LABOUR'S ELECT.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 9

LABOUR'S ELECT.

MacDONALD'S MEN.

Experience In Many Walks

Of Life.

INTERESTING CAREERS.

The Cabinet selected by Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald to administer the affairs of Great Britain is remarkable for the many spheres of national life which its members will represent and have passed through.

Miners and moulders will commingle with hereditary aristocrats, legal luminaries, soldiers and sailors, and the female sex will be given authority in the Government of the country, hitherto unprecedented. *

MI. PHILIP SNOWDEN: A leader of the intellectual type is Philip Snowden, the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer. So strong was 'his j'Ortonality that Mr. A. G. Gardiner said of : him that if there were a rebellion in Britain Mr. Snowden would be, "Robespierre of the concentrated and remorseless purpose." Bora in Yorkshire in ISG4, he was educated at the village Board School. .In 1886 he won a place in the Civil Service,'by open competition, and for the next few years saw life, as an excise officer in different parts of the country. Later when riding hie bicycle in the country off and injured his back. The injury proved serious p.ncl resulted in a permanent disablement, which necessitated his retiring from the Civil Service. It would be useless to speculate on whether Mr. Snowden would have been lost for public life but for bhe accident. In 1900 he made his first bid for Parliamentary honours. He did not win, but so great was 'his impression that he shook the party in power. In 1906 he returned to Blackburn where he ousted the Tories. With his entry into Parliament his political connection wiLli Blackburn remained uninterrupted till the end of 1918. In 1922 he returned to Colne Valley, where 'he was returned with increasing majorities in 1923 and 1924. Whatever criticism may bu directed against the first Labour Government none will be found to apply to Mr. Snowden in his capacity as Chancellor of the Exchequer. His work filled the Labour movement with pride, and the pu'blic generally with confidence and admiration.

I MISS MARGARET BONDFIELD: The story of the life of Miss Bondfield, the first woman to be included in the British Ministry, ie the story of the rise of the working woman to industrial and political emancipation. She was born at Chad, Somersetshire, where her father was a lace designer. More than elementary education was denied her, but so early did her talents become manifest that at the age of 13 she was acting as a supply teacher to a boys' class in a board school.. The next 14 years she gained valuable experience of shop life in London and in the provinces. She became an enthusiastic recruit to the Shop Assostants' Union and in 189G she attended the annual delegate meeting of the union, being the first woman to do so. Her association with the Trades Union Congress began in 1899 when she represented the Shop Assistants' Union at the Plymouth Congress. Eighteen years later she was elected to the Parliamentary Committee of the Congress, being the first woman upon whom that honour had been conferred. In 1923 she was elected chairman of the General Council at the Plymouth Congress, a position which she gave up in the following year upon the formation of a Labour Government. She was included in the Ministry as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, a position of paramount importance. Her eloquence in the debating chamber, her wide experience of industrial affairs and her deep sincerity stamped her immediately as an unqualified success in the position to which she had been called. She suffered defeat at the 1924 poll, but is again back at the lists resolved to turn her genius to the work allotted to her.

MR. TOM SHAW: He has been described as the best read man in the Labonr movement. Circumstances confined the play of his ambitions, in the first instance, to the sphere of Trade Unionism. TTe was born at Colnc, in 1872, his father being a miner. He took kindly to the task of learning, and though obliged to enter the cotton trade he contrived to find time to continue his education at night school. With good personality and plenty of brains, he began to be listened to by his workmates as one entitled to leadership in the movement towards the emancipation of the working-class. In 1924, while holding the joint secretaryship of the Second International Textile Association with Mr. Adler, he was called in to assist the counsels of the first Labour Government in the capacity of Minister of Labour. His appointment to office put him to a severe test and despite the bad conditions at the time, he- made a creditable job of his work.

