§ 2.35 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME)My Lords, Lord Bledisloe, who died last week at the great age of ninety, had filled every minute of his life with a wide variety of activities. Although he was born into the leisurely, rather easy-going ways of the Victorian era and countryside he was always looking to the future, and his pride was to keep himself not merely abreast but ahead of his time. Brought up on his estate, he took an early opportunity to study modern methods of agriculture, and no one of his generation, or any other, has done more than Lord Bledisloe to lead the English farmer to appreciate the possibilities and the profit and the satisfaction to be found in efficient farming. Early in life, too, he equipped himself with a knowledge of the law, foreseeing that if agriculture was to be organised and reorganised in the United Kingdom, important new legislation would be involved; and in another place first, and later in this House, he was able to give great assistance in framing the structure of the agricultural development which the country enjoys to-day.
I am happy to be paying this tribute, not only because it has fallen to me to express your Lordships' feelings of loss but also because I happen to be the Commonwealth Secretary. If Lord Bledisloe had many interests, he had two passions, one of which was agriculture and the other the Commonwealth. In New Zealand, as Governor-General, he was able to indulge them both to the full. Green-fingered himself, he taught young, keen, enterprising farmers how to grow things in their incomparable soil and climate. With the simple humanity and sympathy which he and Lady Bledisloe took with them wherever they went, he was welcomed everywhere and loved 676 everywhere by all who new him in that Dominion. Your Lordships may recall, and, if not, I will remind you, that when he left Now Zealand 54,000 farmers in that country contributed to a message of farewell to him. The simple truth is that he himself lost his heart to New Zealand, and New Zealand its heart to him. After he left, he remained, in the words of Mr. Nash, the present Prime Minister of New Zealand, "the friend, counsellor and champion of his adopted people and of his adopted land."
Later, as President of the Empire Day Movement, he extended his horizons and his work to embrace the whole Commonwealth, in which his belief was abiding and for which his enthusiasm was infectious. At his home, as I think your Lordships know, there was a constant stream of Commonwealth visitors all through the year, to whom the hospitality of Lord and Lady Bledisloe knew no bounds. He was a Member of our House and we indeed are thankful that there are such lives. Only a few days ago we were mourning the death of Lord and Lady Fortescue. Once more, here is a case of man and wife inseparable in their affections through a long life and in their work and service to their country and to the Commonwealth, people who are indeed an example to all and of whom we are deeply proud.
§ 2.40 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I desire to associate myself and all my noble friends in this House with the most feeling tribute paid by the noble Earl the Leader of the House to the late Lord Bledisloe. His speech this afternoon has been so comprehensive and so beautiful in its phrasing that there is not much that I can add to it. Some have wondered why I had such a friendship with Lord Bledisloe. Perhaps the House will permit me to say that the reason is that at one time or another, in different periods of his life, we worked together on common projects. He was connected with the Ministry of Food at the end of the last war, and it was there that I first met him. I found there a partnership between him and one of my great friends on this side of the House, the late Mr. J. R. Clynes. From that day onwards, whenever we met, we had a meeting point— 677 in a modern phrase, a point of contact—that reminded us of old days, old endeavours, old successes and old failures.
He was one of the most sincere men I ever met in my public life. What he has done for agriculture has been well praised by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. May I specially mention something near to my heart? From 1921 to 1923, I conducted a major campaign for the opening of dairies for pasteurising milk all over the country. I remember that at the time Lord Bledisloe said that, though that was very good, we mast go farther back to the source and get the production of clean milk; and he did everything he could in order to help this development towards the situation which we are now rapidly attaining, of getting 100 per cent. of our milk produced not only to a T.T. but also to a clean standard. I admired him greatly for his persistence right to the end of a very long life. Perhaps there is something more to be done in age than youth yet gives credit for. His great assistance to this House, even in the most recent years, is something which the more youthful Members of the House might remember with great profit. I wish, for myself and all my colleagues, to let the family know what great sympathy we have with them in their irreparable loss.
§ 2.44 p.m.
LORD REAMy Lords, I should like to associate noble Lords on these Benches with what has been said both by the noble Earl the Leader of the House and the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition. As the noble Earl, Lord Home, reminded us, twice within a month death has deprived your Lordships' House of a figure known, respected and well-liked in every quarter of this Chamber. As I was unfortunately unable to be in my place when tributes were paid to the late Lord Fortescue, I should like now, belatedly, shortly but with deep sincerity, to add my expression of great sorrow at his untimely death. Tim Fortescue was to me a political foe, a Parliamentary colleague and a personal friend, and I shall greatly miss him.
