Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/230

 sides agitated India. Eventually a compromise which would have been accepted at the outset was arrived at, and jurisdiction over Europeans was given to certain qualified native officials, while the right was reserved of the accused person to trial by a jury of which half should be Europeans. There was no further attempt to 'remove at once and completely every judicial disqualification.'

Apart from these errors of somewhat hasty language which, while gratifying native feeling, had the unfortunate effect of alienating the Anglo-Indian population, Ripon's administration was excellent. He was a good man of business, hard-working, of transparent honesty, and loyal to his colleagues in council and his subordinates. Ably served by Sir Evelyn Baring (afterwards Earl Cromer), he developed the system of provincial settlements introduced by Lord Mayo in 1871. Local governments were no longer limited to a fixed grant, they were encouraged to be careful in collection and economical in expenditure by being entrusted with the whole product of some sources of revenue and a share in other receipts. Although the Bengal Tenancy Act was not passed until 1885, that important measure was made ripe by Lord Ripon for legislation. In education important reforms were introduced as the result of the comprehensive report of the commission of 1882 which he appointed. He left India in December 1884, having prepared the ground for the reception of the Amir of Afghanistan at Rawalpindi in April 1886, by his successor, Lord Dufferin.

At home, tory opponents had attacked Ripon's ’policy of sentiment,' and on his return he spoke vigorously in defence of his Indian administration (cf. Ripon's speech at National Liberal Club on 29 Feb. 1885). He at once resumed his place among the liberal leaders. Gladstone's brief return to office, Feb. to Aug. 1886, brought him back to the cabinet as first lord of the admiralty. He supported Gladstone's home rule policy, and was rewarded by the bestowal on him of the freedom of the city of Dublin in 1898. Lord Morley received the distinction at the same time. In Gladstone's fourth ministry of 1892, and in that of Lord Rosebery of 1894, he took charge of the colonial office. His approval of the Matabele war of 1894 strained the allegiance of many of his own party. When the unionists resumed office in 1895, Ripon entered on a period of comparative inactivity. On Mr. Balfour's resignation and the formation of the ministry of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 5 Dec. 1905, Lord Ripon accepted the privy seal with the post of leader of the party in the lords, which the recent illness of Lord Spencer had left vacant. The task which devolved upon him at the advanced age of seventy-eight was no light one. Supporters of the liberal party in the house were few, while the opposition was powerfully represented. The liberal measures which had to be recommended to the chamber were peculiarly distasteful to the majority of its members. The House of Lords rejected the government's education bill of which Lord Crewe had charge in 1907, the licensing bill in 1908, and other measures. Lord Ripon faced his difficulties with characteristic tact and courage, and while he endeared himself by his geniality and good-humour to his small band of followers he commanded the respect of his ftxes. He seldom spoke at great length, but the clear and pithy sentences in which he wound up the debates, and embodied his long experience of business and the traditions of the upper house, carried weight. Within the cabinet his wide knowledge of foreign and colonial affairs was of value to his party on its resumption of power after long exclusion. The death of Lord Kimberley in 1902, the enforced withdrawal of Lord Spencer in the same year, and the retirement of Lord Rosebery from official life gave him exceptional prestige. On 9 Nov. 1906 he replied for the government, in the absence, through mourning, of Campbell-Bannerman, the prime minister, at the lord mayor's annual banquet. In 1908, when Mr. Asquith succeeded Campbell-Bannerman, Lord Ripon at length retired. He resigned the leadership of the upper house to Lord Crewe on 14 April 1908, and the office of lord privy seal on 8 Oct. At a lunch given to him at the Savoy Hotel by the Eighty Club on 24 Nov. 1908 he delivered his farewell address to his political friends. In reviewing his fifty-six years of public life he said 'I started at a high level of radicalism. I am a radical still.' On 9 July 1909 he died of heart failure at Studley Royal, Ripon, His body was placed in the vault beneath the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Studley park on 14 July, and a solemn requiem mass was sung at Westminster Cathedral in the presence of a large congregation.

On 8 April 1851 he married his cousin, Henrietta Anne Theodosia, eldest daughter of Henry Vyner of Gautby Hall, Horncastle, and granddaughter of Thomas Philip,