Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/63

 high testimony to the noble tone of public life which I rejoice to know governs all our Party conflicts. I have seen with great pleasure the signal success of your enlightened and beneficent efforts in Postal Reform, in which you have made a name which will not be forgotten. If I have contributed to support you in any slight degree I shall be proud to pursue your triumph and partake the gale.

The time came at last when H. H. also left the House of Commons, where he had spent so many happy years. Of the twenty-six years in which he represented Canterbury, during twenty-one he was unopposed. He fought altogether three elections, and retired in 1910, when a farewell banquet was given in his honour.

The words of the historian Justin McCarthy may fitly bring to an end this chapter in the life of H. H.:

I have heard, of course, as everybody has, the announcement that with the close of this Parliament you have made up your mind to retire from your public or at all events from your Parliamentary life. The news came with quite a shock of surprise to me, for I had never regarded you as one whose career of active work must be drawing to its close. Few men living anywhere in the world can have rendered more beneficent, or indeed so many beneficent public services as you have rendered not merely to your own people but to all the peoples within the range and reach, or striving to come within the range and reach of civilization. I cannot think but that you will find a certain sense of vacuity when you have withdrawn from that House of Commons in which you found so