. MR. E. S. MONTAGU .
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]'
SIR,—The news of Edwin Montagu's untimely death, at the age 'of 46, must have come to all his friends, and to many others alSo who knew hirii only as a politician, with a 'shock of peculiar sadness. For he was a very remarkable man ;
of high ambition and unusual political gifts: Amongst all those who entered Parliament with him in 1906 he was perhaps' the most considerablethe most surely destined. you Would • have said, if he had had his fair share of life and good fortune, to achieve an enduring fame. ;Snell faine, indeed, in some measure he has already got ; in India; at least, he will always be remembered by his greatscheme off-reform ; but how little compared to what seemed at one time his " promise " and deserts !- There was; somehow, a touch of genius about him.' He had high courage and generosity. NO man was more completely free from petty jealousy or intrigue. His • power of work , was extraordinary. At his best he was extremely eloquent. I still -rerrietriber with 'admiration' and delight some of the speeches I heard hini Make, especially his first speech on the Indian Budget. His defects, such as they Were, were not so much defects of mind or character; • as Of temper. He had a curious constitutional 'incIanehcily which repelled many people ; though at times he was the gayest and most charming of companions. Perhaps he was too ambitious, though it was an ambition of a noble kind ; and his dismissal from office for a comparatively small indiscretion—now obscure and forgotten—at the moment when he was engaged upon the best and most difficult work of his life came as a cruel blow to him. Not since the times of. Lord William Bentinck has India had a truer, or, I should say, . a more far-sighted friend.—I am, Sir, &c.,
PHILIP MORRELL.
Previous page
