The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1924. MR BALDWIN’S CABINET.

Southland Times, Issue 19395, 8 November 1924, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1924. MR BALDWIN’S CABINET.

In the early announcements of his appointments, Mr Baldwin made it clear that the lessons of his first Ministry were not lost. When he succeeded Mr Bonar Law he gathered about him a Cabinet in which there was an overwhelming cargo of peers, the bulk of the important portfolios being held by men who could not take seats in the elected Chamber, and this politically was a source of weakness. It must not be thought that a title postulates incompetence, but a Cabinet is not in a position to meet its critics effectively if such departments as Foreign Affairs, the Colonies, the War Office, and India, are controlled by men who sit in the House of Lords. Mr Ramsay MacDonald gave the India Office, and the Admiralty to peers, but the Secretaries for Foreign Affairs, for the Colonies, and the War Office were members of the House of Commons. The departure of the peers and the appearance of the three “centralists” in important posts are the features of the Cabinet appointments so far. Mr Baldwin has promoted his recruit, Mr Winston Churchill, to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of the most important of the Cabinet posts. Mr Churchill’s record as a Minister is such that there is no department which would not be given to him with confidence, but he owes his lofty position in the Baldwin Ministry largely to the boldness with which he led the attack on the Labour forces. His speeches in the election campaign seem to have been one of the most potent factors in securing the triumphant return of the Conservatives. Lord Birkenhead is received back into the fold, and takes the India Office from Lord Olivier. In the first Baldwin Cabinet Viscount Peel was Secretary of State for India. Lieut.-Colonel Amery, who was at the Admiralty before Mr Baldwin’s defeat, goes to the Colonial Office, and Mr Bridgeman, who was Secretary for Home Affairs, takes charge of the Navy, an appointment which will not inspire confidence in view of the stormy times he had when he was at the Home Office. The third of the “centralists” is Mr Austen Chamberlain, who was kept out of the first Baldwin Cabinet by the “Die-Hards” of the party. He now returns to Cabinet rank and takes over the Foreign Office with the Deputy-Leadership of the House of Commons, so that he is practically second-in-command to the Prime Minister. This may occasion surprise in view of the fact that Lord Curzon is still active, but the former Foreign Secretary has probably asked to be relieved of the control of the Foreign Office in view of the sharp changes from his policy made necessary by the new orientation in Europe. Mr Austen Chamberlain will probably have Lord Curzon’s assistance whenever he requires it. As Lord President of the Council, Lord Curzon would still be a power in the Cabinet, his knowledge of the East being of enormous value. From the early appointments, it is evident that the “Die-Hard” element in the Conservative Party has lost power, and this probably is the basis for Sir Joynson-Hicks’s confident statement that there will be no re-action in the new Government’s policy. Mr Baldwin enters on his second term as Prime Minister with free hands. Like President Coolidge, his first taste of control came when he stepped into a dead man’s shoes and inherited a policy for which he was not responsible. Now he is a Prime Minister by popular selection and the future is in his own hands. He will not be tied to Conservative precedent, but it is extremely doubtful if he will make any move in the direction of Imperial Preference through the tariff. His victory was emphatic because the tariff question was kept off the political stage, and in view of that fact he is not likely to take up the matter until he is assured that public opinion in the Old Country has changed. The Zinoviev letter, which assisted in Mr Ramsay MacDonald’s defeat, though not so much as the Labour supporters suggest, is now taking a humorous turn, but the violent language employed in Moscow is of small consequence, except as an indication of the difficulties facing Mr Austen Chamberlain. The new Foreign Secretary will be stiffer with Russia than were Mr MacDonald and Mr Arthur Ponsonby, but there will be no return to Lord Curzon’s frigidness unless the Moscow Government brings this about by its own acts. The Ministry is undoubtedly stronger than the first one Mr Baldwin led, and it gives promise of an administration in which genuine progressiveness will be more pronounced than at any time since the pre-war days.