MISS DORA WEST'S STORIES

Evening Star, Issue 21079, 16 April 1932, Page 23

MISS DORA WEST'S STORIES

Two good stories from Aliss Dora West’s address on ‘ Behind the Scenes in Downing Street ’ Sir Robert Horne, the very able Conservative (Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer in the days of war-time Coalition Government), given a complimentary dinner in the House upon his appointment, delighted members by his story of how, when he wrote to his old mother up in Scotland to tell her the news, all he got in reply was a telegram, “ Dinna bo a fule, come Jiamel” “I thought,” he said, “ that I had better go up to see my clear old mother and try to make her appreciate what a great honour the Prime Alinistor had clone me. But all I could get her to say was: “Well. I’vo always prayed that my son might bo a minister, but I’m afraid the good Lord must have misunderstood what 1 meant!” Air Philip Snowden (now Lord Snowden) was described as a typical little Yorkshire “tyke,” who went over to tho Continent as Chancellor of tho Exchequer determined to make the Frenchmen pay up a bit of their war debt, and high time they did. They had been having an easy time wita Sir Austen Chamberlain. Air Snowden was a sick man, and AI. Brianu had him in his waistcoat pocket. But Air Snowden stuck in his toes and stuck out that jaw of his that is like tho prow of a battleship, and refused to budge. The Frenchmen hated him. And at tho dose of tho conference one French delegate leaned over the table to another and said bitterly: “Now 1 know where I’ve seen that man before. He’s tho man who burnt Joan of Arc!”