CURZON'S DISAPPOINTMENT

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1928, Page 5

CURZON'S DISAPPOINTMEN T

(OULD NOT BE PRIME MINISTER By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copy-lglit. Australian Press Association. London, Sept 21. The final volume of the Earl of Ron aidshay’s biography of Lord Curzon reveals for the first time the bitterness of Lord Curzon's disappointment because his life’s ambition to becom Primo Minister was not realised. When Air. Bonar Law retired in 192: many regarded it as a foregone conclu sion that Lord Curzon would succeed him and when the latter was invited to see Lord Stamfordham at Bucking ham Palace ho thought the greatest moment of his lifetime had arrived. Lord Curzon himself refers to his pleasurable anticipations in going to Buck ingliam Palace. "I found that the almost unanimous opinion of the newspapers was that the choice lay between Mr. Baldwin and myself. There was no question of the immense superiority of my claims, bu: it was Lord Stamfordham’s unpleasant duty to convey the decision of his Majesty that, since Labour, the official Opposition in the House of Commons, was not represented in tlie House of Lords, the objections to a Prime Minister in the Upper Chamber were insuper able.”

lx>rd Curzon was filled with disappointment at having missed his life's ambition. He accepted the invitation to continue at the Foreign Office, and a week later he proposed Air. Baldwin as leader of the Conservatives.