Review oj Reviews, 1/10/li 



LEADING ARTICLES. 



799 



can say of him that his name was writ in 

 water, unless it be the water of tears. So he 

 goes, gracious, smiling, young immortally — 

 the Beloved. 



BALFOUR AS DEBATER. 



In the Nineteenth Century Mr. Stephen 

 Gwynn writes in praise of " Mr. Balfour 

 and the House of Commons " : — 



But Mr. Balfour never has lost touch, and 

 never will lose touch, with the House of 

 Commons. His hold on it, his appeal to it, 

 has become immensely stronger by becoming 

 more general. He does it service which no 

 one else can render; I could not imagine him 

 elsewhere; and that is odd and significant, 

 bfcause no one could be in temper and equip- 

 ment more unlike the ordinary House of 

 Commons partisan. 



But this academic swordsman delights in 

 the noise of battle; he loves to use his rapier 

 in a tumult; himself so unperturbed, so in- 

 capable of excess (though by no means in- 

 capable of anger), the cheering ; the bursts of 

 loud laughter (even when it is stupid), all 

 have an evident exhilaration for him. Other 

 people may find themselves happier anions 

 the discreet reticences of the hereditary 

 Chamber, but never, I think, Mr. Balfour. 

 He would be wasted on it. The House of 

 Lords suits excellently for the set perform- 

 ances of men like Lord Rosebery or Lord 

 Curzon, admirable speakers, but, not to voice 

 it profanely, a trifle pontifical. I do not see 

 them conducting an argument or an appeal 

 through the running fire of question and in- 

 terruption, applause and dissent, which only 

 brace and quicken the supple play of Mr. 

 Balfour's intelligence. 



MR. BRYAN'S LIMITATIONS. 



Sydney B/ooks contributes " An Eng- 

 lish View of Mr. Bryan " to the North 

 American Review. The writer examines 

 Mr. Bryan's claim to the leadership of 

 men, and savs : — 



Hearty, affable, sincere, a genuine demo- 

 crat, deeply religious, of an ardent and aspir- 

 ing temperament, and not offensively vain, I 

 do not wonder at his immense popularity. 

 Put Gladstone's or O'Connell's tongue into 

 the head of the average Sunday school teacher, 

 and you not only get Mr. Bryan, but you 

 get a mixture that always and everywhere 

 appeals to the taste of the masses. 



But more than this i.s needed to make a 

 man a statesman. 



Mr. Brooks is evidently concerned at 

 the selection of this "well-meaning 

 champion of conciliation " for the high 

 office of Secretary of State, and outlines 

 the possibilities of his policy : 



One's instinct is to think that so long a.s 

 Mr. Bryan retains his present office there will 



be little talk of American intervention in 

 Mexico ; that the American protectorate over 

 Cuba will be lightly exercised ; that steps of 

 some sort will be taken to procure or to 

 promise self-government for the Filipinos 

 under an international guarantee of neu- 

 trality; that the "dollar diplomacy" asso- 

 ciated with the recent Republican regime 

 will be abandoned, that the Monroe Doctrine 

 will be again restricted to a purely passive 

 and defensive role; that the United States 

 will gradually withdraw from the politioo- 

 commercial "adventures" in the Far East; 

 and that the spurt in European armaments 

 will not be allowed to influence American pre- 

 parations for defence. 



" ROCHEFORT THE LURID." 



John F. Macdonald contributes a few 

 kindly notes in the Contemporary on 

 that strange soul, the indomitable Henri 

 Rochefort : — 



The fact is, Rochefort was a mass of con- 

 tradictions, an imp of perversity; at once 

 brutal and humane, gentle and bloodthirsty, 

 simple and vain; the most chaotic Frenchman 

 that ever died. Search his autobiograp iv, in 

 three portly volumes; not once do you find 

 him resting, smiling, o: reflecting — it is all 

 thunder and lightning, an everlasting storm. 

 Exile — duels — fines and imprisonment — wild 

 delirious attacks upon the Government of the 

 day. No one escaped; for fifty years, in the 

 columns of the Figaro, and Lanterne, the 

 Intransigeant. and finally in the Patrie, 

 Rochefort pursued Presidents and politicians 

 with his unique, extravagant vocabulary. 



The writer epitomises the last hour-, 

 of the old irreconcilable : — 



The month of June, 1912. Rochefort's 

 daily article in the Patrie missing; and again 

 missing the next day, and the day after that 

 — the first time octogenarian Rochefort has 

 " missed " his daily lurid article for fifty- 

 two years. 



On the fourth day, there appears in the 

 Patrie the following intimation: "I shall 

 soon reach my eighty-second year; and it is 

 now half a century since T have worked with- 

 out a rest, even in prison or in exile, at the 

 hard trade of journalist, which is the first and 

 the most noble of all professions — when it is not. 

 the lowest. 1 think I have earned the right 

 to a rest. But it will only be a short one. 

 My old teeth can still bite." 



Tlie 30th June, 1913. Day of Rochefort's 

 funeral. All Paris lining the boulevards and 

 streets as the cortege, half a mile long, passi S 

 by. A crowd of all kinds and conditions of 

 Parisians. Here's M. Tunes, " the decayed 

 turnip." There's M. Clemenceau, " the 

 loathsome leper." Over there, M. Briand, 

 "the moulting vulture." And their heads 

 are uncovered; there's not the Faintesi resent- 

 meiii in their minds; as the remains of lurid 

 vet kindly old Rochefort are borne away 

 round the corner under a magnificent purple 

 pall. 



