ALFRED LYTTELTON.
WHEN a statesman dies before he has reached the allotted span of life, men speak of the blow to the country, regret work unfinished, or deplore the absence of a stalwart fighter, but save to his friends and family the loss is not poignant. Others, perhaps of lesser quality, but of the same type, are ready to take his place in the ranks. But the death of Alfred Lyttelton in the very prime of his strength deprives the world of a figure so rare and well-beloved that whole masses of men who never knew him feel the loss as a personal bereavement. He touched life at so many points that his mourners to-day are to be found in every class and occupation. In spite of prudential maxims to the contrary, Englishmen love versatility. They love to see a man do many things gracefully and well. They cannot rid themselves of a feeling that one -who is a great sportsman must have gifts of courage and humanity denied to the pedant, and though they may give their political allegiance elsewhere, they will have a kindly feeling for a statesman who has approved himself in things more dear than statesmanship to the heart of the natural man. In an age of specializa- tion they will applaud those who have the fortitude to run counter to the fashion. The good fairies at his birth gave Alfred Lyttelton every gift of body and spirit—physical strength and grace, an excellent brain, the sweetest of tempers and the warmest of hearts, a high courage, an undying opti-
mism, a delight in all honest and simple things. He put the gifts out to usury and nobly multiplied them. He was always, as the phrase goes, "in training," both in mind and body, so that he became to many of us the type of what, by the grace of God, the English gentleman at his best may attain to.
The Prime Minister, with his unique felicity, gave expression to this feeling last Monday in the House of Commons when he said that "perhaps of all men of this generation he came nearest to that mould and ideal of manhood which every English father would like to see his son aspire to."
To Etonians his name has long been one to conjure with, for no one ever won such amazing triumphs. He was the complete athlete, easily master of every game he took up, and such an one at school and at the University is a sort of demigod. To recapitulate his exploits makes the head dizzy. He captained the Eton and Cambridge cricket elevens; for England he played cricket against Australia, and Association football against Scotland; he had five "blues" at Cambridge. On going down from the University he won fame as a tennis player, and was twelve times amateur champion. No amateur player has ever reached his perfection in all parts of that great game.
As he grew older and ordinary ball games had to be left behind, he took up golf enthusiastically, though he came to it too late to reach the highest kind of skill. He was a first- class shot, both with gun and rifle, and an untiring tramper of the hills. But far more important than his actual achieve- ments was the spirit he brought to his sports. The great athlete may be a selfish, bumptious fellow, and he very frequently is a bore. Alfred Lyttelton played games with all the zest in the world, but for him they fell into their proper place in the scheme of things. He learned from them that
camaraderie and loyalty and good temper which is the essence of true sportsmanship. And they made a background, too,
from which in the intervals of drearier business he drew refreshment and new energy. The boy that dies young in most of us was immortal in him. Who can forget the ardour with which he contemplated a day's stalking or grouse- driving, his never-failing "keenness" in any adventure ? Only the other day, on his return from East Africa, he described to his friends the shooting of a fine lioness—with a small-bore rifle—with all a boy's delight in a risky escapade. For a famous University athlete to descend into the obscurity of professional life is often a trying experience, but his interests were far too wide and his spirit too high to give occasion for regrets. He began work at the Bar under fortunate auspices, for he acted for some years as legal private secretary to Sir Henry James, then Attorney-General, who to the end was one of his closest friends, and whose biography he had recently undertaken. His first big success was made at the Parlia- mentary Bar, which he abandoned when he entered Parliament in 3895. Thereafter he had begun to build up a good common- law practice, more especially in arbitrations, but his acceptance of office in 1903 removed him from the main line of professional advance. He was a capable advocate, with a gift of lucid exposition and a strong good-sense, the effect of which was
heightened by the charm of his personality. But for such a
man politics offered a more tempting career, and from 1895 onward he devoted much of his time to Parliament. His athletic reputation was probably rather a hindrance at the start, for it gave the stupider kind of opponent the chance to suggest that the honourable member might be more at home in the cricket field. He had none of the natural gifts of the orator, and, indeed, to the end eschewed what is ordinarily called eloquence, preferring persuasion and
argument to rhetoric. Being the most modest of men, he set himself humbly to learn his business, and soon succeeded in
