Evening Post. MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 1924. MR. MACDONALD'S SILK HAT

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 23, 28 January 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 1924. MR. MACDONALD'S SILK HAT

All Mr. Ramsay Macdonald's colleagues have resigned their offices in the trade unions, and hehimself has not merely purchased a tall hat but worn it in public, and doubtless been photographed in it. The result is that John Bull's stout heart has ceased to quake, and he sees himself to be just as safe in the hands of a Labour Ministry as he would have been under a Cabinet of Dukes. Three weeks ago the " Daily Mail" was endeavouring to make her flesh creep by the possibility that a Socialist Government would have the control of ecclesiastical appointments. " Inasmuch as Socialism is fundamentally non-religious," .it said, "the country would view with alarm and dismay a committee of Socialists appointing bishops." When the committee running this department consisted of Charles 11. and his mistresses, Church and State wei-e safe, but how much of'the Decalogue or anything else worth having would be left after a few weeks of Ramsay Macdonald and Haldane ami other followers of Lenin and Trotsky? If the " Daily Mail," which has lately taken its foreign politics from Paris, could only have followed the same lead on this point, how happy it would have been? "These men are mystics, preachers, Biblical maniacs," said the- "Liberte" of Mr. Macdonald's team; "they are not lib-eral-minded, but are Free Church parsons." If the "Daily Mail" could have discovered more than a stray lay-preacher or two in the whole crowd, the greatest eircul'ation in the world would not have sounded this, note of terror. -

It is to fears of a less ennobling description that Mr. Macdonald's tall hat has now provided an anodyne.

This hat, according to the financial correspondent of the "Daily Express," will live in history as one of the most potent pieces of headgear ever created, since it sent up the prices of stocks and shares. The rise began with giltedged securities as coon as it Was known that Sir. Macdonald had donned a silk hat to go to Buckingham Palace. The rise continued all the week.

It has long been known that Mr. Macdonald carries plenty of brains under his hat, but nobody ever suspected that it concealed all this besides. The fact, of course, is that it did not. Mr. Macdonald's previous hats had ho more magic power than those of any other man; it is the new one that has done the trick. Neither the luckiest of cricketers nor the cleverest of conjurers ever performed the hat trick with greater eclat. The city which' had previously been reduced by Lords Gatherem and Botherem and other Jeremiahs to the'verge of panic took heart1 again at the sight of Mr. Macdonald's silk hat. It was as though they had been expecting to see the Red Flag hoisted at Westminster but instead of that the Union Jack was "found to be still flying as before." Not merely was therein Matthew Arnold's phrase, the same crush at the corner of Fenchurch street as before, but Lombard' street and Threadneed\e street actually parried on business as usual. The only trouble was with the "bears," who had speculated. On a fall which did not come off.

But a vivid recollection of the cloud under which the Imperial Conference closed sobers our rejoicing with a shade of apprehension. The Dominion Premiers were generally considered to have rendered good service to the Empire, but the -deficiencies of their tailoring rent the expert heart of the "Men's Weaf Organiser" with "a pang of regret and humiliation." General Smuts was accused of failing to realise the importance of "fit, quality, and age of his suits." "Mr. Massey's jacket made no pretence of being in any fashion at all," and both the coat and the trousers of Canada's representative were still more severely condemned.' What have the experts of the "Men's Wear Organiser" had to say of the tailoring and the hatting of the new Parliament? When -the Duke of Wellington looked at the first Reformed Parliament, he said: " I never! saw so many shocking bad hats in,my life." Now that reform' has been carried' some hundreds per cent, further than it had gone in the Duke's day, his scathing, remark would fit the Parliament of which Labour is taking charge far better than any of its predecessors. In these circumstances Mr. Macdo'nald's enterprise is to be doubly commended. He may have soothed the nerves of the "Men's Wear Organiser" as he has undoubtedly soothed the nerves of the City, and unless, as in the case of the Dominion Prime Ministers, his go,od intentions have been foiled by faulty execution, he must have done so. In view of the high stakes it was obviously worth while to get the very best hat that money could buy. "Go on, my friend, and fear nothing," said Caesar to his boatman; "you carry Caesar and his fortunes." Mr. Macdonald's hatter had a still greater responsibility. Not merely the Labour Party and its fortunes, but the City ot London and the British Empire and theiv respective fortunes, were all to be , carried under that hat, and so far they, have all been carried very well. A. lo|tj.er. but Jess sure guid^

than the stern realists of the City is also well pleased by the way in which the new Ministry is shaping.

At nearly all points, says Mr. J. L. Uarvin, it is as safe as " Threadneedle. street. It jfc ]s as vigorous in action as reassuring in composition it may chance in six months the whole -spirit and organisation of British politics. The thoroughness of Mr. Garvin's enthusiasm is always pleasant and sometimes amusing,- but it is more thorough than constant. For years Mr. Lloyd George was h\h superman, but after the dissolution Mr. Baldwin, was substituted. Writing of Mr. Baldwin on the eve of the poll, Mr. Garvia r sajd: "Not since the days of Gladstone has any leader assumed a heavier burden or towered so prominently above the fray." Mr. Ramsay Macdonald may perhaps be given a turn now, but for the present there are both an "if" and a "nearly" to qualify the eulogy. The new Ministry is not as safe as Threadneedle street on all points, but only on nearly all. Among the points covered by this "nearly" such trifles as foreign policy and naval defence- may be included—matters which Mr. Garvia has, of course", just as closely at heart as the staunchest of the Conservative "Die-hards." Mr. Garvin's "if" has an interest of another kind. "If it (the Ministry) is as vigorous in action as reassuring in composition," he says, it may do great things. Yet one might hive supposed that an excess of vigour in certain undesirable directions was still the chief danger.