§ THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND. SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE EARL OF CREWE)My Lords, before we proceed to the business on the Paper I feel sure that I shall be carrying out the wishes of the House by saying a word about one who has been for some years, absent from our Benches, but whom we have not forgotten and who has passed away since we were last here—I mean Lord Spencer. Certainly on this side of the House we cannot refrain from saying something, because we cannot forget that but for the sudden blow which fell upon him in the year 1905 he would have held the foremost place on this Bench of ours during the lifetime of the present Government.
Lord Spencer's career started at an early age. He became Viceroy of Ireland at the unusually early age of thirty-three. He afterwards held the office of President of the Council at a time when that post involved the charge of the Education Department, and he filled with distinction the office of First Lord of the Admiralty. In holding all those offices the keynotes of his character were the qualities of courage and of simplicity. Be never fell short of what was demanded by a difficult situation either when physical or moral courage was required; and as your Lordships well know, he had to encounter many difficult situations. Lord Spencer would have been the first to deprecate comparison between his capacities and those of the men who have filled the largest place in our political history of late. He was never a great orator, although he attained no little facility in speaking, and I think that he always enjoyed taking part in debates in your Lordships' House.
671 It may be true to say that for the very first. order of Statesmen a wider range of knowledge and a more complex or even more subtle character are required. If we regard the figures of the half-dozen men who have held the highest political places in the last hundred years we might he disposed to arrive at that conclusion. But of this I am certain, that it will be an ill day for public life in this country when men of the type of Lord Spencer cease to take a prominent part in our politics. Lord Spencer was also conspicuous in other aspects. In his own county he was for years the foremost figure, whether in county business or in those field sports in which he was such an acknowledged expert.. I cannot forget, too, the interest that he took in the great school of Harrow, of which he was so distinguished a son. My Lords, I need say no more, but I desired, holding the position I do, to lay this tribute on the grave of a high-minded Statesman whose memory will long be preserved with affection in the minds of all those who had the privilege of knowing him.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, I am sure that your Lordships without exception will consider it suitable and proper that Lord Spencer's death should not be allowed to pass by without some notice in this House, in which virtually the whole of his public career was spent. I think I am right in saying- that Lord Spencer had a seat in the House of Lords for somewhere about half a century, and during a great part of that period he held a position very conspicuous and in all respects honoured and respected. Lord Spencer held more than one high office, and left behind the reputation of a courageous and hard-working administrator. Of Lord Spencer's position in this House the noble Earl spoke, I thought, in terms characterised by his usual felicity of description. No one, I suppose, and least of all Lord Spencer himself, would have claimed for him that he possessed in a high degree the gift of eloquence; but in all public assemblies there are men who carry weight, not on account of their power of language, not on account of their ability to clothe their thoughts in ornate or picturesque words, but from their common sense, their character, and their courage. Those were all of them attributes which Lord Spencer possessed in the highest degree.
672 My Lords, for some time we have missed Lord Spencer from his place in this House; and now that death has taken him we realise what a loss Parliament and the country have sustained. To you he appeared as a trusted colleague and a valued Party leader. To us on this side of the House he always seemed an honourable and generous adversary. All parties and all sections in this House regarded him as a member of whom the House of Lords might well be proud. There were some—and I trust that I may be permitted to count myself among the numberj—who knew him not only as a public man, but as a private friend, and who felt towards him not only sincere respect but a very deep and hearty affection.