§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURMr. Deputy Speaker, I can hardly allow the present Sitting to pass over without making myself in some sense the mouthpiece for the profound feeling with which I am sure every Member of the House has received the tragic news of the death of Mr. Stanhope. I say nothing about the personal feelings with which his friend and those who were intimately acquainted with him have received the news of this great tragedy. We were bound to him by public as well as by private ties. It is impossible to have been a colleague of a man like Mr. Stanhope for many years, to have joined with him both in counsel and in action without feeling profoundly the loss which his departure necessarily must cause. But it is not on the private aspect of this calamity that I have any right to address the House. I should like to remind hon. Members that Mr. Stanhope was for 20 years a prominent 240 figure in this House; that he upon official duties almost immediately after he became one of ourselves, and that in a great variety of administrative offices he subsequently served his Queen and country. It would be quite out of place were I to attempt an estimate of the work which in those years he has done, but I am sure that everybody will feel—everybody, at all events, who had some personal acquaintance with the work which he did—that in losing him we have lost one of those men who really shed lustre upon the great offices which they are called upon to fill. Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall add nothing more; but I am sure the House will forgive me for having so far trespassed upon their time, and they will feel that I could hardly allow the occasion to pass without offering this tribute, slight and imperfect as it is, to one whose presence will long be missed from within the walls of this House.
§ SIR W. HARCOURTI desire, on the part of the Government and of every gentleman on this side of the House, to associate myself with the regret which the right hon. Gentleman has so well expressed. I have had the advantage of a great many years' personal acquaintance—I may say of friendship—with Mr. Stanhope. He was a man who was brought up in the midst of associations of great historic traditions, and I think the whole of his life showed the influences of those traditions. He was brought up, I believe, and he died in a place that was associated with the great names of Chatham and Stanhope. Everybody recognised in him an accomplished gentleman; everybody recognised in him a conscientious public man; and I think no man in this House will recollect any word that he has said or any sentiment he uttered which has left any feeling of bitterness behind. He has filled with distinction to himself and advantage to the country great public stations, and he was a man whom the House of Commons can ill afford to lose. I am sure that we on this side of the House join with gentlemen opposite in expressing our sympathy with them in the loss of such a Colleague, and with his friends and relatives, to whom I am sure this House will desire to convey the feelings of regret and sympathy.