winning the ear of the House, and a wide popularity besides among men of all parties. In 1900 he went to South Africa as Chairman of the Concessions Commission, and those who have had to study his report will not soon forget its admirable sanity and the humour which brightens many passages. In 1903, when Mr. Chamberlain retired from the Colonial Office and Lord Milner declined the appointment, he was offered the post by Mr. Balfour. It was a rapid rise for a man who had never held office before, and the Colonial Office at that time was the storm-centre of politics. Few will deny that Alfred Lyttelton justified his choice. He manfully faced the heavy task of South African reconstruction and the popular odium of the Chinese Labour experiment, and he gave to the sorely tried High Commissioner the loyal and unfaltering support which is due by the Imperial Government to its emissaries abroad. He dealt with the vexed question of self-govern- ment in the Transvaal by granting what is known as the " Lyttelton Constitution," a system of representative institu- tions which fell short of full responsible government. It was intended as a step towards autonomy, a temporary measure to bridge the transition from Crown colony government. The system never came into force, owing to the fall of Mr. Balfour from power, but in other departments of Imperial politics Alfred Lyttelton did lasting work. His famous despatch of April 20th, 1905, suggesting the development of the Colonial Conference into an Imperial Council, has provided in effect the basis for recent develop- ments of our common Imperial machinery, and his work in connexion with the tropical dependencies, more especially West Africa, has been adopted and amplified by his suc- cessors.
He had to face some stormy scenes during his term of office, and on one occasion for more than an hour he addressed an Opposition which had made up its mind to shout him down. But the rough-and-tumble of politics neither soured nor narrowed him. He was a good fighter, firmly convinced of the justice of his cause, but he never believed that to dissent from him in opinion involved the lunacy or the moral obliquity of the dissenter. No man showed less bitteimess in party warfare. He was no mugwump, and the integrity of the Union and the Church had no stouter defender, but be could recognize the honesty of an opponent, and he never allowed public enmity to sever private friend- ships. Mr. Asquith on Monday could speak of a friendship of thirty-three years, "which no political differences were ever allowed to loosen or even to affect." He had begun life on the other side, and he used to say that the most terrify- ing moment of his career was when he had to tell Mr. Gladstone that he could not follow him on Home Rule. His mind was of the Whig cast, warmed and broadened by the early influence of Maurice and Ruskin. From the beginning of his life in London he interested himself in social work, and took a foremost part in those practical schemes of reform which are still, happily, outside the blighting sphere of party propaganda. Town-planning, the co-operative movement, the prevention of sweating—no honest cause was denied his interest and support. His friends and colleagues were in all parties, for he cared little for the political game and much for his country.
He did all things well, many things brilliantly, but he was bigger than what he did. That is the tragedy of his loss. Others may take up his tasks, but such a personality comes not again He was of the tribe of the Sons of Consolation, always busy helping lame dogs over stiles, ever ready with advice and help, giving of his rich humanity to needy and shivering souls. His enthusiasm warmed the world for his friends, and it is a grayer and poorer place since he has gone. It will not be easy to forget the cheery greeting which was almost a caress, the infectious laugh, the whole impression as of a being extraordinarily good and happy and wise. He was the loyalest of friends and the best of companions. The charm of his talk would be bard to exaggerate, for there was never a. falsetto note. He would debate keenly, for he loved an argu- ment., and he had an endless fund of good stories and happy reminiscences, which he would reproduce with perfect imita- tions of voice and manner. And over all there was a kind of glow, that intimate and inexplicable charm which comes not from the head but from the heart. His friends will cherish the memory of the long, loose, manly figure, the eager face, thejudicial pent-house brows beneath which twinkled his boyish eyes. No kinder eyes have ever been sealed by the dust of death. It is some small consolation to reflect that these splendid powers of his suffered no decay. He died young in the truest sense, carrying to the grave untarnished and unimpaired the honour and ardour and hope of his youth. For him the best epitaph is to be found in the words of one who also died in the plenitude of his strength.—" Death has not been suffered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel is scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trailing with him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the spiritual land."
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