POLITICAL ARENA

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 95, 23 April 1935, Page 11

POLITICAL ARENA

YOUTH'S PLACE

SPURS TO BE WON

CHOOSING- OF CANDI--1 DATES

The claim of Youth to play a much iarlier part in public life is once more being advanced, and I think with inir^easing acceptance, writes J. B. Firth in the "Daily Telegraph."

Fire, energy, enthusiasm, and audacity are special virtues of youth, and ao party can afford to neglect them— the Conservative Party. least of all. "

It was a Conservative Government, after all, which gave "the better half" of modern youth the vote,' and Conservative youth, disciplined, well-in-structed, and'flery, might well produce among the Socialist ranks the devastating effect of a high wind in-a beech wood. But when, as often, the claim is made that youth's rightful place is at the helm or, in more up-to-date phrase, at the steering-wheel or at the controls, I cannot resist the boisterous entrance of "little devil Doubt." A career open to talents and rapid promotion for the deserving—by all means. But the most obvious difference between the conditions of peace and war—and'it is in war that youthful ■• generalship has achieved its greatest triumphs—is that vacancies do not arise so quickly. In public affairs the casualties are all too few. Youth asks for recognition and "a show." It complains that it does riot get as good a chance politically as certain favoured young men got'more than :a century ago. Was hot Pitt, it says, Prime Minister at 24? , And was he not "the pilot who weathered the storm"? • When Age and Experience have failed so miserably—runs the argument—why not give another trial to Youth and Imagination? But alas for this argument of youth in high control, Pitt • never was a youth. He was born in the full panoply of statesmanship. His third speech convinced the listening House of Commons that a new Premier—in George Selwyn's phrase—was at the starting-point, though he had hardly been shaved. " . ■ ' Pitt himself coolly announced that he would accept no place in the Ministry without a seat in the Cabinet. Such calm self-confidence more than matched that of Charles Fox a few years before, of whom a friend said: "I believe he thinks he ought to have been a Privy Councillor ar Eton." DISRAELI'S SAYINGS. It is not the 'self-assurance that is rare but the accompanying genius, the ; presence of which can hardly be confirmed, except by actual achievement. And, even so, how often thfs early genius is marred by some fatal instability of character which for a time and sometimes permanently ruins aIL From this deficit Pitt was marvellously free, though Fox was not. The solemn Pitt—who had no vice but port—was, in fact, even more of a prodigy than the great Julius who at 18 was considered formidable enough by his enemies to be proscribed, and at 25 had borrowed and spent sums so vast that only the plunder of;lands as yet unconquered offered the slightest hope of. their repayment. . And jSimultaneously his fame as a master of oratory' equalled his*celebri^a§''a-!lea;der of fashion and his scandalous notoriety in affairs of gallantry. , These are rare examples and. dangerous models. "A man that is young jin years," wrote Bacon, "may be old in" hours, if he have lost no .time. But that happeneth rarely." It is only "reposed natures," he says v which are , ripe for great action in youth. Natures "with much heat" are not ripe till they have passed their meridian. That is a hard saying for youthful ambition to swallow, nor, in fact, does youthful ambition turn to Bacon—an incorrigible place-hunter for. all his grave wisdom—for counsel. No, it listens rather to Disraeli, as he pours into its ready ear a far more flattering •* tale: "Almost everything that is great has been done by youth." "The history of heroes is the history of youth." , "Do not suppose that I hold that youth is genius: all I say is that genius, I when young, is divine." ! ,"Whenevftr a political system .is breaking up, as in this country at i present, the very best thing to do," i says Buckhurst in "Coningsby," "is to i brush all the old dons off the stage. j They never take to the new road kindly. They are always hampered by their exploded prejudices and obsolete traditions." , Aspiring youth naturally treasures these exciting sayings in its heart. It listens enraptured to Sidonia's sparkling paean. . "YOUTH IS A BLUNDER." Disraeli himself was something of a celebrity even before all London was reading "Vivian Grey." But what had he done? It is, amusing to -recall that before he was of age he had forsaken the profession,' of the law and lost several thousand pounds by reckless . gambling in South American bonds, thus incurring debts which woefully embarrassed him till he married a rich wife. , ' llt does not take a genius, whether j divine or not, to.; gamble and lose on the Stock Exchange. But it needed a very clever you"ng man to persuade j that eminent publisher, Mr. John Muri ray, to start a weekly newspaper, "The i Representative," with the inexperi- \ enced Benjamin Disraeli as editor. The j "bill for this butterfly flight was £26,000. "The errors of young men," jto quote Bacon once more, -"are the : Ruine of Businesse." ' ■ . llt was not the youthful but the riper genius of Disraeli which has 1 established .his fame as a Political Oracle. 'He encouraged youthful genius "where he found it, and, conscious of its rarity, was always on the look out for it. Yet he also wrote: "Youth is a Blunder." Political wisdom is still, except in the rarest instances, the reward or perhaps the punishment of years. The common1 practice in the City States of Greece was for men to begin official life at.about thirty. At Rome, while exceptional scions of the great governing families might obtain the Consulship early, the "new man" rarely worked his way up through the preliminary qualifying offices before he was forty. That corresponds with the general experience. Thirty makes a good dividing line between Youth and, let us say, the "riper years." . But this does not mean that youth should _be left untested and unemployed in public affairs. Every Parliament should have a very strong leaven of youth. .One of the best, albeit quite undesigned, features of the unreformed British Parliament was that it provided a sort of covered way to the House of Commons for a number of promising young men who otherwise might never have gained an entrance or whose entry would certainly have been delayed. These were the nominees of patrons who owned the rotten boroughs, and they voted as their patrons directed. < It sounds very shocking. Let it be admitted that it was shocking. But it brought into the House of. Com-

