QUALITY OF BRITAIN'S LEADERS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 145, 16 December 1933, Page 23

QUALITY OF BRITAIN'S LEADERS

WICKHAM STEED'S ANALYSIS

jthe unfailing interest in the welfare The quality of British leadership Is today at the lowest ebb in forty fc-ears, declares Wickham Steed, former feditor of "The Times," in an article jn "Current History." "If tho King and tho Prince of |Wales be left out of • account —and both of them have' given real leadership in more than ono emergency— there is no man in British public life to whom the nation instinctively looks as to a leader, or whoso guidanco at would seek and follow as being inBpired by a sense of resolute wardenship of this public weal," the article gays. "The last of our elder statesmen, Lord Grey of Fallodon, has been taken from us. There is none to fill liis place or to speak with his especial accent of temperate and persuasive authority. Yet never in my experience have the people as a whole been sounder at heart or readier to heed and act upon strong and wise counsel. V Mr. Steed says that the national Government has failed to give leadership, though it had had ample opportunity to do so. "Neither in the Manchurian dispute nor in the handling of the Lytton report, nor at tho Disarmament Conference, nor in the series of higgledypiggledy improvisations that led to the Tour-Power Pact, nor in tlir presence of German Hitlerism, has the Government or any member of it spoker ■with a voice -which tho nation couU' recognise as its own." Uta. Steed examines Britain.

prominent public men, one by one, but finds little cause to be hopeful. "Ml1. Bamsay Mac Donald," he. says, "may be unaware how subtly and swiftly public trust in him has ebbed during the past twelve months," The country "has weighed Mr. Kamsay Mac Donald and found him wanting." "About Mr. Stanley Baldwin it is not quite sure." Mr. Neville Chamberlain "commands more respect than enthusiasm." Mr. Winston Churchill no longer commands public confidence. As to Mr. Lloyd George, "it will not be safe to say that he is out of the picture while life lasts." In the popular mind the other prominent Liberals — Sir Herbert Samuel, Sir Archibald Sinclair and Mr. Walter Eunciman —"arc first-rate second-rate men." The Labour politicians are even more hastily dismissed. "There remains one man," adds Mr. Steed, "of whom much is being said and whispered. He is Sir Austen Chamberlain. .He has borne himself with much dignity, has supported the Government in difficult moments, but has not withheld friendly counsel and criticism when tho national interest made passive acquiescence in Ministerial policy seem something less than a statesman's duty. Among British public men of front-bench rank Sir Auston is now the only Conservative who might acceptably succeed Eamsay MacDonald as national Prime Minister without arousing suspicion that a national imajority .was . being used for _iurty purposes."