From Lossiemouth to London

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1010, 28 June 1930, Page 28

From Lossiemouth to London

Life Story of Britain's Prime Minister

A Scots i Lad’s Rise to L Fame iy

U====== C By

Mary Agnes Hamilton.)

THE aCM has secured the rights of this interesting biography of Mr. liamsay Mac Dona d. Prime Minister of England. The fourth instalment appears belovr. Th • biography will be continued each Saturday. MacDonald does not in -*"* the least correspond to the Torries’ and liberals’ image of the British -working man. they suggest that he is out of touch and has somehow or other been “imposed upon his followers. This was the recurring burden of the diatribes of Mr. Lloyd George both iu 191 S and 192“. Not so much is heard of it now. The fact that MacDonald is the chosen leader of the working people, and a source of deep pride to their liearst, is rather too obvious. But it lingers iu the minds ot many middle-class persons and can hardly be dislodged unless they are prepai-ed to become acquainted first with the average British worker —man or woman —and with MacDonald as he really is. The gifts of mind which have raised him from the humblest origin to an equality with those who have had every circumstantial advantage have not separated him from his roots in the life of the multitude, and the multitude know it. He incarnates their aspirations. The feeling that is speechless in them, in him finds voice, and it is a voice that echoes through their hearts. He can and does move thousands by his words. As a speaker he is an artist, not an amateur. He has a baritone voice of rare beauty, with notes in It as rare as those of a violoncello, and an unusual range of colour in its inflections. He can make it crack like a pistol; he can make it sing. Even when he is doing nothing particular with it, it makes music. The middle register, unforced, carries easily across the largest hall. Yet, at times, possibly when tired, he forces it so badly that one is driven to believe that the general appearance of technical mastery is illusory; his voice simply follows his mind without liis thinking about it. So do his gestures. He moves on the platform with complete freedom, an easy expressive grace. There is no gesticulation, but every action suggests harmonious cooperation of brain and body. He has a wide range of variety; can pass from invective to ridicule, from an apparent cynicism in opposing the weak points in an opponent's case, turning it inside out, laughing it to scorn, to an idealism that clothes itself in images, lifted out of the commonplace by a life-giving touch of genuine ini aginative colour. His method is extremely free. There is always a strong, connecting, argumentative thread, but very little of the magniloquence of a “set” speech. His vitality and variety make him exceptionally difficult to report, as does the closeness of the logical texture under the apparent spontaneity of form. Many people, while professing an active curiosity to know what this or that distinguished person is “really like,” w-ill do anything rather than read his writings. In the case of MacDonald, they make a profound mistake. His writing is not invariably easy, but it must he read if he is to be understood: must be taken in connection with his speeches, and with the impression he makes in personal contact if he is to be understood. Those who will not trouble to grasp the ideas that for him govern both speech and action must remain outside comprehension. His writing may be roughly divided into two categories. There is a series of works in which he has dons more than any other man now living to create the characteristic outlook of the British Labour Party—works which, as expositions of democratic Socialism, have been translated and read all over Europe. Written as they are by a man incessantly engaged in active politics, and never free from the strain of conflict, (“Socialism, Critical and Constructive,” for example, was completed during the weeks of the Woolwich by-election in 1921), they are, nevertheless, in the main studiously dry and detached in tone, and make their appeal consistently to the reason rather than to the passions of the reader. He does his writing with his own hand. Letters, of course, are dictated; articles never. There are prominent men -whose speeches are compiled, their articles, even their books, written for them. He relies on no such dangerous aids. He prepares his own speeches and writes every line that goes out over his name in a clear,

