MEMORIAL TO THE EARL OF OXFORD AND ASQUITH. (Hansard, 11 April 1933)

§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAM
My Lords, I beg to move that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that His Majesty will give directions for a memorial tablet to be erected in the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Westminster, to the memory of the late Right Honourable the Earl of Oxford and Asquith and to assure His Majesty that this House will concur in giving effect to His Majesty's directions.
It is unnecessary to remind any meeting of his countrymen, least of all a meeting of your Lordships' House, of the public life of the late Earl of Oxford. He became a Member of Parliament as long ago as 1886. In 1892 he was a Secretary of State; and it is just a quarter of a century since, in April, 1908, he formed his first Administration as Prime Minister and leader of a Cabinet containing many men of outstanding distinction, some of whom are present in your Lordships' House this afternoon. This is not the time to appraise his place in history; I would only mention that he was the Prime Minister on whom fell the supreme responsibility of exercising a decisive influence in perhaps the most difficult decision which any Cabinet has had to take, the decision in August, 1914, on the part we should play in the Great War. His countrymen will not soon forget the courage and the patriotism with which he faced those difficult days.
It may be said that Lord Oxford was mainly a House of Commons roan. It is true that he only came to this House in the autumn of his days, when his lifework had been largely achieved, but he brought to its membership the same pride in the greatness of its tradition, the same recognition of its dignity and its responsibility which he had so long developed and displayed as a member of the House of Commons. His contributions to our debates were characterised by the same force of thought and majesty of expression which have made seine, of his speeches classical examples 470 of English prose. I am quite sure that I express the wish of every member of every Party in this House when I say that we desire to be associated with the Petition which has been presented to His Majesty from another place, that a memorial tablet to the Earl of Oxford and Asquith should find a place beside those of other Prime Ministers in Westminster Abbey, which is hallowed by the memory of so many of the greatest figures in our history. I beg to move.

§ LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE
My Lords, I desire on behalf of the Opposition to support the Motion which has been moved by the Leader of the House in such moving and appropriate language. Lord Oxford was a statesman of outstanding intellectual gifts, and his name will be associated with many of the achievements of the Liberal Government when it was at the height of its power. His talent for marshalling his arguments and for getting to the very heart of the debate with terse and cogent phrases was unrivalled, but the quality for which I think he will be most remembered is a, quality which is not too common in the diversities and collisions of political life. It was his unfailing personal loyalty. Lord Oxford, or Mr. Asquith as I like to remember him, had a very great reverence for friendship, and no provocation ever tempted him to throw over or let down any colleague or any friend. This personal reliability and constancy drew to him a very large circle of firm friends. Lord Oxford held the position of Prime Minister with dignity and with a high sense of duty, and he did not relax his efforts to assist in our Parliamentary deliberations when he ceased to hold that high office. On behalf of my noble friends around me I very readily support the Motion now before the House.

§ THE MARQUESS OF READING
My Lords, on behalf of those who sit on the Liberal Benches I wish to associate myself with all that has fallen from, and has been so well expressed by, the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. We on these Benches were closely associated with him, and some of us intimately associated with him, during the important years when he held the highest office in the State. It is not a time, as the Leader of the House has said, to indulge in a survey of all that he achieved, but, as has already been stated, it cannot be unduly emphasised that he will stand out as a great Parliamentarian, a House of Commons man especially, because most of his active period was passed in the House of Commons. He was particularly distinguished by massive intellectual power, trained and equipped in a way which enabled him to use it to the best advantage, and he set an example of classic English to which reference has already been made.
To those of us who were more intimately associated with him he will always remain a very human figure, more easily moved perhaps than many thought, singularly generous and magnanimous both to his opponents and to his friends, and of undoubted loyalty and sincerity in everything that he did. And may I add that he scorned everything that might savour even of the meretricious; he had nothing small or mean in his composition. He was on the whole a grand figure of a man, very typically English in his qualities. In an experience of many years of public life I have never known any man who was freer of jealously or vanity than the great Parliamentarian of whom we are speaking to-day. We shall always cherish his memory with deep reverence and profound affection. We are convinced that neither this tablet which is to be erected in Westminster Abbey nor any great monument which may hereafter be erected to him can be so lasting and fitting a memorial as the recollection of his achievements, qualities, and fame as we will cherish them.