LORD SNOWDEN’S INFECTIVE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 281, 26 October 1934, Page 6

LORD SNOWDEN’S INFECTIVE.

With two comparatively recent outbursts of invective by Lord Snowden ag*ainst his erstwhile colleague of the Socialist Party, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, now Prime Minister of the National Government, still fresh in the public mind, it occasions little surprise, if any, that the peer’s autobiography contains another such tirade. , The autobiography has been described in the cables as the bitterest political book for years. Those who have the opportunity of tracing Lord Snowden’s Parliamentary career will find this description in keeping with many of liis convictions and public utterances ; his bitterness is nothing new, but withal it is difficult to understand, and many may put it down as being just the nature of the writer, it has been said of Snowden that he had the bitterest tongue and the sweetest smile in the House of Commons —and that in a day when such figures as Carson, Birkenhead, and Lloyd George were his contemporaries in the House. As a speaker he ranks among the most prominent of those who have made their mark in the British Parliament, and though handicapped by physical infirmity his courage and convictions were inflexible. His thrusts were sharp and steel-like, barbed with bitter irony. From the humblest beginnings he rose to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, a post in which lie showed a flair for finance. His life story is that of the rise of the Independent Labour Party, and in this connection it is recalled that not only Mr McDonald, but that other stalwart of the party, Mr Arthur Henderson, has on occasion come under the lash of Snowden’s tongue. Snowden has fought many battles for his principles and has been a passionate champion of numerous minority movements —his intensity has been described as a calm, devastating* logic. Many disagreed with his views, but all respected his sincerity. As has been stated, his outbursts against the Prime Minister are difficult to understand in their passion; the more so is this because, if they are based on the ground of disagreement in policy, he has before him the fact that in recent years there has come about in Britain legislation more Socialistic than the I.L.P. dreamt of in its earliest platform.