BRITISH EMPIRE: Death of Morley

Viscount Morley of Blackburn, better known as John Morley, the philosopher-statesman friend of Gladstone, died last week at the age of 84 from heart failure.

Morley’s chief fame rests on a literary basis. Educated at Cheltenham College and Lincoln College, Oxford, he became a professed Liberal in politics, a die-hard Conservative in his writings. His volumes on Voltaire and Rousseau are typical examples of this literary conservatism. In these books he is nothing if not thorough, he scrupulously avoids equivocation but he deals only in the straight and narrow paths of inquiry. Probably his chef d’oeuvre is the remarkable biography of Gladstone, Life of Gladstone.

His political career started in 1883 when he was elected to Parliament on a bye-election for Newcastle-on-Tyne. He held several Cabinet posts: Chief Secretary of Ireland twice, 1886, 1892-5; Secretary of State for India, 1905-10; Lord President of the Privy Council, 1910-14. He resigned the last named post at the outbreak of the War, because, although a Liberal, he was in reality a reactionary at heart. In his Recollections he said: “The War and our action in it led to my retirement from public office. The world is traveling under formidable omens into a new era, very unlike the times in which my lot was cast. . . .”The reactionary propensity was brought out in his earlier years when he opposed the eight-hour day for labor—an attitude which cost him his seat in Parliament for Newcastle. From 1896 to 1908 he represented Montrose Burghs. Then came the triumph of his conservative soul: he was elevated to the Peerage as Viscount Morley of Blackburn. Other Liberals have become Peers, but Lord Morley had been previously opposed to the power of the Lords; it was an institution which should be ” mended or ended.” He continued, however, to support the Veto Bill, which finally curbed the power of the Lords.

In reality he was not a political anomaly. He was more a liberal Conservative than a conservative Liberal.