New-York tribune., 1913-07-20

| FEATURES, IS an impression OF alert re-
| pose. The only rcstlessness or change
fulness is in the luminous eyes. There
are no visible lines in the face. even
| al fifty-three, or none visible unless
YOU look for them. In that sense. the
! face is a mask You would say nothing
! has cost him an effort. nor has he cared
| to appeal, as an actor or an orator so
! often does. TO his audience by the use
| Of the facial muscles. As he talks his
! thoughts turn inward He is forming
| to himself a conception Of character.
! of mental processes. of the whole per-
| sonality Of his hearer or OF the COM
pany; which he keeps to himself. Yet
YOU cannot but find him sympathetic.
! This immobility Of feature denotes
neither coldness nor Indifference
He made perhaps the best speech Of
/ his life-at any rate. outside the courts
in opening the Marconi debate last
night The trouble with lawyers in the
/ House Of Commons is that they are
! forensic. They cannot rid themselves
Of what i'm a doctor would be called
| their bedside manner. They seem for
/ the most part TO he addressing a jury
or the Bench; and the House Of Com
| mons is neither. If YOU cannot adapt
| Yourself to the House, il will not adapt
/ itself to YOU. There are lawyers In the
/ House who can forget they are lawy Az
and can make the House forget it Sir
/ Edward Carson is one. Mr. f. G. Smith
/ is one. Mr.. Cave. who moved the rcso-
/ luton Of Censure in a judicial speech,
/ is a third. The Prime Minister is pre-
! eminently one. The Asquith who leads
| the House never suggests the Asquith
whose business in life was the Bar.
! Than his there is no better House OF
Commons manner. and none which
seems more exclusively and essentially
/ Of the House.
To this company Sir Rufus never be-
longed until last evening. True. he Is
Attorney General, and to that high
Office a trace Of the wig and gown
might be expected to cling, but even
| there the House resents il. Like the
Solicitor General, Sir John Simon, Sir
Rufus has always handled politics in
legal way. There is no less effective
way: whether in the House or on the
platform. He has been nine years
member for Reading, three years At
torney General. and last year was taken
into the Cabinet; an unprecedented
honor for a law officer of the Crown,
implying that the Prime Minister set
high value on his political services.
With all these experiences his political
education might be thought complete
, yet it cannot be said that his House o;
| Commons reputation is equal 90 his
reputation at the Bar.
But on this. the most momentoUs oc-
casion Of his public life. he spoke as
man to his fellow men; as member Of
The House TO his fellow members: with
deep feeling. with sincerity with that
air of truth which no man can assume.
He took upon himself whatever blame
attached TO these share transactions
/ Yet when he came 10 discuss tho
/ charges against him his tone changed.
/ he seemed wholly unaware Of the
change; indeed, he said the last thing
/ he should desire to do would be 10 deal
with a question of this kind in a legal
| fashion. But, all unconsciously, he did
\ deal with il I'm a legal fashion.
After ALL there are not two Sir Rufus
! Isaacs. There is only one, the lawyer.
| The conformation Of his mind has be-
/ come legal, and legal only. That is not
a criticism; it is an appreciation, an
estimate. He drew distinctions be-
| tween Mr.. Godfrey Isaacs as Govern
ment contractor and Mr.. Godfrey
/ Isaacs as his brother. He marshalled
. his facts. His argument had legal
| basis throughout His method WAS the
method Of the great jury advocate. lie
dealt with shades and subtleties Of
meaning in the wording and rewording
of the rules which Mr.. Cave had laid
down as rules that, in such matters as
these, ought TO govern the conduct Of
q Minister.
Above all. he shrank from a full ex-
preston OF that regret which the
! House expected. At the back Of his
mind seemed TO be a fear lest it might
be taken as a plea of guilty; not, Of
course, to the baseess charges Of cor
ruption, abandoned by everybody, but
TO the suggestion Of improperly or in
discretion IN buying the shares, and Of
want OF frankness in Omitting TO tell
! the House last october that he had
| bought them. He admitted his mis-
take. and the admission was explicit.
But the declaration Of regret. for which
the House waited in painful expecta-
ton, came in contingent and hypo-
| thetical terms and related only to his
| silence in October. "It may be a
course which you may regret here
after" For the rest his regret was
left as a matter Of inference. When,
therefore, by a party vote and a ma
iority OF 7S. the House adopted Sir
Ryland Adkins's amendment TO Mr..
Caves motion, accepting his expires
slons Of regret, ii went beyond the text
Of his speech. In substance. Sir Rufus
Isaacs said he would not have done
what he did had he foreseen the conse-
quences. That also had a legal flavor.
Nevertheless, everybody may accept