'■regular writing, of a high genera! 1 j legibility, with notably short head ■ and tail letters and no flourish abouit: an individual but undecorated hand.' ■| He argues too much. Meu want ii ■ slogan. He presents them with a syllogism. This trait suggests tvj strains iu a complex character. Per. sonally he is without arrogance and with much charm, nevertheless domiieering. He wants obedience rather than understanding, loyalty rather than companionship. At the s»m* time this personal, instinctive do-nir.. 1 ance is rejected by bis intellect. Hs demands that every individual should do bis own thinking. He is out to stimulate thought, not to suggest cou--1 elusions. He won't tell him what to think. That is dictatorship and. i a ■ theory, quite honestly, he rejects hat. , A “clear lead ' is a call for unthinktaj; obedience, aud for the acceptance o£ a formula, ail invitation to a mental l ease and laziness abhorrent to his athletic mind. But. as ihe result ot individual thought, the follower must come out. somehow or other, exsctlv ■ i at. the place he has himself reached. . i He is not going to help him along ths way. Bur, he must be at the tryst on 1 ; time and must know- the -outs Jby the light of reason. 1 In Office 1 —m [ MacDonald undoubtedly saw along how difficult a path he was preparing to lead his own party; to 1 how severe a test he was exposing - not their loyalty alone, but their in- • lelligence aud grasp of political science. “No minority ought tb be ’ ! asked to do the work of a majority. • It is not sound democracy?” i The process of Cabinet-making: went quietly on. It is common property . i now that Robert Smillie preferred to serve outside and that certain other* ' refused the posts proffered to them. : But beyond that there has beeupract tically no leakage. It is said that . when the Cabinet first met. most of 1 i its members were but recently awar. of their own posts and iguoraut of : ; their colleagues. Their leader then, 1 as later, kept his own secrets. Per- . haps then, as later, he kept them too well. Between the Scyila of reserve ; j and the Charybdis of openness the - ; statesman can hardly hope to steer an uncritieised course. If Mr. MacDonald chose silence, or rather if hia ! temperament chose it for him, he chose the course of dignity It had ' its price, this choice, so has the 2 j alternative. 3 ; In taking office there were risks. - They were taken because, “We are to - shirk no responsibility that comes to - us in the course of the evolution of i our movement. We are upon a pil- " grimage. W T e are on a journey. 'One ; step enough for me.’ One step, yes, 1 my friends, on one condition, that it 1 leads to the next step.” They took 2 J office, not, as was being said, to pre- • ; pare for a General Election, hut “in > order to do work.” c | Mr. MacDonald took upon himself - the offices of Prime Minister and For- - eign Secretary. His own first idea, • one gathers, had not been to do so, 5 | but when a rumour got about as to the 2 name he had in mind as Foreign Sec- - retary—the name, as it was to prove, 3 of the one man capable administrate ■ ively of dealing with the office, 2 whether or no possessed of the clarity r of idea demanded —there was evidence in the quarters most concerned for 1 international peace, of a dislike, doubt, r and suspicion that would have endan--7 gered the experiment from the start 1 None of those who criticised his own f | assumption of office at the time or 1 since has ever been able to suggest - an alternative, nor to meet the view 2 that, since European peace was the 1 first task of the Government, it wat I ! plainly proper that its head should - : undertake it. So far as peace was concerned, the ? result justified the decision. Like 1 other things worth getting, it. had its 1 price—a price paid iu the main by the man who sacrificed comfort, health i I and strength to coping with it; but 5 the thing was done, the effort was £ , crowned with success. Could anyone 3 ! else have done it? f Mr. MacDonald has the industry that s amounts to genius, a capacity for work c j that astounds subordinates; but he 1 could not physically or mentally be everywhere at once. He had, in de--1 I ciding to be Foreign Minister, to make 3 a choice. He saw the drawback* 9 : of the horn of the dilemma he se- ; - lected; he also saw the greater drawe j backs of the alternative. 1 j Lord Haldane, whose experience is e . varied enough, is said to have dei i dared, after the first meeting of the -- ! Cabinet, that he had never been e ; present at a more business-like as- ! sembly or sat under an equally effii eient chairman. From the first, smok- ; ing was permitted—an innovation as t startling as the prompt removal, so 1, soon as Mr. MacDonald moved into 10 > Downing Street, of the barriers that t had “guarded” it ever since the Irish a scare of Mr. Lloyd George's regime. • t J (To be continued next Saturday.)