Excerpt from The Dublin Review, Vol. 150: Quarterly Nos 300, 301; January April 1912 Mr Balfour has retired from the leadership of the Unionist party, and anunced the fact to a meeting of his constituents in an address of singular dignity. It was an address eminently characteristic of the man, exhibiting as it did his delicate perception of the requirements of a very difficult and complicated situation, and certain qualities which have given him his great ascendancy in the House of Commons and have won for him so strong a personal devotion from very many followers. The newspapers have since his retirement so indiscriminately compared him with William Pitt - a comparison open to the most obvious exceptions - that one hesitates to strike a te which has been exaggerated to the point of entire falseness. But in two respects, and as a man rather than a statesman, Balfour does resemble Pitt - in a certain exclusiveness connected with his fastidious temperament and in his power of winning devotion from others. His attractive personality is represented very vividly in these touching words of farewell. The whole country has naturally been greatly moved by Mr Balfour's resignation, though it was t altogether unexpected. And the European press has also shown marked interest in the retirement from the leadership of one who is in some respects our greatest living statesman. These onlookers at a distance have been unhampered in their view of the situation by the quite unusually complex details which have been pressed on the attention of those who are at closer quarters with it. And perhaps to some extent we in England can for the moment hardly see the wood for the trees. Distance in place has some of the effect of distance in time, and may help to give the perspective needed for true history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
