Read Ebook: Wit and Wisdom of Lord Tredegar by Morgan Godfrey Charles

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ppose there is such a thing as ignorance among men about those who do not live in the same station as themselves, and I always put it down to that. Some day or other they may come to find out that what they say against Lord Tredegar is not all true.

NATURALLY A CONSERVATIVE.

You will not wonder that I am in a graver mood than is usual on these occasions. For more than 30 years my lamented father occupied this chair, and I believe he was present on every occasion of this kind. In that time, the show has been raised from a very small one to be one of the most important in the country. My father has left me, amongst other possessions, an hereditary trust in the shape of this Agricultural Show. If I have given any hope that I shall fill the position as my father filled it, I shall feel very much flattered. It is not my intention to make great changes. There is no way of showing disrespect more than in making great changes, turning everything topsy-turvey, as if we knew everything better than those who went before us. I am naturally Conservative, and come of a Conservative family. I intend to keep to what was good of my late father. I have inherited a great trust in this show, and I hope that in future it will be seen that the show has not lost its prestige, its popularity or its utility.

POLITICS ON THE BRAIN.

Everybody now has got politics on the brain. We dream of politics and we almost drink politics--at least, we have been drinking politics to-night. So far as I am concerned, I should like, Rip Van Winkle-like, to go to sleep for the next two months and wake up to find the general election over; only then I should like to wake up to find it had gone the right way.

THE UNRULY HOUND.

It is wrong to introduce politics at this dinner, and, in fact, I have no great liking for politics on any occasion, though I do at times have a little to do with them. And I have a little way of my own. I have a most unruly hound in my pack, which I call "Radical," and I lick him whenever I have the opportunity. It does the hound good, and at the same time eases my own mind. Though I have no great love of politics, I think this is a time, if ever, a member of Parliament should feel inclined to speak. There is one subject which must be in everybody's mind, and for the consideration of which everyone must brace himself in the next session--that is "tenant's right." That is a question in which every agriculturist must take a deep interest; and for myself I think meetings of this sort much more likely to promote a goodly feeling between landlord and tenant than the provisions of any Act of Parliament.

THE WHOO WHOOPS.

I thank you for the way the toast of my health has been received; but I do not quite see the propriety of "whoo whoops" at the end. That is an expression that sportsmen use only when they are about to kill something; I do not see its applicability in the present case. I hope that you do not mean all you have expressed.

M.P.'S AS BADGERS.

During the intervals of pigeon pie and boiled beef, I have had the pleasure of a few minutes' conversation with Mr. Cordes, and from that conversation I have come to the conclusion that a Member of Parliament holds the same position to the human race that a badger does to the animal race. Some people think that the only earthly purpose for which a badger can have been created was that of being baited, and I have an idea that some persons seem to imagine that a member of Parliament was created for nothing but that we might bait him. But on this occasion we have been brought together not to bait Mr. Cordes, but to f?te him.

THE HONOUR OF BEING M.P.

It is a great honour still, I am sure, to be a member of the British House of Commons. Lord Rosebery, when he was chairman of the London County Council, in a speech that he made--and I dare say many of you have been interested in some of Lord Rosebery's speeches because he has a fund of humour, and very often one is not quite certain whether he is in earnest or in jest--once said that the position of a town councillor is much more important than that of a member of Parliament. It is quite possible that an individual member of a County Council or a Town Council may be more important as an individual than a member of the House of Commons, but his vote can only mainly affect the locality, whilst the action of a member of the House of Commons may not only affect the whole of Great Britain, but the whole of the British Empire. So I venture to think the position of a Member of Parliament is a little more important than that of a member of a Town Council or a County Council.

NELSON'S SAYING.

There still exists in the bosoms of our public men the feeling which animated Lord Nelson before the battle of the Nile, when he said, "To-morrow I shall have either a peerage or Westminster Abbey."

THE DISADVANTAGES OF THE PEERAGE.

There are advantages and disadvantages in belonging to the House of Lords. The peers are deprived of the right which other citizens have of standing on the hustings and receiving eggs that are not fit for breakfast and cats that have not received honourable interment. But they have the privilege of British citizens of being roundly abused by those whose talents lay in that direction.