Now we mourn Lord Bledisloe. Lord Bledisloe, in the fullness of his years, was of another generation; but he, too, commanded affection for his friendly manner and courtesy, and admiration for 678 his singleness of mind and his complete absence of all insincerity. I feel some trepidation in rising to pay tribute to a figure whose valuable public work in the service of his country had honourably ceased before I and many other Members entered this House, and who had been an eminent colleague of my grandfather and my father in another place. But the companionship of this Upper Chamber knows no barrier, either of years or of personal importance. I think it is rather interesting that, although there is no upper age limit in this House, the most senior of our Members seem never to speak when they have little of interest to say, but always hold our attention when they do address the House. Such a one, very notably, was Lord Bledisloe. Quite apart from his great experience and his outstanding career, he had a really lovable personality; and his death is a loss to us all.
§ 2.46 p.m.
§ LORD FREYBERGMy Lords, I wish to associate myself to the full with everything that has been said by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. The death of Charles Bledisloe did not come as a surprise. We who saw him regularly marvelled at his endurance. He had good robust health to the end of a long and very useful life. Those of us who were privileged to know Lord Bledisloe knew him as a very religious man, of iron determination. Even when he was obviously reaching the end of his endurance, he would not let up. He came up to London regularly twice a month to attend his board meetings, and he came regularly to your Lordships' House, where he was a constant attender and speaker. On his ninetieth birthday, or round about his ninetieth birthday, he spoke impromptu in the debate in your Lordships' House on agriculture, upon which he was a great authority.
Lord Bledisloe had lived a very full life. In 1910 he contested, and held, a farming constituency in South Wiltshire, which he represented with distinction for eight years. When he was promoted to your Lordships' House in 1918 he held a number of agricultural appointments. In 1930 he went out to New Zealand as their Governor General and Commander-in-Chief, where he stayed for his full period of five years. Lord Bledisloe will be 679 remembered by a large circle of friends; and he will be especially remembered by those who served with him in New Zealand, by his colleagues in your Lordships' House and in the City of London and by the farming community, at home and abroad.
In later years Lord Bledisloe became less mobile, and he depended upon his much-loved wife, Elaine, whose recent death was a great sadness to him and clouded the last year of his life. He and his wife will be remembered with deep affection in New Zealand, where he was a most popular and successful Governor General. I am glad that they revisited New Zealand during my term of office. Lord and Lady Bledisloe were given a warm welcome by all their old friends. He will be remembered in New Zealand, where his contribution to the cause of agriculture will not be forgotten. He will also be remembered with affection by the Maori people. His generous and imaginative action in purchasing the Waitangi Treaty House and a large area of surrounding country was an inspired act: by his action he secured the place where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the Maoris and the British in 1840, and he gave this lovely place, of great historical value and beauty, as a National Park for the people of New Zealand for all time.
I feel that I cannot do better to-day than read to your Lordships two quotations from New Zealand during the last week. The first says:
The Minister of Forests and Associate Minister of Maori Affairs, Mr. Eruera Tirikateni, who is himself a Maori, paid tribute in the House of Representatives to the late Lord Bledisloe. He said the Maori people mourned the loss of a good friend. His gift of the Waitangi estate to the nation had been a contribution to the unity of the Maori and European races.Then the Prime Minister, the right honourable Walter Nash, used these words:The world is a better place because Lord Bledisloe lived. In popular estimation and esteem he ranked as one of the great Governors-General of New Zealand, and his 680 work did not end when his vice-regal term expired in 1935. He remained the friend, counsellor and champion of his adopted people and his adopted land.
§ 2.50 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF HALIFAXMy Lords, as one who can perhaps claim the title of being the oldest of Lord Bledisloe's colleagues in this House and in another place, and one who served with him in office, I should like to add a word to what has been so well said by my predecessors. I suppose the force of Lord Bledisloe's life consisted in the fact that the pattern of it was of a complete consistency—at his home, in this House and, as my noble and gallant friend has just said, in New Zealand. I remember more than forty years ago being his guest at Lydney, for the Royal Show at Cardiff. I can remember the entertaining pride with which Lord Bledisloe pointed to the fact that almost everything we ate and drank had been home-grown at Lydney. And it was all very good.
Throughout his life he was concerned with the preaching of better farming, and with the insistence on the necessity of informed partnership in the achievement of better farming. It was that which led him, with the grandfather of my noble friend Lord Onslow, many years ago, to found the Country Landowners' Association, or, as it used to be called, the Central Landowners' Association, with which my noble friend Lord Waldegrave will no doubt have much to do in these modern days. In addition to what the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, said about Lord Bledisloe's contribution to the side of farming concerned with dairying, I would say that perhaps the greatest contribution he made to farming was his preaching of the value of grassland as a crop: that it was not less important than any other. It is on that ground that we owe a great deal to him. For that, and for many other reasons, I think the record of his life will remain with all who have known him, loved him and respected him for great instruction and great example.