CHAPTER XI.
LORD RHONDDA _"Whereof what better witness can ye expect I should produce than one of your own now sitting in Parliament."_--MILTON.
In the _Merry Passages and Jests_ of old Sir Nicholas Lestrange record is made of the following witty definition: "Edm.

Gurney used to say that a mathematitian is like one that goes to markett to buy an axe to break an egg." This perhaps had been the fate of Lord Rhondda, for he was by nature of a true mathematical turn, had not the circumstances of his economic life forced him to apply this natural tendency to the practical affairs of commerce.

But nature herself had given him with this aptitude for mathematics another quality which must eventually, one would suppose, have saved him from the unfruitful fate of a theorist--he was a man of rare imagination.

And so this mathematician, who was also a poet, brought a unique mind to the affairs of commerce and there scored a success which attracted attention in both hemispheres.
I do not know a better example to illustrate the main thesis of this book than the case of Lord Rhondda.

No doubt the case of a greater man, Lord Leverhulme, would lend itself to a far stronger illustration of that thesis, but, unfortunately for my argument and for the nation, Lord Leverhulme has never had an opportunity of vindicating in office those qualities which the House of Commons neglected or overlooked during the years in which, like Lord Rhondda, he sat humbly on its back benches.
For the best part of his manhood Lord Rhondda was a political failure.
The House of Commons, which prides itself on its judgment of men, treated him as a person of no importance.