THE BRITISH PREMIER

Southland Times, Issue 19346, 11 September 1924, Page 7

THE BRITISH PREMIER

THE FREEDOM OF DUNDEE LORD PROVOST'S TESTIMONY PREMIER'S NOTABLE UTTERANCE. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, September 9. The Freedom ofOundee was to-day conferred on Mr Ramsay MacDonald. The Lord Provost said that it could never be said of Mr MacDonald that he had mistaken State craftiness for Statecraft. He had been as upright as he had been downright in all his actions, and proved to the world that a good European could also be a patriotic Briton. Mr MacDonald, in acknowledging the compliment, commended the courage of the city in making him a Freeman. He regarded the honour as an encouragement to do work that belonged not to a party but to the nation. Party or no party, they must all hold one aim in common—namely, the promotion of goodwill among the nations and the establishment of peace on earth. Writing in the Literary Digest, an English journalist, referring to the British Premier, says: "Mr Ramsay MacDonald is an extraordinarily busy man. He rises early. He reads in the tube that takes him down to Westminster, and coming home at night. For years, walking has been his chief recreation. Whether in the country or in London, there is always a book in his pocket. Book shelves line his home. He has a secret hankering after nice editions. He loves his children, and is always reading aloud to them. There is not much he doesn’t know of Scottish lore. Secondhand booksellers draw him like magnets. On his study walls there are more portraits of Cromwell than the visitor ever knew existed. He reads French, though he cannot speak it. John Morley has been one of the big influences in his life. They were great friends. His library is well represented on the scientific side; and he loves maps and guide books. No modern novels. ‘Ordinarily, he is a heavy smoker. During elections he knocks off altogether. His world, like that of most men of commanding personal gifts, is ego-centric. He cannot really conceive of the play w’ithout himself in a principal role. It is not that he asserts himself; he is unconscious of the others. He is ‘all there’; but could he give himself away?” That is the summing up of Ramsay MacDonald by a biographer who has studied him closely from an obviously friendly attitude. He is an intellectual and practical man; he knows his job and how to hold it; he is no theorist; he believes in ideas and ideals; and his friends are confident that there is little likelihood of this shy but practical Scot ever running amok.”