GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF SOUTH AFRICA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10006, 31 March 1910, Page 7

GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF SOUTH AFRICA.

"We have found bim a good son; I think his sisters and brothers havefound him a good brother, and you have found him a good friend and neighbour." Such was the tribute which Mr vV. E. Gladstone bore to his youngest son Herbert when he respondedto the enthusiastic welcome given by the villagers of Hawarden to the newly-returned M.P. for Leeds in 1880.' Since then he has proved himself a good husband and a good father, a good member of Parliament, and a-good Minister of State. There is t erefore every reason for t confident expectation that South 'Africa him a good GovernorGeneral r Herbert Gladstone has from his ; youth up been remarkable for discharging the duties of whatever position in which he found himself with regularity and efficiency. He is not a pyrotechnic genius. He has never burnt his fingers by trying to set the Thames on fire. He has been preeminently a steady going, useful, trustworthy member of the community. As he was at Etun, so he has been at the Home Office, and so it may safely be predicted he will be in South Africa. He has always been the perfection of ordinary,; practical good sense. He has never allowed the fame of his father to lure, bim into ambitious attempts to emulate the striae of the G.'O.M. He has never roused the country to enthusiasm by his eloquence, ,~he has not enthralled the House of Commons by skill in debate. Of a modest and reriring dispositiq ; , he has never figured conspicuously in the imeligbt so dear- to some of his colleagues. But he has never failed in any of the many positions which he has occupied to give satisfaction to his superiors, to inspire confidence in his subordinates.and to leave behind him a good/record of honest work ■faithfully performed. He is not a circus statesman, as tord Charles Beresford is a circus admiral. He is loyalito his colleagues, and more anxious>.to do. good work tnan to claim the credit for doirig it.—From a Character Sketch of Mr Herbert Gladstone in the "Review of. Reviews" for January.