The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-09-09
the power or. perhaps. the will

the power or. perhaps, the will
 -,lte or please the mass of the peo-
 should have ruled England longer han his two great predecessors. both men of the highest personal attraction and of gifts developed in two genera tions of life in the House of Commons, Lord Salisbury seemed to despise the ordinary ways and ties of political life. On the government bench in the House of Lords he seemed to be singularly aloof from his colleagues. He liked to exchange jests with his old friend Lord Halsbury, but the mental communion between the two men could hardly have been very close The average party man could have known nothing of him. He is said never to have seen MT. Par nell. and never to have spoken to MT. Morley. As he sat he seemed in a brown study. When he spoke, he looked straight before him, his finger tips resting lightly on the table, and his huge body posed immovably behind it. He asked his audience for nothing neither praise nor blame, neither anger nor delight. Enough that he spoke the thought that was in him, and let his hu- nor or his fancy stray at will among the themes in which his soul dwelt.
 Yet he did not strike you as careless of what he believed to be the good of the country. When he bowed to its will, instead of seeking to direct it, he would remonstrate, and then, like a wise man, let pass the evil he could not cure. h Aoo fIn curing note of some of his. later utter nnces. Over-expenditure, oyer-expan- sion, over-exeitemene, over-elation- these things he deplored, and he let his contemporaries see that he. deplored them. Perhaps he discovered that the evils of democracy were not those that he feared in his earlier days, in the great fights with Gladstone. He spoke with what for him was almost anima- ton when he fell into this half-refiec- tive, half-prophetic strain.
 His dominating presence and his all ways suggestive speech gave the de- bates in'the House of Lords an interest that they lack to-day. He was at his best when opposition stirred his rather sluggish mood, for his too arrogant speech and ways needed checking. Lord Rosebery's brilliant raillery some times stung him little, but he nearly always answered with perfect good tenn per, Nor is it true that he always came out master of debate. Lord Granville excelled him in the finer arts of verbal fence, and Lord Kimberley's more downright method was now and then used on him with much effect But he was -eminently the, personality of the House of Lords. His mind always worked with admirable ease. He used no notes, and seemed to want none, and though he would sometimes deal slight ly. or perversely, with facts, he saw the larger truth of things, and set it out in language of singular power, dignity and appropriateness, His bursts of frank ness have been called e"blazing indis- eretions," but they are of the stuff that lives when party sophistry Is forgotten, His speeches had neither exordium nor peroration. More correct than MT. Par |nelps and showing a much wider vocab- ulary, they resembled them in point of directness and in disdain for the small CT arts of the Parliamentary manner. Both revealed the character of which they were the expression-the character of two undeniable leaders of men.--H
 W. Massingham in the London Daily News.