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Evening Post. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1911. A NEW LEADER.
Mr.' A. Bonar Law, the newly-elected Leader of the Unionist Party, is an almost unknown quantity ori this 6i'de of the world. Mr. Austen Chamberlain we know, and Lord Lansdowne we know, and even of Mr. W. H. Long we know a little, but Mr. Bonar Law is little more than a name to us. He is indeed, as British politics go, quite a novice. • It was only at the General Election of 1900 that he was first returned to the House of Commons, and as the Unionists went out of office before the term of his first Parliament had expired, and have stayed there ever since, he has not yet served on a Cabinet. His only official experience has been as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade during the last three years of tho Balfour regime. His appointment even to that position within two years after his election, and without the family influence which counts far so much in the counsels of the Conservative Party to back him, proves, however, that his qualifications were speedily recognilsed. For this particular position Mr. Law's experience
marked him as peculiarly qualified, and it is the combination, of a hard business head with definite convictions and a strong will that has made him so precious an asset for the Tai'iff Reformers. They have found him as true and as firm as iron or steel, while Mr. Balfour has seemed more like india-rubber. Mr. Bonar Law's leadership is, at any rate, a guarantee that the question which Mr. Joseph Chamberlain forced upon the Unionist Party, but was denied the strength to help them to carry through, will really be pressed forward. Mr. Balfour had lately been constrained to give Tariff Reform a front place in the Unionist programme, but for the purposes of a popular propaganda there is all the difference in the world between a philosophic acquiescence and an enthusiastic conViction. Mr. Balfour had many admirable qualities as a leader, but the faculty of being able to manufacture enthusiasm to order was not one of them.
In a message which he ha© sent to the Unionist Conference at Leeds, Mr. Balfour graciously refers to the speech with which his successor made his debut as a great one. There is, however, nothing in the brief cabled summary of the new leader's speech to suggest that the epithet was merited. It was a, sound, sensible.deliverance with plenty of fight in it. Mr. Bonar Law anathematised Welsh Disestablishment, Home Rule, Free Trade, and the gospel ot envy and discontent, the seeds of which, sown in the Budget, he declares to have ripened in the recent strikes. Hi» policy, however, is not repression, but reform, with the proviso that social reform unaccompanied by Tariff Reform will be vain. This subordination of everything else to the fiscal propaganda is quite in keeping with the present mood oi the Unionist Party, and it was, as we have suggested, largely by that consideration that their choice of a leader was determined. A circumstance which illustrates the suddenness of Mr. Law's rise is recalled by his reference to the Constitutional Conference as having been wrecked by Mr. Asquith under the pressure of his compact with the Nationalists. It wae only: last year that this Conference sat. It was composed of eight members, four from each of the principal parties, yet among the four Unionist representatives Mr. Law not only was not included but was not considered by anybody to have a claim to be included. Within a year after the abortive conclusion of the Conference he has nevertheless been advanced to the very first place. When the' number of colleagues of Cabinet rank over whose heads Mr. Law has been promoted is taken into account, this sudden rise is very Remarkable. It appears still more remarkable, if we remember that ne has not'the advanof birth or of shining talent, to recommend; him. Doubtless one of the elements that finally, determined the party's choice was the closeness of the competition between Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. Walter Long, both of whom were generally regarded as. having superior claims. Mr. Bonar Law, therefore, owes his sudden promotion as much to luck as to merit, but his shrewd, sturdy, practical com-mon-sense may well succeed' where the more brilliant talents of his predecessor; failed. ..' " A
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 123, 21 November 1911, Page 6
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730Evening Post. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1911. A NEW LEADER. Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 123, 21 November 1911, Page 6
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Evening Post. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1911. A NEW LEADER. Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 123, 21 November 1911, Page 6
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Evening Post. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
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