A STATESMAN PASSES.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17974, 20 March 1930, Page 4

A STATESMAN PASSES.

With the death of Earl Balfour the last of the great Victorian Statesmen disappears. Ever since Arthur James Balfour went down from Cambridge, ranged himself with the Conservatives, and was elected member for Hertford in the distant seventies, he has been a political enigma. True, his early association with the 'Foreign Office, and his uncle, the late Lord Salisbury, had been the stepping-stone to a long and distinguished public career, but as Mr Ramsay MacDonald, probably his greatest political opponent, said of him, “He justified his fortune." Ills courage, his resource, his vision and strength of -character placed him head and shoulders above the clamant, politician and marked him as one of the greatest assets his country possessed. Whether it was his grip on the Irish situation when the Home Rulers were causing the deepest unrest in the Empire; his stand with the historic Crimes Bill of 1887; his philosophical pre-eminence; his healing influence in Palestine, or his concrete work for peace and the settlement of allied debts, Earl Balfour brought to bear on each particular problem the best and most noble qualities of statesmanship. In ids later years all parties had recognised his value as a mentor and a teacher, and his policy was rarely criticised. The name “Balfour" has always been a by-word in current history. The memory of iL, and of the roan, will never die. It will be indissolubly linked with those other great representatives of an age of Empire-builders and nation moulders —Salisbury, Gladstone, Curzon, Asquith and Rosebery.