SWEEPS AS PEERS.

A certain gentleman who certainly thinks that the constitution of the country could be reorganised and set straight at once by a magazine article, says that if the House of Lords rejects the Home Rule Bill there is a very simple way to remedy the affair. Mr. Gladstone will then, he states, collect 70 sweeps and make them peers so as to gain a majority. Whether the gentleman intended to insult the sweeps or to insult the House of Lords I do not know. I am acquainted with some sweeps. I have always looked upon sweeps in the same way as I look upon licensed victuallers. They are a body of men who are carrying on a very difficult profession with credit to themselves and advantage to the country. Moreover, the sweeps with whom I am acquainted are most of them Tories, and I shall not be surprised if as soon as those 70 sweeps are collected and made peers, and have washed their faces and put on their coronets and robes, they do immediately range themselves on the Opposition side of the House, and do, as most new Gladstonian peers do, vote Conservative directly they are created.

YOU CANNOT PLEASE EVERYBODY.

I have no doubt that if the House of Lords were to pass by a large majority the disestablishment of the Welsh Church in the next Session, the Welsh party would say the hereditary principle was the only one to be depended upon. On the other hand, if the Lords were to pass by a large majority a Local Veto Bill, I have no doubt the Licensed Victuallers would at once go in for the abolition of the House of Lords.

I am not a landlord myself, but I have strong opinions about the right of property, which I hope, in future legislation, will always be considered. If ever I become a landlord, I hope the interest which I have always felt in the welfare of my respected father's tenants will lead them to suppose that I shall never become such a ruffian as some people would make landlords out to be.

I confess I was much comforted in reading one of those amiable, kind and Christian-like speeches for the total suppression of landlords. I looked into the dictionary for the meaning of the word "landlord," and I found it was "a keeper of a public-house." When I read that, my soul was comforted.

I have always taken great interest in those who live on my property, it does not matter whether on agricultural land or in the bowels of the earth. A great landowner does not rest on a bed of roses. The loss to a landowner who only owns a small agricultural property, in days of agricultural depression when tenants cannot pay their rent, generally means a few hundred pounds and the reducing of all his expenses. But when it comes to great commercial interests, to owning the land on which our great ironworks, great tinworks, and collieries are situated, and when those interests are depressed, it means not a loss of a few hundreds, but the wiping off of several thousands. And it means occupying themselves night and day in ascertaining how they can help to still carry on those great interests which have employed so many hands, and which are so necessary for the welfare of the population of the district.... A great ironmaster, Mr. Carnegie, who found it to his best interest to carry on his great works in America, has enunciated a sentiment which appeals to me, to the effect that it is the business of every rich man to die poor. Sometimes I feel that will probably be my fate if I go on as I am doing. However, I shall be poor in good company.

Considerable difficulties attach to the position of a man who happens to own land round a large and increasing town. So many demands are placed before him. There are demands for building sites and for open spaces and public parks. It is difficult, when the land is limited in area, to satisfy all requirements. I hope, in a short time, however, to be enabled to make a present to the town of Newport of a public park, one which will not cost much in laying out for use.

It may possibly happen that if the order to which I belong is swept away, I may become a candidate for municipal honours, and perhaps aspire to the civic chair. At present, however, I have my own responsibilities, for I am deeply troubled with what I may term the four R's--Rates, Roads, Royalties, and Rents.

KEEP US STILL OUR SHORTHORNS.

A gentleman who was very fond of writing poetry wrote a couple of lines which might be quoted against him although he has long since joined the majority. He wrote:--

Let laws and learning, art and commerce die, But keep us still our old nobility.

The last line can be altered as you like, and you can put anything you like for laws and learning, I would say buffaloes or anything else, but keep our shorthorns. In breeding shorthorns a pedigree of a long line of ancestors is indispensable. Mr. Stratton and myself have tried to work on those lines by breeding the nobility of shorthorns.

INTEREST IN DAIRYING.

