The Washington herald., 1917-05-20
Writer Represents Balfour
AS Contemptuous Aristocrat

when the others looked at each other in
CONSERVATION he had no fear. In the
darkest days he was just as amusedly
detached as he was in the beginning OF
this war.
He defended the burning to the ground
Of the farm houses of non-combatant
Beers; he approved the herding of the
Boer women and children into the deadly
concentration camps in the Transvaal,
where milk was not to be had. When he
was taunted by an Irishman with "the
slaughter of the innocents," he retorted
that the gentleman was no doubt Justi-
fed in defending his own kind. A gibe
too bitter to be appreciated by the
House, though every one knew that In
nocent'' Is often used in ireland chari-
tably for idiot" Many members were
shocked to find that the urbane, smiling,
gentle leader cared little for human life
or the conventions of civilized warfare:
mo omelet without breaking eggs" Is
his motto.
Courage of High Quality.
Courage Arthur Balfour has of a high
quality-all but the highest, indeed-for
invincible courage is the martyrs, and
Is grounded in clear insight into the
right and uncompromising assertion of 1t.
His cool selhshness was not without
ambition. AS soon as he was strong
enough he favored an intrigue which
forced Lord Salisbury to resign the post
OF prime minister. and the nephew
reigned in his uncle's stead. Arthur Bal
four thought this a natural, indeed an
inevitable conclusion.
AS prime minister and leader of the
House of Commons Arthur Balfour was
a failure: came, indeed. to complete
grief. and this in spite of English snob-
berry and his own high qualities. He
grew to be too autocratic and asserted
a more than Popish infallibility. He fell
Of his own strength. Not only was he an
aristocrat by birth and natural leader Of
the oligarchy, but he was a man of the
widest reading and culture-a Scotch
metaphysician who had taught himself to
think out the non-utilitarian problems Of
Why? Whence? and Whittier? to the
verge of the unknown. On a ceremonial
occasion he could make a speech in. the
House which put Mr.. Asquith's best work
in secondary place He alone could rise
to the height OF every argument, and yet
as a leader of the House he failed, even
in England, and not of weakness but of
egotism.
He announced that any one who ven
tured to criticize him or dissent from his
policy had better leave the party, for he
assuredly would not help him to oflce.
He would have no lieutenant that was
not a servant and servile.
1t is possible that II Arthur Balfour
had had to work for his living he might
have rissn to original thought. His
Foundations OF Belief Is really inter-
esting; it is Bergson adapted rather than
translated into English by one who had
already coquetted in thought with the
idea of creative evolution. Arthur Bal
four is. as Heine says, on the topmost
level of the thought of his time. He has
reached the conviction that his belief is
sustained by the belief OF a thousand
generations of men.
No Interest in E'UnwaEhed."
who survive in mems memories?" he
will ask-"the statesmen and generals.
the writers and artists, the greatest of
the sons of men. Those are the people
whom I consider and whom I like. The
unnumbered millions who never attain
anything 1 can afford to forget-as their
felIowmen forget them and as probably
God forgets them also. have no inter-
est in the unwashed herd"
He was once asked in the House of
Commons about something that was in
all the daily papers. He probessed COM
plete ignorance on the subject.
But it has been in all the daily pa
pers," his questioner remarked.
VERY possibly" replied Mr. BaIfour.
'T never read the daily papers,"
Members Of the House looked at each
other and smiled, but it was not a pose;
it was the truth.
How will Mr.. Balfour meet President
Wilson? He is some ten years older, ten
well-filled years. I am afraid he will be
his superior In many qualities; a better
dialectician, a greater master of Eng
lish; one who has practiced speaking fo-
over forty years and has held his own
in debate again and again in throne
room and senate against all comers; he
won his spurs in the Berlin conference
IN 1878.
A Lincoln would see through him and
round him by virtue of a larger humanity
and a passionate resolve to serve his
fellow men; a Roosevelt even would
sense his deficiencies, though he might
not be able to analyze them; but Mr.
Wilson is of his own sort, a scholar and
amateur of life with the deficiencies of
the bookish. Yet Mr.. Wilson has one
eminent superiority; he is an American;
gifted therefore with a deeper moral
conscience; he could not have coerced
Ireland or enslaved Egypt: he. too, must
feel that Mr.. Balfour Is essentially hoI-
low and that gives US hope. I see Mr..