SIR MOITNTSTUART GRANT DUFF.
[To THE ED/TOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sia,—May I say, with reference to your sympathetic paragraph on the late Sir M. E. Grant Duff in last week's Spectator, that he was hardly so completely cut off from all participation in the Home-rule controversy as it seems to imply ? His tenure of office as Governor of Madras expired before the end of 1886, and he returned the following spring to find his greatest friends almost equally ranged on opposing sides. Had he been able to join Mr. Gladstone's party, an opportunity would doubtless have presented itself of returning to public life; but his high-minded purity of aim never allowed him to waver from the Unionist side. No mention of Sir Monntstuart Grant Duff at this time seems quite complete without some notice being taken of his ardent Free-trade principles, which were implanted in him before Free-trade was the accepted creed of most educated politicians, and only grew stronger with his intimate knowledge of foreign countries. With the tolerance of old age, he regarded the sad retrogression of some of his friends in this respect more with pity than anger, but he had no doubt in his own mind as to what he considered to be the danger to the Empire. He wrote in 1903 to a friend:—" These strange ideas, if not successfully resisted, may well prove to be the beginning of the end." Others of course there have been, but not very many, who have given all their best years to the service of the public for so little reward, nor who, living in the very midst of "the world" have preserved throughout a long life such a singularly unworldly spirit.-1 am, Sir, Sm.,
AN OLD FRIEND.
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