ANTHONY EDEN

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 126, 23 November 1935, Page 9

ANTHONY EDEN

HIS EARLY.SUCCESS

MAN OF REAL CAPACITY

(By Nelle M. Scanlan.) LONDON, October 31. No man h<as played a bigger part in the efforts to settle the Italo-Abyssiniar? dispute than Mr. Anthony Eden. No young politician has made such a spectacular rise to fame perhaps since Lord Rosebery. No untried man has handled such delicate diplomatic missions with I such marked success. I The. first time I met Mr. Anthony Eden was in New Zealand some years ago. He was then an obscure M.P. In British politics a man is considered young at fifty. He seldom reaches important .rank in his Government before sixty. Mr. Anthony Eden is now 38. This tall, slim, handsome young Englishman is, in appearance, what foreigners regard as a typical English gentleman. He has the advantage of coming from one of the oldest families in England; he has artisto|cratic antecedents. Robert de Eden received grants of land in .South Durham from an English King six centuries ago. An Eden was Governor of Maryland before the American Revolution; he married the heiress of the adventurous Lord Baltimore, after whom the capital of Maryland was called. Anthony Eden's father was the famous Sir Timothy Eden, a real charjacter in the eighteenth-century interpretation of the word, a man with mordant wit, violent temper, and a love of the arts. When quite young, Anthony Eden married the beautiful daughter of Sir Gervase Beckett, the son-in-law of Frances, Countess of Warwick. In 1923, when the Tory seat of Warwick and Leamington fell vacant, and Lady Warwick announced her intention of standing as a Labour candidate and set out to woo the electors in a carriage drawn by six cream ponies, thu Tory choice of candidate fell on this charming young man, who, though not of the Warwick family himself, was. connected with it by marriage. Anthony Eden Won easily, and at the age of twenty-seven he had that essential factor in, English political life, a safe seat in the House of Commons. . His appearance is a great asset. He is extremely good-looking, always beautifully dressed, but without suggesting the tailor's model. He has charm of manner, tremendous ability, and the almost Royal gift of suffering bores gladly. In foreign countries a title is always conferred upon him. When he went to Germany, the first British statesman to visit Hitler, he was called "Lord Eden." He was Lord Anthony Eden in Moscow, It is diffiIcult for the foreigner to understand why a man who is "Lord Privy Seal" is simply plain Mister. MEETING WITH HITLER. During the war he served in the King's Royal Rifle Corps, won the Military Cross, and was a brigade major at twenty. The fact that both he and Herr Hitler had been gassed in front of Ypres was perhaps a factor in improving the moment when they first met, and they xefought the battles together with pencilled diagrams on the British Ambassador's menu-card. At first; he took no .prominent part in the House of Commons, when three of his brilliant contemporaries, Harold McMillan, . Terence O'Connor, and Robfect Bbothby,- were making' firstclass reputations in debate. As Parliamentary private secretary to Sir Austin Chamberlain he worked industriously, but his semi-official position debarred him from taking an active part in debate. He was just an unimportant back-bencher. When the National Government was formed Mr. Eden was given the post of Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office. One day when Sir Austen Chamberlain was pressed for time he invjted Mr. Eden to sketch the draft of a memorandum he wished to submit to the Cabinet on some important Foreign Affairs question. This was so ably done that Sir Austen made no alterations to it. So impressed was he that he told Mr. Baldwin that here was a young man to watch. When the time came for Mr. Baldwin to submit his list of junior Ministers to J Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald in August, 1931, .Mr. Anthony Eden was among them. He quickly rose to Lord Privy Seal, and in 1934 he was elected to Cabinet, a special department being made for him, the Ministry for League of Nations Affairs. It was a new job, and there was no precedent to guide him. Many people, indeed, expected him to be made Foreign Secretary itself.

. His burning sincerity is one of his great virtues, and his faith in the League of Nations. "We believe in the League, we hold by the League." How often has he repeated this article of his faith! It is this sincerity that has won '.'or him- such a remarkable position abroad. Foreign statesmen realise his essential disinterestedness and fearlessness of purpose. He kpows war, and hates war. and all his endeavours are on the side of peace. Friends who were with him at Oxford say he had a quick temper in those da3"s. He has disciplined this, and under most trying conditions he remains cool, calm, and unruffled. Nothing appears to disturb him. As French is the official language at Geneva he scores there, as he speaks French fluently. At Oxford he took first-class honours in Persian. Outside- vpolitics his dominant interest is art, and his first job when he came down from Oxford was as art critic on the "Yorkshire Post." When he is off duty for an hour in Paris or Rome he is usually found in the art galleries, and he is a trustee of the National Gallery in London. When he was in Moscow he was entertained at a gala performance of the Russian Ballet. .There are few statesmen to whom this would have appealed as it did to him. He is also a connoisseur of wines, and no man better understands the art of living graciously while at the same time being unself-conscious about it.