NEARLY THIRTY YEARS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19337, 29 May 1937, Page 5

NEARLY THIRTY YEARS

SERVICE IN THE HOUSE THRICE PRTME MINISTER MR. STANLEY BALDWIN Mr. Stanley Baldwin, who has just relinquished the Prime Ministership, has to his credit nearly .'it) years of service in the House of Commons anil has held tho highest political office in Britain three times, sharing that distinction with Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. He was first Prime Minister from May, IDL'3, to January, 1024, then again from November, 1924, to June, .1020. He took over from Mr. MacDonald in June, 1935, and after the General Election in November in the same year continued up to the present time at the head of the Government. His Ministerial offices have included Lord President of the Council, Lord Privy Seal, President, of the Board of Trade, Chancellor ot the Exchequer, and Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Before he accepted Ministerial status he acted as private secretary to the late Mr. Bonar Law, Conservative leader, on whose retirement Mr. Baldwin stepped from the Chancellorship to the Prime Ministership in 1923.

As Lord President of the Council, lie headed the British delegation to Ottawa for the memorable Imperial Conference of 1932, and he wus subjected to considerable criticism on his return for having conceded so much to the Dominions .without having gained enough for Britain. He weathered a far greater storm, howover, in the abdication of King Edward VIII last year, when he steadfastly set his face against any such compromise as a morganatic marriage. To-day, in spite of the widespread sympathy for the man who renounced the throne of England, Mr. Baldwin, for his part in the momentous happenings, probably stands higher than ever before in the public esteem. Rest in English Character The whole career of Mr. Baldwin, as politician and statesman, bespeaks his magnificent capacity to rise to an occasion. In one of his speeches about three years ago Mr. Baldwin recalled being amused and rather pleased by a writer in The Times, who said that his spiritual home was in the last ditch. "If that be so," lie added, "I share that ditch with most of my fellow-countrymen."

The success of Mr. Baldwin in the highest office of State which man can fill seems to spring from the fact that in an outstanding way he typifies most that is best in the English character. His straight-forwardness, his honesty, his pertinacity, his good humour and his love of country things reveal him almost as a John Bull in modern clothes. In his speeches he talks often of the scents and sounds of the English countryside and of the tang of honest English ale. In his approach to the political problems of his day he seems to make a constant effort to combine the ideals of freedom and responsibility' as the chief tenets of English political faith. Quaker Ancestry Mr. Baldwin is a Worcestershire man and, as such, comes from one of tho loveliest of the English counties. He was born in 18G7 and as a young man worked and became a partner in the family business, a prosperous iron foundry which a Baldwin established in Worcestershire 150 years ago. Scottish forbears gave him a love of learning and steadfastness of purpose; Quaker ancestry gave him patience and a desire .for service.

Mr. Baldwin first entered Parliament in 1908 when he was elected to the seat which his father had held since 1891'. Together, father and son have now served Worcestershire without a break for over 40 years. Only on rare occasions lias the seat been contested.

In his early days in politics, Mr. Baldwin gained the reputation of being a somewhat unimaginative plodder. His first critical experience, in the political sense, was in J 922 when at a fateful meeting at the Carlton Club he rose and quietly uttered sentences which dealt a death-blow to tho Liberal-Conservative Coalition. Within seven months he was P/ime Minister of Great Britain. Gift to the Ration Earlier than that, in 1919, readers of The Times one morning read with various feelings a letter signed "E.5.T.," in which the writer called on all wealthy men to help the country by imposing a voluntary levy on themselves and led tho way by presenting the Government with a fifth of his wealth in the form of War Loan, asking that, it should be cancelled. He did this as a "thank-offering," and in the firm conviction that "we shall never again have such a chance of giving our country that form of help which is so vital at the present, time." It was not until much later that it was learned that, the man who made that gift was the future Prime Minister.

Apart from tho recent situation when the future of the Monarchy was at stake, the most critical event in Mr Baldwin's political career was the general strike of 1920, which occurred during his second term as Prime Minister. Then, as in the last few days, he proved himself a great Constitutionalist. He has all the typical Englishman's deep-rooted love for the Monarchy and his passion for history has enabled him frequently to deal with present-day problems as problems in applied history. The General Strike was fought by Mr. Baldwin as a constitutional issue. The Trades Union Congress, as ho saw it, was attempting to place itself above the elected Government of the country and, as such, was aiming a death-blow at democracy.