DAYS OF RESPONSIBILITY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 8, 8 December 1936, Page 7

DAYS OF RESPONSIBILITY.

BRITAIN'S STANLEY BALDWIN

JOHN BULL PERSONIFIED

Next to the central figure in the history-making drama that has been unfolded in the past few days, none has come so prominently into the public eye as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr Stanley Baldwin. Those who heard his broadcast to the Empire after the demise of King George in January will recall the impression he then gave of sincerity and solidity, of perspicacity and sympathy. What he then revealed has been .subjected to a severe test. What, really, is the type of man on whom this responsibility rests? Wickham Steed asked: "Is Mr Baldwin the luckiest of incompetent politicians or the subtlest of competent salesmen?" Professor Harold J. Laski has replied: "Mr Baldwin has the Englishman's genius for appearing an amateur in a game in which, in fact, he is a superb professional." In a masterful portrayal of the Primo Minister, John Gunthcr in his latest book, "Inside Europe," has declared him to be the most powerful of contemporary European democrats, an example of triumph of character over circumstance. The man, who has been three times Prime Minister, was so obscure when he first took office in 1923, that he himself tells the story of a "wellknown lady of society" who asked: "Is the new Prime Minister what you would call an educated man?" At the age of 69 he has no pretensions

to being an intellectual, but lie is said to be tbe personification of John Bull —solid, sober, ponderous, and the embodiment of substance. Ho has earned the trust of the people. Stanley Baldwin was born at Bewdley, AVorcestershire, which constituency he now represents; his father, Alfred Baldwin, was chairman of the Great Western Railway Company and head of Baldwin's, Ltd., the great firm of ironmakers. His maternal grandfather was a AVesley.an minister, and the trait of profound Puritanism with which he is credited has doubtless left its mark on the attitude he has taken to recent events. He and Budyard Kipling were first cousins. His scholastic record was not at all brilliant and he failed in the entrance examinations for the Fourth Form room at Harrow. For twenty years after he entered his father's foundry there is no record of a speech by him in public ; ho succeeded his late father in the House at the age of 41. THE ASCENT.

Mr Baldwin began his upward climb when Mr Bonar Law became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the second year of the War (1910), when he was appointed his Parliamentary private secretary. A year later he became Financial Secretary to the Treasury, though Mr Bonar Law doubted if he "carried enough guns" to merit Cabinet rank. He reached the goal in 1921 as President of the Board of Trade, but he was a silent member. It was the occasion of the disruption of the Lloyd George Coalition, and the Conservatives were sundered on the issue of whether or not to support the Premier ; Messrs Bonar Law and Baldwin led those who revolted, the latter turning the tide against Mr Lloyd George, resulting in his being out of office from that time till the present. Mr Ounther has said: "The lumbering tortoise tripped the bright sharp fox—and the era ol Versailles was over." Mr Baldwin was Chancellor in the new Cabinet, and when Mr Bonar Law resigned through ill-health the King decided that the leadership be with him instead of the Foreign Minister, Lord Curzou. Mr Baldwin, in a typical phrase, told journalists who interviewed him: "1 don't need your congratulations, but your prayers." "PIGS AND PIPES." Mr Baldwin's chief influence comes fiom his wife, Mrs Lucy Baldwin. To

them both the vigorous Socialist tendencies of their son, Oliver, have been a political grief. The Premier enjoys friendship with the younger men, including Mr R. A. Eden (Foreign Secretary) and Mr A. Duff-Cooper (Secretary for War), and the fact that the latter has stood out with Sir John Simon against the abdication proposal indicates the real strain the Prime Minister has suffered. The pipe has become the symbol of his personality, but Professor Laski has written: "The pose of simplicity which Mr Baldwin affects ought to deceive no one; a simple man has never been Prime Minister of England. His pigs and his pipe are simply the technique ol' propaganda." Alter a Premiership of Jess than a year in 1923 Mr Baldwin again held office from 1924 to 1929; then he was defeated when he went to _ the country on a "Safety First" slogan. He came back in 1935 with an immense majority, and today, despite the Hoare-Laval crisis of last year, still holds considerable sway. If lie emerges from the present crisis stronger than before ho will indeed have earned the right to the declaration that the England which he said had never sought a second Cromwell may yearn for other Baldwins.

"NOBLE KNIGHT." MRS SIMPSON'S ANCESTOR. 'WE TOLERATE N OKING." A writer in Liberty an American publication says: "Mrs Simpson's, ancestry goes back much further in Britain's history than the King's own House of Hanover and Windsor. The "Warfield family is descended from that noble knight. Pagan de Warfield, who came to England with William the Conqueror in 100 G, and distinguished himself at the Battle of Hastings. For his services he received a knight's fee of an _ English manor, henceforth known as Warfield's Walk, one of the 10 'walks' into which Windsor forest was divided. "In the annuals of Windsor are found many now amusing references to the Warfield family's 'prominence and close association with the Royal household.'

"Richard Warfield, direct descendant of Pagan, cainc to Maryland in 1662, and settled on the banks of the Severn. Here, at his estate, known as Warfield Right, he founded tho American branch of the family. It- was Ricvhard's great-great-great-grandson, Charles Alexander Warfield, of revolutionary fame, who announced proundly that the family motto would henceforth read, "We toerato no king.' "Futhermore, Mrs Simpson's mother was a Montague of the Virginia Montagues, who go back almost, if not quite, as far. The most conspicuous examples in the British aristocracy of tho current Montagues (or Montagus—the name is spelled both ways!) are the Duke of Manchester and his son, Lord Edward Montagu. "It was therefore, into a union oi two old-established houses that Bessie Warfield was born. ::