have prepared the way for
disarmament and peace, might have modified the character of modern
civilization, might have made ostentation look like a crime, might have
brought capital and labour into a sensible partnership, and might have
given to the moral ideals of the noblest sons of men if not an
intellectual impulse at least a convincing advertisement.

The moral and intellectual condition of the world, a position from which
only a great spiritual palingenesis can deliver civilization, is a
charge on the sheet which Lord Northcliffe will have to answer at the
seat of judgment. He has received the price of that condition in the
multitudinous pence of the people; consciously or unconsciously he has
traded on their ignorance, ministered to their vulgarities, and inflamed
the lowest and most corrupting of their passions: if they had had
another guide his purse would be empty.

All the same, it is the greatest mistake for his enemies to declare
that he is nothing better than a cynical egoist trading on the enormous
ignorance of the English middle-classes. He is a boy, full of adventure,
full of romance, and full of whims, seeing life as the finest fairy-tale
in the world, and enjoying every incident that comes his way, whether it
be the bitterest and most cruel of fights or the opportunity for doing
someone a romantic kindness.

You may see the boyishness of his nature in the devotion with which he
threw himself first into bicycling, then into motoring, and then into
flying. He loves machinery. He loves every game which involves physical
risk and makes severe demands on courage. His love of England is not his
love of her merchants and workmen, but his love of her masculine youth.

He has been generosity itself to his brothers, with all of whom he does
not, unfortunately, get on as well as one could wish. The most beautiful
thing in his life is the love he cherishes for his mother, and nothing
delights him so much as taking away her breath by acts of astonishing
devotion. A man so generous and so boyish may make grave mistakes, but
he cannot be a deliberately bad man.

MR. ARTHUR BALFOUR

THE RT. HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR

Born in Scotland 1848; s. of Jas. M. Balfour and Lady Blanche
Cecil; nephew of the late Marquis of Salisbury and therefore 1st
cousin to the present Marquis, Lord Robert Cecil, and Lord Hugh
Cecil. Educ.: Eton and Trinity Coll., Cambridge; LL.D. Edinburgh,
St.