LAST APPEARANCES OF FAMOUS STATESMEN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 41, 28 May 1910, Page 9

LAST APPEARANCES OF FAMOUS STATESMEN

When, some time ago. Mr. Chamberlain entered the House of Commons from .behind the Speaker's chair, and, supported on each side, made his feeble way to the Clerk's table to take the Parliamentary oath, it must have oc-<-."-'«d to many of the silent and awed spectau-r,? of this dramatic scene that the great, giadiator of the past was taking his last iook at. the arena in which for so many years he had been the doughtiest fishier.

Just sixteen years earlier a still greater statesman had said farewell to the Chamber, of which he had for more than sixty years been such a distinguished ornament. Air. Gladstone had made his last speech, in a voice as ringing and •with a passion as intense as in the davs of his youth. The Speaker had left the chair; and as the veteran was making his way out of the House for the las"t time, he stood for a moment beneath the Speaker's chair, gave one swift, comprehensive glance of those eagle eyes of his around the scene of so many triumpns, and then, squaring his shoulders, strode igrimly and resolutely out of the Chamber. DIS'RAE LI'S FAREWELL. Thirteen years earlier Gladstone's great rival, Disraeli, made his last bow on the political stage of the House ot Lords, at the close of a speech against the evacuation of Kandahar by the British troops. Broken man as* he was, there was no trace of weakness or faltering in this farewell effort of oratory. There was much of the old fire and the picturesque eloquence of his prime. "The key of India is in London," he concluded. "The majesty of Sovereignty, the spirit and vigor of your Parliaments, the inexhaustible resources of a free, an ingenious, and a determined people—these are the keys of India." And as the old statesman resumed his seat, the Peers burst into one of those rare rounds of applause which showed that they had been strangely moved. Six weeks later the great voice was stilled in death.

The farewell words of the "great Earl of Derby," in the House of Lords on June 17th, 18(10, were among the most eloquent and impressive the "Rupert of Debate'' ever delivered. "My Lords," 'he said, in his peroration, "I am now an old man, and, like many of your Lordships, I have now passed the three score years and ten. My official life is entirely closed, my political life is nearly so, and in the course of nature my natural «fc cannot now be long." In the following October the curtain had been rung down on the last scene of all.

"OLD PAM'S" HUMOR. Palmerston's farewell speech was delivered on May 23w, 1805, in the sixteenth' Parliament' in wliieh he had sat. it was a speech of considerable humor, ingenuity. 'Mi' "liliery on the leakage of Cabinet secrets; and .probably none who enjoyed the Grcnd Old Man's (leucine .humor '(he was =o at that time), fi;:i of effervescence of youth, dreamed that the House would never hear his voice again. C-obden's last Avonls in the Commons, delivered on July 22nd, 18(14, were nn eloquent condemnation of the extension of Government manufactures and concluded thus: ''Our fortunes as'a Government and nation and indissolublv united, and we will rise or fall, nourish or fade together, according to the energy, enterprise, and ability of the great "body of the manufacturing and industrial community."

PEEL'S FATAL RIDE. When Peel rose to speak in the Commons at one o'clock on .Saturday morning, June 28th, 1850, those who'listened to his eloquent condemnation of Palmerston's foreign policy would have been ■horrified if they 'had known that the stately presence would be merged in death within four days. After the speech Peel went for his usual ride in Hvde 'Park; on Constitution Hill he was thrown violently from his horse, and on the following Tuesday night he drew his la.st breath.

Spencer Perceval's famwi' -,'ieech was made three days before he >w.i, ' -itally murdered, in the Lobby of the Hoi,, . by the madman, Bellingnam; and O'Connell's was "a muttering before a table"— a pitiful travesty of the giant whose superb eloquence' and rollicking humor had. in past years, made the Commons shake with applause or rock with lauo-h----ter. ° AX ELOQUENT EXIT.

But no statesman has made such a dramatic and tragic last appearance in Parliament as that of the great Earl of Chatham, who was carried to the House of Lords from his death-bed, haggard and emaciated, and wrapped in flannels. As he spoke, he leant heavily on his crutch. '1 am an old man," he said, feebly and pantingly. "I have one foot —more than one foot in the grave. 1 taive risen from my -bed to stand up in the cause of my country, perhaps never again to speak in this House."

After a few more painful, disjointed ■words he fell back on his seat, apparently dying, and was carried out of the Chamber.