MR. ASQUITH.
Whilst all the new Ministers have been successes, the Home Secretary, by reason of the importance of his office and force of character, has done supremely well. This must be peculiarly grateful to Mr. Gladstone, since the member for Fife was his own especial find. That when a Liberal Ministry was formed some office would be allotted to Mr. Asquith was a conclusion commonly come to by those familiar with his career in the last Parliament. But I will undertake to say that his appointment at a single bound to the Home Secretaryship, with a seat in the Cabinet, was a surprise to everyone, not excepting Mr. Asquith, who is accustomed to form a very just estimation of his own capacity. The Solicitor-Generalship appeared to most people who gave thought to the subject the natural start on his official career of a young lawyer who had shown the aptitude for Parliamentary life displayed by Mr. Asquith. Mr. Gladstone knew better, and his prescience has been abundantly confirmed.
Next to the post of Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, that of Home Secretary is by far the most difficult successfully to fill. Proof of this will appear upon review of the measure of success obtained by incumbents of the office since the time of Mr. Walpole. The reason for the pre-eminence and predicament is not far to seek. The Colonial Secretary has distant communities to deal with, and so has the Secretary of State for India. The Minister for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty each has his labour and responsibility confined within clearly marked limits. So it is with the Postmaster-General, the First Commissioner of Works, and, in less degree, with the President of the Board of Trade and the President of the Local Government Board. The Home Secretary has all England for his domain, with occasional erratic excursions into Scotland.
There is hardly any point of the daily life of an Englishman which is not linked with the Home Office, and does not open some conduit of complaint. Before he had been twelve months in office Mr. Asquith was hung in effigy in Trafalgar Square. That, it is true, was a momentary exuberance on the part of the Anarchists. The incident leaves unchallenged the assertion that there has been no serious or well-sustained protest against Mr. Asquith's administration at the Home Office since he succeeded Mr. Matthews. Comparisons are undesirable. But the mere mention of the name of Mr. Asquith's predecessor reminds us that the case was not always thus.
In his Parliamentary career Mr. Asquith's success has been equally un-chequered. It was a common saying among people indisposed to hamper novices by unwieldy weight of encouragement, that when Mr. Asquith was placed in a position where he would have to bear the brunt of debate, he would certainly break down. This cheerful prognostication was based upon the assertion that the speeches that had established his fame in the House of Commons were carefully prepared, written out, and, if not learned off by rote, the speaker was sustained in their delivery by the assistance of copious notes. This assertion was so confidently made, and appeared to be so far supported by a certain precision of epigram in the young member's Parliamentary style, that the theory obtained wide acceptance.
Everyone now admits that the Home Secretary, occasionally drawn into debate for which he has had no opportunity for preparation at his desk, has spoken much more effectively than Mr. Asquith was wont to do. He has the great gifts of simplicity of style, lucidity of arrangement, and a fearless way of selecting a word that conveys his meaning, even though it may sound a little harsh. To this is added a determined, not to say belligerent, manner, which implies that he is not in any circumstances to be drawn a hair's-breadth beyond the line which duty, conscience, and conviction have laid down for him and that if anyone tries to force him aside he will probably get hurt. This is an excellent foundation on which a Home Secretary may stand to combat all the influences of passion and prejudice that are daily and hourly brought to bear upon him.
Of its general effect a striking and amusing illustration was forthcoming in the closing days of the winter Session. During Mr. Morley's temporary withdrawal on account of illness, Mr. Asquith undertook to take his place at question time in the House of Commons. For a night or two he read the answers to questions put by Irish members, and then Mr. Morley's absence promising to be more protracted than was at first thought probable, the Chancellor of the Duchy, a Minister with fuller leisure, relieved the Home Secretary of the task. Thereupon a story was put abroad that Mr. Asquith had been superseded upon the demand of the Irish members, who had privily conveyed to Mr. Gladstone a peremptory intimation that they could not stand the kind of answers Mr. Asquith chucked at them across the floor of the House. It was added that the appearance on the scene of Mr. Bryce averted an awkward crisis, the Irish members making haste to declare their perfect satisfaction with his replies, and their rejoicing at deliverance from Mr. Asquith's hectoring.
PROFESSOR BRYCE.
Then it turned out that the answers given through the course of the week in question had been neither Mr. Asquith's nor Mr. Bryce's. Each one had been written out by Mr. John Morley. Only, on two nights Mr. Asquith had read the manuscript, and on two others the task had been discharged by Mr. Bryce. Thus do manners make the man.