ch. xiii "ST. LUBBOCK'S DAY" 113 



eminently successful in the ordinary conduct of 

 the banking business which came to him as a 

 heritage, but carried through many reforms and 

 exercised a preponderant influence in such large 

 and important operations as those undertaken 

 by the Council of Foreign Bondholders — to name 

 but one of many instances. The point, however, 

 to which I would draw attention, and for the 

 sake of which I have given the above quotation, 

 is contained in its final clause and in the absolutely 

 just statement that he was " one of the most 

 successful law makers in the recent history of 

 Parliament." As the writer says, this is one of 

 the aspects of his very various achievement 

 which has not been realised as it should be. 



Partly it is on account of the diversity of 

 his gifts and activities that his success as a 

 passer of laws has not been gauged at its true 

 rate, but also, in perhaps larger measure, because 

 party politics never made a really keen appeal 

 to him. He was deeply interested in measures 

 which he considered useful for the social economy, 

 but except as it affected the passage of these 

 Bills through Parliament, he was seldom pro- 

 foundly troubled whether the party to which he 

 lent his adherence, or its political opponents, 

 happened to be in power. When Mr. Gladstone's 

 Home Rule proposals divided the Liberal Party 

 it became incumbent on him to define his line, 

 but that decision does not invalidate the truth 

 of the above statement. 



This singular success as law-maker, as passer 

 of measures through the House, we may ascribe 

 to three special qualities of his mind and character 



VOL. I I 



