CREASED TROUSERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19530, 13 July 1925, Page 10

CREASED TROUSERS.

MR BAMSAT MACDONALD'S TROUBLES. SIGN'S OF THE PLUTOCRAT The passionate loyalty of the Labour Party to their leader draws the line somewhere—draws it, in fact, at Mr MacDonald's trousers. This would seem-a domestic matter best settled at one of those happy gatherings of the party in which the followers, going into secret session, tel] the leaders bow to behave. But Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s is one of those sensitive souls which cannot bear to suffer without a cry; and he has never been so affecting as upon his trousers. It appears that certain ignoble creatures in the ranks of Labour have cast it up against Mr MacDonald that hie trousers are too elegant. We do not know how to express our emotions about ibis (says the Daily Telegraph), but if we may say so without offence, wo are snrprieed and horrified. Conscious of virtue, ho might well have disdained such slander. But his gentle nature coajd not bear it. He had to tell the miners erf Cyminer the whole history of those trousers. It is an affecting story, perhaps a little too pitiful for a May Day festival, but glowing with human interest. On his recent holiday, Mr MacDonald “took out an old pair_of trousers and found crease. B.e happened fo Tie phofbgrapEel in these. It was then said that he had deserted the workers because the crease in his trousers showed that he was getting far 100 respectable.” But this is not all. At another time he went into “mod respectable company,” and some newspapers said that “he turned up in a hat much worn and a pair of trousers not pressed for some time." We do not know which was the most unkindest cut of all, but any sympathetic mind will understand hoiy this sort of thing hurts a man like Mr Ramsay MacDonald. The wickedness of criticism is not even satisfied with the trousers. He is. he explained to the miners, moving. We seem to have heard of it—about the size of the drawing room which is going to be a library, and the bantams which are to be kept in the garden. Mr MacDonald, like Mr Crummies, must wonder how these, thing© get into the papers. But the dreadful thing is that, although his doctor has really ordered him “out of a house in which he is overcrowded,” the miners are told: ‘He is now a plutocrat; you should turn him out.” No wonder that in anguish of soul he appeals to his miners, “Now wWt am I to do?” But in our dull bourgeois way we could suggest one or two medicative things which he might do. He might cease to cry out so loud every time he is hurt. He might train himself to believe that he is after all, much as other men are. He might abstain from making speeches which proclaim that everybody who enjoys a comfortable income, everybody who is as well off as he is, is a brutal capitalist grinding the faces of the popr. For until he practises that form of self-control it is very probable that the attacks which he delivers on people- who live as he does will be redirected by his faithful followers to his own address.