*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Earl of CREWE)My Lords, as your Lordships are aware, some important changes have taken place in His Majesty's Government consequent upon the resignation of the late lamented Prime Minister, and so far as this House is concerned the one principal change has been the retirement from the Leadership of my noble friend Lord Ripon—a retirement which, I am sure, will be received with equal regret on both sides of the House. I do not think there has ever been a Leader of your Lordships' House who has shown more completely how possible it is to hold opinions strongly, and to express them plainly, without giving any just cause of offence to those from whom the speaker differed. So far as regards my own position, having been called upon to succeed my noble friend, I will merely say this—I am quite confident that my noble friends behind me will extend to me the same support that they extended to him, reinforced as we are by three very notable recruits from another place. As regards noble Lords opposite, from them I have hitherto, when I have acted on behalf of my noble friend, always received the utmost consideration, and not the least from the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition—my noble friend as I venture to call him in the most literal sense, 12 although Lord Granville, who was not an austere politician, used to say the term should never be used across the floor of the House. I am quite certain that from the noble Marquess and from noble Lords opposite we on this side may look for every assistance both in conducting the business of the House and in maintaining its high credit. But before proceeding to any matters of business, your Lordships would desire that we should pay a tribute, even though necessarily it must be a tardy tribute, to the memory of the statesman who, after a long and weary illness, borne with a fine courage and patience, was laid to rest on Tuesday last. My Lords, as we look back into history, down the long portrait gallery of First Ministers of the Crown, we see the figures of some who were endowed with more commanding genius and associated, with more dazzling achievements than was Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman; but in one respect I think his reputation need yield to none of those who went before him. There have been some Prime Ministers on that famous roll who inspired the unstinted devotion of their followers, but they were pursued with hostility and even with rancour by their opponents; some few may have escaped the one order of sentiment by never awakening the other; but I doubt whether there was one who exercised so profound an influence over his colleagues and who aroused such a measure of enthusiasm amongst them during his tenure of office as Prime Minister while exciting so little animosity from those on the other side. But that, my Lords, was not due to any weakness in the manner in which Sir Henry held his opinions. He was a strong Party man of the old-fashioned type and a firm believer in the party system. But he represented, I venture to think, a very rare blend—namely, the character of a man of the world, taking things as they were and taking human nature as he found it, with that of a thoroughly hopeful temperament, capable of the most generous emotion, and most eager to make prevail the right as he conceived it to be. Thus with the one side of his nature he conciliated his opponents, and with the other he inspired his followers. Add to this, a mind stored with diverse 13 knowledge, a complete absence of anything like self-seeking or pettiness, a large tolerance altogether untinged with contempt, an absolutely impervious temper, and I think it cannot be matter for wonder that in his private life he was singularly happy, that his colleagues were devoted to him, and that he became, as he did, the most popular figure in the political world. Of Sir Henry's public services, and of the place which he will hold in Parliamentary history—a high one, as I firmly believe—I do not desire now to speak. On such an occasion as this, we all, I think, feel that it is character which counts most; and it is upon that common ground that I am quite sure noble Lords opposite will desire to meet us in doing honour to his memory and in deploring the loss which the country has sustained.
§ *THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, I desire in the first place to associate myself with what has just been said by the noble Earl opposite in regard to the feeling in this House towards the noble Marquess who for so many years has led it with such distinction and with so much popularity on both sides. We take leave of him with sincere regret and with the hope that, although he may no longer be equal to the duties of the leadership, he will continue to take an interest and an active part in our proceedings, and to set to the House, as I shall always maintain he has during his long career never failed to set, an example of the soundest and most respected of our Parliamentary traditions. With regard to the noble Earl himself, we have already had some experience of him in the position of leader, when in the absence of the noble Marquess he has from time to time taken the principal part in conducting Government measures through your Lordships' House. And although I do not desire to pay my noble friend fulsome compliments to his face, I am only, I am quite sure, saying what is felt by all of us on this side of the House when I say that we have never failed to recognise the tactful and considerate manner in which he has done his work, and that we are now ready to promise him in full and abundant measure that assistance which he told us that he hoped to receive both in the duties of conducting 14 business through the House and also in maintaining its most honourable traditions. My Lords, I pass from those matters to the sadder theme upon which my noble friend touched in such feeling and appropriate language. He dwelt, as it was natural he should dwell, upon the characteristics shown by the late Prime Minister as a colleague and as a Parliamentary leader. We on this side knew him less well in those capacities. He was not our colleague, he did not belong to this House; I hope your Lordships will not think that I am leaning too much upon a purely personal reminiscence if I observe that I am probably the only Peer sitting on this side of the House who ever served with Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as a colleague. It is a long time ago now, but my noble friend will remember, perhaps, that when Mr. Cardwell, as he then was, was Secretary of State for War, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman was Financial Secretary, while I had the honour of representing the War Office in this House. To those days I trace a very pleasant acquaintance with the late Prime Minister which lasted until the last days of his life. The late Prime Minister was not only not a Member of this House, but he was a very severe critic of this House, and, as we all know, he was one of those who favoured very drastic changes in our constitutional position. But, in spite of all that, in spite of what I may call the comparative remoteness of the standpoint from which we regard his memory, there is, I venture to say not one of us who does not understand the sorrow felt by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's colleagues at his death and who is not able in a measure to share it. In the first place, it is true to say that when a British subject arrives at the high position of Prime Minister of this country he thereby ipso facto acquires and commands the respect and admiration of the great body of the people of this country. And when that position has been gained, as it was in Sir Henry-Campbell-Bannerman's case, by years of honest hard work in Parliament, when it is not the result of any intrigue, but the achievement of pure and simple merit, then I think we are all ready, whatever be the strength of the party ties by which we are bound, to 15 extend to the man who fills that position a full measure of that respect which, I hope, the British Prime Minister will always command at the hands of his fellow-countrymen. In addition to that, we recognise that Sir Henry possessed personal attributes, referred to in well-chosen language by my noble friend, which enlisted the affection of all who came into contact with him. He was a man of singular kindliness and of remarkable good temper and good humour. He was a man, I should say, who was devoid of anything like self-consciousness or of what might be called official pedantry, and however much we might differ from him, we all of us recognised that his ideals were true and worthy ideals, whether we entirely approved of the means by which he sought to arrive at them or not. And therefore I think it has come to pass that just as when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman found himself raised to the highest position in the State there was no murmur of ill-will from any quarter or from any Party in the State, so now that his career has been ended by death he has left behind him many friends indeed, but no trace of ill will or of political resentment of any kind. We shall think of him, not perhaps as one of those stately and commanding figures who have occasionally passed across the political stage, but as a public man who achieved a great position by a career eminently honourable to himself, useful to the Party to which he belonged, and in every way creditable to the political life of this country.