My thoughts are at the moment running on ground rents, royalties and wayleaves, so if I wander from the subject I hope you will forgive me. I cannot regard the subject of dairying without thinking how we would have stood now supposing we had taken up the question as we ought to have done twenty years ago. We would not now be taking a back seat with the foreigners. But I always now find great difficulty in obtaining entrance to the dairy competitions, if I go there casually. Whether it is the attractions of the pretty dairymaids inside, or the coolness of the atmosphere, there is certainly very great interest taken in the competitions and that is satisfactory.

WHERE ALL CLASSES MEET.

Of all meetings which take place in the course of a year, there are none attended with such universal good as an agricultural meeting, because here all classes can meet, whereas in nearly all other meetings the attendances are of a sectional character. For instance, race meetings--many people think them wrong and never attend them. Then there are Church Extension and Missionary Meetings--a great many do not like to attend them. But as to agricultural meetings, everybody seems to like to attend them, from the clergy to the racing man, the mechanic, the agricultural labourer, and the meetings must, therefore, promote a deal of harmony among classes. An agricultural meeting is much more effective than the proceedings of Messrs. Bright and Cobden, who are going about preaching a war of classes.

WHERE THE AGRICULTURIST SHOULD STUDY.

Some excursionists were going around the house of either Wordsworth or Tennyson--I forget which--and asked a servant where was her master's study. She replied, "Here is my master's study, but he studies in the fields." That is the lesson to be learnt in respect to agriculture.

A BLUE BOTTLE AND A BIRD.

I hope you won't do what I did last time. It was a day very different from this. It was very hot. I saw an animal in the ring that I did not care the least about, and just then a great blue-bottle settled on my nose. The consequence was that I bought the worst animal at a very high price.

A LIMIT EVEN TO SCIENCE.

In regard to scientific agriculture, I am not sure whether we are not rather overdoing things; but there is no doubt that, notwithstanding all the science we have, we have never succeeded in making a cow have more than one calf in a year, or a sheep more than two lambs. That goes to prove that there is a limit even to science in agriculture, and it reminds me of the saying, "You may pitchfork Nature out of existence, but she is sure to come back to you."

AN EYE FOR A GOOD PAIR OF HORSES.

Some men have an eye for one thing and some for another, but I think if I have a weakness it is to fancy that I have an eye for a good pair of horses, and for a straight line. When I see a line I can judge if it has been ploughed straight, and then I can judge whether the ploughman has had too much. Of course, that sort of thing never happens at a ploughing match, but still it is as well to be on the look-out.

AS CATTLE DEALER.

Just before I came to the meeting I had put into my hand a small--a very small--paper in which I am described as a cattle-dealer. But I am not at all ashamed of that.

THE BEST FARMER.

It was the late Lord Beaconsfield, I believe, who said that the best educated farmer known spent all his life in the open air, and never read a book. There is a great deal of truth in that, and although science may aid farmers, observation and experience in the proper treatment of land and crops will do much more.

FOX-HUNTING AND DIPLOMACY.

Many people imagine that to be a Master of Foxhounds you have only to get a horse--but besides the matter of pounds, shillings and pence, you have to create an interest amongst the farmers over whose land you hunt, and whose sheep, pigs and lambs you frighten. One, therefore, has to use a certain amount of diplomacy.

Nothing tends to brush away the cobwebs so much as a bracing run with the hounds. Fox hunting is an admirable sport, and my neighbours shall enjoy it as long as there is a fox to be found on my estate.

AT AN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.

When I came into the room I expected to find one half of the company on crutches and the other half in splints. I am not at all certain that I am the proper man to be President of this club, because I think that the President of an athletic club should measure at least 48 inches round the chest, and ought to have biceps of 18 inches, and scale at least 14 stone 7 lbs. I am afraid all the dumb bells in the world would not get me up to that. I am what might be called an old fossil, though I cannot boast of the garrulity of old age, and therefore I will not tell you that when I played football I was always kicking the ball out of the ground into the river; or that when I played cricket I always drove the ball into the river. Those are facts well known in Newport.

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