into public life the intellectual arrogance of the scholar and the writer. Since he left the House of Commons he has lived a life of almost entire seclnsion, except for his daily and brief appearances in the Honse of Lords during the Parliamentary session, and for his occasional appearances on the platform at great gatherings of his party. He lives in Hatfield House, which is not far from London, and one sees the announcement, even in exciting times, almost every day, that he has left town for Hatfield. One of the consequences of this isolation is that he sometimes makes curious blunders in fact, and still greater blunders in tactics, and often a speech of his creates dismay in his own party. But he remains a very picturesque and a very worthy figure in our political life. His home is a model of affection and the best traditions of piety and honour ; he is sincerely patriotic; and whatever be the limitations or narrowness of his creed, he is essentially an intellectual and a distinguished nature.