mons such bright "boys" as Fox, Pitt, Canning, Gladstone, and many another. Great territorial, influence may still govern the choice ot candidates in a few constituencies. Wealth can still purchase—not for youthful but for ageing ambition —the acceptance of a candidature from a local "caucus" which expects its man to pay all the bills. "WELL-FOUND ALMSHOUSE." But the real modern representatives of the old borough-mongering patrons are the local branches of the Miners' Federation, which, with a block of 70 : or more normally safe seats at command, could—if they chose—provide , a perfectly covered way to the House of Commons for their more promising young men. But do they do so? Not at all. They select their candidates as for a wellfound almshouse. . Payment of members ought to have had the desirable result of bringing more young men early into the House of Commons. On £400 a year the Parliamentary aspirant should be able to start a political career free from the pecuniary anxieties which beset the' young Victorians. But first, of course, he has to secure a seat, and his strongest grievance is that local associations prefer the candidate who will pay all election expenses and play the role of a bountiful Providence to the constituency which he is "nursing*" If the Conservative Party does not break down that strong but evil tradition it will lose to the enemy many ambitious and able recruits who might help to carry, its standards to victory. . : Conservative youth, however, must give proof of its mettle before it can expect its pretentions to be accepted. But where is the prowess to be displayed and where are the,spurs to be won? The answer is that the battlefield in these democratic days is the doorstep, the street' corners, the openair pitch, the village green, or the small hall—wherever, indoors or out of doors, a group of listeners can be gathered together. The untiring progaganda of the Socialists has to be countered oh the same field, if with cleaner weapons. But who on the Conservative side, whether young or old, is displaying the proselytising missionary vigour of Sir' Stafford Cripps, who devotes his weekends to. making the .whole land his circuit for preaching his own particularly poisonous brand of revolutionary Socialism? t ' • What an opportunity for a band of young Conservatives of parts and spirit, eager to win recognition from the party organisation, to follow him round,* to hold meeting for meeting, t" expound the certain miseries of the class war, and to ply a vigorous broom among the web of false sentiment, envy, rapacity, and chicanery, which envelops Socialism at work. Only let these young braves make sure that the scalps which attest their prowess are those of enemies!