New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-12-04

ent House Of Commons an unhroken del
! egation of Unionists and Conservatives;
or perhaps broken by one.
II is the more remarkable because the
Conservatives never took UP the chal
Ienge Sir William threw down. Mr. Bal
four, their leader Of the Opposition.
speak king the same night. guarded him
self against the supposition that he op
posed Death Duties in principle. On him
as well as on his Liberal opponents lay
the party obligation to appeal in one
way or another, to the majority of the
electorate. He has never proposed TO
repeal them II would not have been
necessary TO repeal them, for the Budget
/ is a yearly measure, and when the Con-
! servatives came into power. in 1899,
they had only to refrain from re-enact-
ing these duties and they We're dead
But the Death Duties formed part Of
every Conservative Budget while the
! Conservatives were IN power. as we'll as
Of every Liberal Budget while the Lib
erals were in power. They have come
tn stay. Neither party dares drop them
II is a rule or tradition that a duty once
imposed remains; or remains SO long as
there is need of the money it produces.
The lesson of Wiltshire is lost upon Lib
erals and Conservatives alike.
There were days. mean from 1894
onward-when the Liberal party was
torn with the dissensions between Sir
! William and Lord Rosebery. L am not
going into that unhappy dispute except
/ so far as to say that Sir William thought
himself entitled by length Of service and
ability to be Prime Minister. So he was.
( but not by the following he had at
| tached to himself. If the Queen had
asked Sir William IN 1894 to be Prime
Minister there is no reason to suppose
! he could have formed a government.
| Yet he was so powerful in the House Of
! Commons. which hs led, that il rested
with him to give Lord Rosebery an eff
cient support; or TO withhold it. Lord
Rosebery's friends thought this efficient
support inefficient; thought it srudg-
! ingly given; and there grew UP between
the two men an arrangement Of which
the consequences were injurious ana
even disastrous to the party II was
visible in private as we'll as in public.
Years after, in 1899, I was at Daln1eny,
and the day I left one of the younger
members or the household asked me:
Where are you going from here?"
ITO Maiwood.''
81 call it indecent"
But Malwood was a very pleasant
place to go to. Not a great property
] r. ptxTo
acres in the New Forest and had built
/ himself a good and interesting house,
and there was content to live 1t was
much later that he came Unexpectedly.
/ by the death of the direct heir. into
/ Nuneham. a fine estate near Oxford AT
Malwood everything but the trees and
the soil and the heavens above was new.
He was not often suspected Of sentiment
by those who knew him as Parliament
tary gladiator: matching himself from
time to time against Disraeli and against
Gladstone, and coming out Of these en-
counters. whether victorious or beaten,
with honor. He was ever fighter. But
he had a warm heart for his friends, and
there was Garden of Friends near the
house. whether belonging to the father
or the son I forget, in which each plant
or shrub had been given by a friend. and
served as a memento, an inscription on
each. It did not matter who 1T was
you could not be a friend of one with
out being a friend of the other. A
pleasant notion. with perhaps an Eliza
bethan air. and pleasantly carried out.
There were giants in those days, and
Sir William Harcourt was one of them.
A giant in stature and physical bulk. the
head powerful, and carried high, perhaps
haughtily; the features carved with an
heroic touch. He was a force; not In
Parliament only, but in the world. in
the service Of the law. and even in
Journalism. I believe his real ambition
was TO he Lord High Chancellor If
there was any question of his knowledge
Of the law. that would not have stood in
his way. He certainly knew as much
law as Lord Brougham, of whom Lord
Lyndhurst said that if he only knew a
little law he would know a little of
everything. Sir William was, in truth,
q iurist; and to be jurist is more than
10 be a lawyer. He had a mind satu-
rated with the principles Of turispru-
dence.
He had been at the Parliamentary
Bar and gave up an income Of f12 900
a year 10 go into politics. On the wool
sack he might at pinch, have done as
Disraell sometimes did when he came
late and unprepared into debate which
he had 10 close. pick up the facts from
the speeches But Sir William would soon
have mastered anything 10 which he
gave his mind: as he did Finance when
he became Chancellor of the Exchequer
There was no more adroit debater; none
more dangerous. And. on the whole
there was no figure in the public life
of his time. Disraeli and Gladstone ex-
cepted. which more attracted the eyes
OF men than his. They said, or per
haps he said. that Plantagenet blood
ran in his veins. I know not. but there
was in him beyond dispute the kingly
spirit Of that great line Of Kings
C. ". s.