JAMES HENRY THOMAS: Born at Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1878, he was the son of working-class parents. As a boy his thoiights were centred on the glories of being an engine-driver on the railway and he applied and obtained work on the Great Western Railway. At the age of 15 he was a cleaner and started a strike among his fellow employees at the short allowance of tallow. The strike was a success and the youngster won the day. Three years later he became a fireman, during which time he met a Socialist engine-driver who instructed the young man in his beliefs. He took part in many movements, but the greatest for him was in 1910 when he was elected Labour member of Parliament for Derby. After the outbreak of war he opposed compulsory service till it was found that the men required could no longer be obtained by voluntary enlistment. He used, his influence in preventing strikes, at the same time obtaining large increases in pay for the men. For hie service he was made a Privy Councillor in 1917. With the fall of the Tory Government in 1923, Labour hopes rose and when it was seen to be inevitable that the Labour party Avould assume office speculation ran high as to the assignation of Mr. Thomas. He was appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies. Thus it came about that the youngster who had polished brasses in a chemist's shop, and who visualised the footplate of a Great Western Railway locomotive as the height of human ambition, line become for the second time one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State.

MR. J. R. CLYNES: Mr. John Robert Clynes, the Labour Deputy-Leader, was born in 18G9 of working parents. He entered politics in 1900, when he was one of the fifty La'oour members returned. It was not till the war, however, that ho came into prominence. In 1915 he protested against the rise in prices, which, he declared, was mainly due to dealers exploiting the people's needs. His interest in this work led to his being chosen as a representative of the working people to be Parliamentary secretary to the Food Comptroller. When Lord Rhondda died in 1918, Mr. Clynes succeeded him in the- position. When the Labour party came into power he was Lord Privy Seal and Deputy-Leader of the House of Commons.

MR. ARTHUR GREENWOOD: Member of Parliament for Nelson and Colne since 1922, ho was educated at the Victoria University. He was chairman of the Yorkshire district of the Workers' Educational Association and vice-presi-dent of the National W.E.A. When Labour took over in 1924 he was made Parliamentary secretary to the- Ministry of Health.

MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON: Like hie chief, Arthur Henderson is a Scot, being a native of Glasgow,, where he was born C 6 years ago. Moving with his parents to Neweastle-on-Tyne, he- learned the moulding trade, later entering public and political life in Darlington, Durham. At that time there was no Labour party, and he joined the ranks of the Liberals. He, however, decided that he could not remain with the party on account of the attitude of some employers towards working men Liberals, and he won the Bernard Castle seat for Labour in 1913, and entered the House of Commons as one of eleven Labour members then in the Commons. During the war Henderson's views were in sharp contrast to those of his leader, and when Labour was invited to join the Coalition in 1915 he 'became president of the Board of Education and later Paymaster-General, but his real task was in advising Ca'binet on Labour questions concerning the prosecution of the war. He was the first Labour member to receive Cabinet rank and in the first Labour Cabinet he was Home Secretary. A strong opponent of Bolshevism, ho endorsed the action of his party in severing from the Communists in 192 G. He is a strong believer in conciliation and arbitration, and during his term of office as Home Secretary played a prominent part with Lord Parmoor in drafting the Geneva Protocol for the settlement of international disputes by this o.ieans.

MR. WILLIAM GRAHAM: Born on July 29, 1887, he was educated at Peebles Public School and later at the Edinburgh University. Early in the twentieth century he became a junior clerk in the War Office and after that entered the journalistic world. He entered the Edinburgh University in 1911 and took a

course in economics and law, acquitting himself well. He became interested in public life, and was a member of the Edinburgh Town Council besides being on a number of other public bodies. At

one time he was chairman of the Edinburgh Disarmament Committee, and then was vice-chairman of the Advisory Committee o'u Juvenile Appointment. In 191!) he was a member of the Royal Commission on Income Tax and for the next two years helped the Royal Commission on the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. When Labour took over the reins of Government in 1924 he was made Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He has taken an active part in financial and Scottish legislation, and has been a member of the Medical .Research Council from 1920.