WANTED A CAPTAIN

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 11932, 12 September 1924, Page 4

WANTED A CAPTAIN

BRITISH POLITICIANS GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR A DQMIN'ANT PERSONALITY, parties reviewed. In' this topsy-turvy Parliament, where so much seems unreal ana “through the looking-glass,” there is one sentiment that is genuine and general. Its existence explains -the sympathy with which Mr Ramsay Mao: donald has been received on his appearance as Labour Premier. What members of the House of Commons aro looking for—and the country outride longing for—in these grave is a new leader of a new type (says Mr Ward Price, the well-known English journalist). Mr Baldwin was heading towards the truth when he said at the meeting of the Conservative Party tnat what they needed was not more money but more brains. Yet he only stated half the case. Brains the House of Commons has in reasonable quantity; the thing lacking among the prominent figures is oharacter. Since Parliament reassembled I have had the first opportunity since I was a small hey of seeing the House of Commons at work. I have used it to study closely the bearing and expression of members on both sides of the House, watching for those little indications of tone and temperament that manifest themselves in the excitement of debate. The Parliaments of all the chief European countries I know well, and in contrast with them there are «viral facts about the House of Commons that have impressed me deeply. “NOTHING TO SELL.” One is its good humour. There is a real British spirit of the playing-field about it. The sourness of sections of the Labour Party is confined to men new to the House. 1 . Honest pride in keeping up the decency and dignity of public life, is also a precious asset to our' country. And it is reassuring to see that the Labour Government holds to it as ’irmly as any other. Let it he put to Mr Ramsay Mao donald's credit that even before he faced the House he_ had uttered a phrase which, in its simple, impersonal dignity, was one of the finest things said by a British Premier since Pitt.

When an American newspaper approached him with the offer or a iarge sum for a signed article, he is recorded to hare answered: “The Prime Minister of England has nothing to sell.” So long as that spirit pulea_pn the Government Bench in the House of Commons, the mind of Britain can be at rest. Those words reveal at least a spark of the character the country wants in its leaders. . LABOUR SBA-LAWYEBS. But as one looks at the Labour Benches in the House of Commons one cannot help feeling that the soundest fruit.is at the top of the basket. It .was noticeable, when Mr Ramsay Macdonald was defining his policy to the House, that his sensible and straightforward statements found no eoho amid the gloomy silence of the Labour backbenches. If externals go for anything, there are far too many members of the sealawyer, demagogic type in the Labour ranks tor tne policy of the Government to be allowed to develop as reasonably, as .sanely and as slowly as their Premier would doubtless wish. Here, again, character of the kind-the country wants is lacking. As you look at those heavy-built men behind the Labour Government, figures in which the muscle inherited from work-ing-men forefathers has turned to fat since they took up the softer trade of politics, their very attitude speaks of uninformed social prejudice, and the fatally false conviction that by ruthlessly using the massed battalions of Labour to sweep away existing institutions the way will he cleared for some of;the “reforms” which they cherish. Initiative and independence of thought are wanting, however. Party discipline has killed them. ’I.H.LIBERALS. As for the Liberal Party in this new House of Commons, it reminds one of two characters in that odd play, “Outward Bound,” who are known as “The Half-ways.” They are people who have committed suicide, and find themselves making a passage to the next world in the company of the regularly dead. The result of this anomalous position is that they find themselves outcasts even beyond the tomb that they sought of their own choice. INEXPERIENCED CAPTAIN. Never was there such a chance as now for a dominant personality, sane, strong, courageous and enlightened, to arise in the House of Commons. Britain is embarking upon an unexplored ocean. Her present captain is inexperienced, and, from his past training, only too likely to take wreckers’ lures for harbour lights; his own crew is quite capable of mutiny. Of his passengers there i 3 one group which claims the right of interfering with his navigation ; the other is under the control of a leader who lias lately shown himself incapable of directing its interests. ... - When a crisis comes, as it is bound to under such conditions, tho way to the bridge will be open for a new man.