PERSONALITIES MET.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18832, 21 March 1931, Page 17 (Supplement)

PERSONALITIES MET.

MR RAMSAY MACDONALD. (By T.C.L.) Any man who attains the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain is possessed of no ordinary qualities. Especially is this so in the case of one who, like Mr Ramsay MacDonald, had no advantage of birth or position, and has had to climb unaided from the bottom rung of the ladder. It is said that the class barriers in Britain have been considerably lowered from what they were before the war. All the overseas visitor can say to this is that the classes must have been bound into water-tight apartments in the old days, for the lines of demarcation between the classes, even among what are termed the lower classes, are to-day most distinctly defined, and make it very difficult for the man with gifts and ambition to get out of a rut. This condition, of course, is so unlike what obtains in the overseas Dominions, where every office boy or apprentice carries in Ills knapsack—and feels that he is carrying—the commercial or political marshal’s baton. Ramsay MacDonald had as stark a battle with life as anyone in the Empire who has achieved fame or distinction. He was bom in a fisherman’s cottage at Lossiemouth, far north of the Grampian mountains, on the Moray Firth, as romantic in its poverty as it is picturesque In its setting, and at an early age was left to the tender care of his grandmother. Like all Scotsmen, however, poorly circumstanced, he had a thirst for knowledge, but had to satisfy it from books loaned to him by a local watchmaker. He succeeded in gaining a lowly position on the teaching staff of the local school, and afterwards struck out for London, where he worked so hard at his studies that his health broke down. Subsequently he became secretary to a Liberal Member of Parliament, and developed such a thirst for politics that he himself stood as an Independent Labour supporter, and entered Parliament. His subsequent political career is well known, as is also his pacific attitude during the war, when he had to escape by the back doors and over garden walls to avoid being lynched, so violent was the feeling against him. He seldom spoke in Parliament during the war years, but always in a pacific or defeatist sense, and he lost his seat at Leicester in 1918 by an overwhelming majority. Many thought he was politically ruined, but they forgot the reaction which swiftly succeeds great national efforts. The excitement of the war had subsided, the nation forgot the glory and the necessity, and was only conscious of the sacrifices and the terrific cost. Compounded of exhaustion and forgetfulness, the Pacifist acquired a kind of immunity. Hence Ramsay MacDonald’s re-entry into Parliament, his subsequent appointment to the leadership of the Labour Party and his elevation to the Prime Ministership.

Labour trusts Ramsay MacDonald because he is one of themselves; his origin justifies him in rebelling against society. He is against the capitalist system, yet he is a supporter of constitutionalism. He is striving had to make Britain a better place for workers to live in, and he is untiring in his efforts to promote better understanding and co-operation between the nations. Yet he is no inspiring force in the sense that Lloyd George was in the heyday of his career. He seems to lack the ability to inspire his followers, to lack the vital spark. Members of the Imperial Press Conference had the opportunity of meeting and hearing him on more than one occasion. At the opening session he tended a welcome which in Its earnestness and felicity left nothing to be desired. He seemed to recognise that he was the mouth-piece of the nation on an important occasion and accordingly spoke and acted as such. In appearance he is ascetic, a dreamer of dreams, an idealist, with an upward gaze as towards a distant mountain. In manner he is kindly and friendly; in speech measured, sometimes halting, always careful in his choice of language, yet eloquent when moved. He is said to resent opposition and to possess all the dogmatism of the schoolmaster. This was shown in the debate in the House of Commons in November last on the Conservative no-confidence motion which I was privileged to hear. Lloyd George and Stanley Baldwin and the lesser satellites had been firing their broadsides Into the Government all afternoon and evening. The Prime Minister and his Ministers in the front seats (they have

no benches in the House of Commons as in the colonial legislatures) were taking their gruel quietly, except to interpolate a pertinent remark here and there. Late in the evening, Mr MacDonald rose to reply to the crowded house (the assembly room is so small that when there is a full roll call, as on a no-confldence motion, about a third of the members have to stand in the gangways). He spoke fluently and forcibly, and made an excellent defence of the administration of his Government as well as getting in some home thrusts. These caused a crop of interruptions from the younger members in the Conservative seats. The Prime Minister was visibly irritated, and quite lost his temper. “You." he said in accents of scorn, “pride yourself upon being the gentlemen of England. I call you a lot of ill-bred canines!” It was a lapse from Parliamentary conduct for which he made full amends subsequently. On the whole, Mr Ramsay MacDonald came out of the debate with flying colours, however one differed from him in his politics, but to read the reports in the popular London dailies next day one would have thought all the merit of the debate lay with the Opposition. Able and skilled politician that undoubtedly he is. Ramsay MacDonald is not a strong character in the sense that his colleagues, W. H. Thomas and Philip Snowden are. They are of a more rugged and forceful type, but neither is acceptable as a Labour leader whilst the services of Ramsay MacDonald are available. The latter has the ability to command the confidence and support of all sections of the Labour Party, from the wild men of the Clyde to the cultured scions of old families who have thrown in their lot with Labour. He is regarded as “safe” rather than brilliant, as a friend of the masses rather than a personal friend, as ar idealist rather than a practical statesman. For Britain it is fortunate that Labour has had its innings in times o! great economic difficulty. The experience is teaching Labour that there is a limit to what the Government of am country can do. particularly at a tims of national crisis, and also what s country can stand in the way of taxation. Further. Labour is learning tha> socialistic theories cannot always b< translated into practice, and that ever if they could the foundations of the nation would thereby be seriously under minetL