PITY THE POLITICIAN

Evening Star, Issue 18262, 30 April 1923, Page 2

PITY THE POLITICIAN

WORST CRITICISED EACH,

MR LLOYD GEORGE SPEAKS FROM

EXPERIENCE

Discussing the qualities required to achieve success in politics in a rectorial address which ho gave to Edinburgh students, Mr Lloyd George said that, like any other career, politics demanded intelligenca, insight, imagination, concentration, industry, uprightness in life and conduct. They might win popularity with meretricious gifts, but they could" never retain it without real quality. But the gift specially needed in politics was courage. No vocation made a more constant draft on courage, every kind of courage—moral courage, prompt courage, but, most of all, the courage that lasted and tho kind of courage that rose with discouragement. A political career was full of disappointments and hurts. Politicians worked in an atmosphere of criticism and censure. Thoro were men engaged and organisations maintained for the purpose of disparaging, finding faulty and condemning politicians—their principles, their words, their actions. Every deed and phrase was scrutinised l by trained eyes with microscopio minuteness, and blemishes, if not exaggerated, wore at least presented in the dimensions in which they appeared through tho microscope. Some men attracted more criticism than others. Some could not walk across a golf course on Sunday without incessant reproach; others might tee the ball on the church steeple with hardly a murmur.

Everybody made mistakes in his business or calling, and if every business man were liable to have not only his transactions, but the very words in which ho transacted them, subjected to close examination in public, ■ would any escape reproof? But what happened to the politician who blundered in act or speech? He woke up one morning and l found from his newspaper that his error was blazoned forth to the world, and mijlions of his fellow-countrymen were either abusing him, cursing him, or, what was isijill worse, laughing at him. He had seen men who had faced death and torture in every form quail and shrink before ridicule. Tho poor politician had to endure it through life. There was no profession which is carried on under such exacting, irritating, and mortifying conditions. Mr Lloyd George asked his hearers to imagine what would happen if a barrister, or a clergyman, or a doctor had to discharge his duties under the conditions which afflicted the life of the politician, and quoted imaginary Press criticisms of tho work of men in these professions. The methods of criticism and censure ho had suggested, he said, were not exactly encouraging, not very nerving, certainly not agreeable, and he doubted whether they were very helpful. But they were all fairly good samples of the kind of criticism inflicted on the politician's ©very, act andl every, phrase.

There were compensations, for the politician who invited onslaught, on the other hand, never lacked appreciation. The zeal of his adherents was fanned by the breeze of opposition, and tho measure of appreciation he enjoyed was generally in proportion to the intensity of the hostility he excited. And if he was of any use at all, to be attacked and admired was better for him than to be ignored. Still, the joys of politics were an acquired taste. Only by discounting both excessive praise and captious blame, and arriving at a working balance, could a politician preserve ms sanity of mind*. There were not many who survived, Rut those who_ did were a hardy tribe. The rest either turned back altogether or stopped halfway. Mr Lloyd George summed up this part of his address as follows:—"Do not imagine that a political career is a life e£. comfort end east mi mosment, if

you like the sort of thing I have described you will enjoy it; otherwise you had better try something else. There are those who will tell you that if you go iuto politics you must have a thick skin. They are quite wrong. Thick skins generally go with thick heads. Sensitiveness and susceptibility, if kept under control and properly directed, are a source of power. It is not a thick head that is required, but a stout heart.”