[_Crow7i Copyright Beserved 



ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW. 



BULLETIN 



OF 



MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION 



No. 



[1914* 



XLIIL- JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN— IN MEMORIAM. 



F 



Amongst the tributes of memory called out by the passing oi 

 the great statesman Kew cannot be silent. For it owed to him, 

 as to no other of our time, stimulus, encouragement and support* 

 In his beautiful home at Highbury he found recreation in his 

 garden from the labours of a strenuous political life. It was not 

 the mere indulgence of a man of means ; as with everything else 

 it bore the impress of his own personality and practical ingenuity. 

 An extensive range of glass was incorporated with the house; no 

 outside pilgrimage was needed to visit it. An ample winter 

 garden was a pleasant meeting ground for the family and its 

 guests. Out of this opened a corridor with houses on either hand. 

 A button by the side of each plate-glass door illuminated at night 

 with electric light the interior display. These may seem trivial 

 details : they are not so ; they brought Mr. Chamberlain^s 

 favourite pursuits into the intimacy of his life. He took no 

 exercise, nor did he find distraction in sports or games. Yet it 

 was a fundamental principle with him that every man, however 

 absorbed in the main pursuit in life, should find a hobby in some- 

 thing wholly remote from it. The physiological implication is 

 sound; for distraction is rest, though not somnolent. Far from 

 it: Mr, Chamberlain knew his plants; their origin and history 

 were recorded in his garden books with his own hands Tt may 

 seem a paradox ; but the man who could hold a vast meeting spell- 

 bound was perhaps not less happy amongst his plants in a garden 

 apron with a short pipe. Yet the secret is the same ; he was above 

 all things human. There have been statesmen in the past whose 

 humanity needed some palliation. 



It has been well said that the principle which animated Mr. 

 Chamberlain^s public life was desire for the welfare of the people, 

 the nation and the race. As he passed from one field of activity 

 to another that principle simply took a wider scope. In a wholly 

 unofficial way it influenced his interest in Ke;; . To him, apart 

 from its scientific aspects, it was the national garden. He was 

 jealous that it should be up to the high-water mark of horti- 

 cultural enterprise. But this requires now and again a generous 

 expenditure possible to a possessor of private means, but not to a 



(3401.) Wt. 225-595. 1,125. 9/14. J,T.&S. QAi. 



