FREEMEN OF LONDON

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 124, 21 November 1929, Page 19

FREEMEN OF LONDON

PREMIER AND CHANCELLOR

: Not the Mother of Parliments herself has more regard for precedent than the corporation of London. But the City Fathers, expert as they may be in finding past instances for present practice, may be hard put to it.to name, offhand, a previous occasion on which Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer of the same Administration were selected to receive the Freedom of the City, states the "Daily Telegraph."

London has jealously Reserved the honour of her freedom, but once before Premier and Chancellor were deemed worthy of the'privilege. To Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Snowden it will be an acceptable circumstance that the precedent now to be followed was created a century ago to do honour to the heroes of the Reform Bill struggle Lord Grey and Lord Althorp. No Prime Minister would disdain to fill the post in history won by the Minister who placed on the Statute Book the charter of modern democracy. Among Chancellors of the Exchequer, however, the reputation of Lord Grey's colleague does not stand particularly high.

Such fame' as Lord Althorp won was thrust upon him. We remember him aa the man whose succession to his father's peerage was made the pretext for King AVilliam IV. to dismiss the Melbourne Ministry.

There have been other statesmen whose mimes wore added to London's roll-of fame who had served in the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, but they were not, I think, so honoured during (he time they actually were Chancellor..

The Younger Pitt, tho first, aud the late Lord Oxford, the last, Prime Minister of England, to bo honoured in the .City had both held office as Chancellor, but it was before the time they were made Freemen. The same applies to Mr. Baldwin and Lord Beaconsfield.