AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16624, 21 October 1925, Page 5

AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN.

THE WAN OF THE HOUR. AT THE LOCARNO CONFERENCE. MOST DESIRABLE ACHIEVEMENT. In arriving at an agreement on the thorny question of guarantees for maintenance of peace, the' delegates of the European countries represented at the Locarno Conference have succeeded in disposing of a formidable obstacle to the restoration of international goodwill. This is a most desirable achievement. The whole world will benefit in a direct degree in consequence of the successful issue of the negotiations. It would appear from the cabled news bearing on the several conferences and discussions on this question that England’s delegate—the Hon. Austen Chamberlain—has played a big part in bringing about a mutual understanding between the Powers. A pen picture is here presented of the Foreign Secretary in the Baldwin Cabinet:— Why has Austen Chamberlain thus emerged ? Why is he numbered among the supermen of the Armistice? What made him the inevitable man of an inevitable moment? It is a question here to be answered. When the world was in the agony of war, the nations demanded genius. Out of the chaos there arose great men like Woodrow Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George. Distinctive personalities—Asquith, Poincare, Gr.ey, Balfour, Cecil, Ramsay MacDonald—stepped into the limelight; and out of it again. But, for reasons not here to be elaborated. Europe is still unsettled. The best men have not succeeded. And mankind is now content with the good. Austen Chamberlain is the apotheosis of the average. He is the least common multiple of all the more brilliant alternatives that have tried and that have failed. His very mediocrity constitutes his massive potency.

Satisfied with Second Beet,

For seven long years the nations of the world have been bewildered by conferences and protocols and communiques, and all the accumulating paraphernalia of an inconclusive peace. With this vast output of complicated and futile script, the experts themselves cannot keep pace. Newspapers find that their readers do not absorb such interminable dialectic. And in absolute weariness of soul, the plain man demands that some other plain man arrive at a plain decision. That, in plain terms, is the explanation of Austen Chamberlain. He expresses the mood which, when solutions are offered, leads a disgusted humanity to be satisfied with the second best; thp practical, not the ideal. Austen Chamberlain is the product of hope deferred. In a memorandum which somehow reached the Press, he told the Cabinet of a Europe distracted by suspicions and enmities. The truth was to be stated —the brutal truth of an old world, incorrigible!

That was the point of view.- Not all will share it. At Geneva he stepped forth as a contrast at once to Lloyd George’s opportunism and Ramsay MacDonald’s ideals. For big talk he substituted brass tacks, sweeping aside the protocol as if it were a cobweb. Personally the most modest of men, he faced Europe, brusque as a Bismarck. He said what’s what, and said it with a vengeance! In estimating Austen Chamberlain mentally, one must not overlook his ancestry.

Like his father, lie wears an eyeglass. Like his father, he is never seen except in a costume immaculate, whether for morning or for evening. Gladstone’s Benediction. His maiden speech was a well-remem-bered idyll A The heat of the Home Rule debates was at its height. Between the Liberals, led by Gladstone, and the Liberal-Unionists, led by Chamberlain, there was the embittered feud which divides former comrades. Yet when young Austen had said his first say from the green benches, Gladstone got un and declared that it was a performance which must have been a gratification to a father’s heart. There were few occasions when Joseph Chamberlain was moved to tears. This was one of them. With this Gladstonian benediction behind him, Austen Chamberlain set forth to deserve success. He held his head high, brushed his hair, had his clothes well pressed, read his blue-hooks, and was promoted to the front bench. He had his turn as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Everyone liked "him; everyone trusted him. .

When he was Secretary for Indiaan expedition was despatched to Mesopotamia. The medical services' broke down. Wherever the fault lay,'it was certainly not with Austen Chamberlain in London. But he insisted on resigning his office and so accepting the blame. Nobody asked him to do it. But it was the last tiling that Asquith, as Prime Minister, desired. From that day to this, Austen Chamberlain has been regarded as a Galahad. But, father and soil, the Chamberlains have sometimes displayed the defects of their virtues and their abilities. They are apt to see things and to state things too clearly. Joseph Chamberlain would have avoided the disaster of his life if ho had only practised the use of the soft pedal. In dealing with South Africa, he thought that he could safely plav what he called “a game of bluff.” He miscalculated. The Boers knew that they must lose in a war, but they were, none the less, prepared to fight. And Joseph Chamberlain had never encountered that type of irreconcilable. Tt seemed to him as insane as it was illogical. The South African War was a serious business, but it was not one-hundredth part as serious as the business which Austen Chamberlain was called up. in this year of grace, 1925, to transact. Austen Chamberlain goes forward-r----oot chastened, but broadened ; more an elder statesman every day that he lives; handsome, fine in presence, direct of eye. clear of complexion, and with a profile that Wellington would have envied. He has his limitations, but he belongs to the type of which nations are proud.