BRITISH STRIKE LEADERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16456, 18 June 1921, Page 15

BRITISH STRIKE LEADERS.

CHARACTER SKETCHES. (ALEXANDER M. THOMPSON iu the “ Daily Mail.”) One could scarcely conceive a greater contrast in human, types than that presented by the acting-president and the secretary of the Miners’ Federation. Mr Frank Hodges, the secretary, is a. young man of thirty-four, with a young and handsome face, fresh com r plexion, dark hair> and the deepsunken eyes, alternately dreamy and flashing, of the poet and the fighter. He is “exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading; lofty and sour to them that love him not.*’ A few* years ago he was a working miner, then he was sent to the Central College, where he studied economics, thence to Paris, where he acquired a correct and fluent knowledge of French, and now be discusses abstruse problems of finance and poiiitcs on terms of easy intellectual equality with the Prime Minister nDd the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Hodges has brains; also ideals; when, the former, in seasoned maturity, ussumo full control of the latter Mr Hodges may make history. Mr Herbert Smith is totally different. He- is. burly and gruff. talks broad Yorkshire, still wears the cap of his mining days. He was born in a Barnsley workhouse and has lived to become a Poor Law guardian of tho district.

His friends tell a tale of him. which describes wm better than I can. As he was walking to church with his daughter one Sunday during last year’s strike he heard one of a group of wayside loafers remark: “That’s the chap that sold us.” Mr Smith requested his daughter to walk on, deposited his Prayer-book on the ground, stripped off hie coat, and with characteristic scorn of superfluous argument, invited his critic to follow his oxample. The critic demurred, but the acting-president of the Miners’ Federation convinced him by effective physical persuasion that, he would feel much more comfortable in shirt-sleevea-Tfce subsequent debate bad reached its fourth clause when a horrified policeman appeared and reminded Mr Smith that he was a magistrate. “That's aw reet.” replied the miners’ leader, “ but T think lie’s ,v ood enough for a couple more rounds. Then 111 talk to thee.” But I understand that Mr Smith completed his critic’s conversion in the next round, put on his coat, picked up his Prayer-book, and then rejoined his daughter with the blissful feeling of a good Christian who lias done his duty to his neighbour. Mr James Henri- Thomas, 31. P., started his career forty-seven years ] ago aa an errand bov at the age of ! nine; became in turn cleaner, fireman | aud engine-driver on the Great Wes- j tern Railway* president of the Rail- 1 way men's tmon: member of Parlia- I ment for Derby ; ami Privy Council- I lor. He has had no “ education ” of ! the sort taught in schoo : s* but in some i respects, perhaps, knows as much as some highly tutored railway directors. Like Mr Hodges anti the Prime Min i ister—be is Welsh, and, like one at least of these fellow-wranglers in the University of Industrial Politics, he is , in debate and marvellously j quick to snatch a chance. His enemies accuse him of a propen- : sity to pose and an excessive readiness > to compromise: but h:’s admirers re- : tort that, whatever t.lxvdefects of his j methods, they generally have the very ! excellent quality of success fulness, j “Jim Thomas may bend, aud Jim Thomas may wriggle.” I have heard j one of them soy, “ but lie mostly conj trices to get there.” ! Mr Thoma 3is the happy possessor lof another precious virtue; he has a keen sense of humour, aud none of , his critics gets as much fun out of ! him as he gets out of himself—and j them. j Mr G. T. Cramp, the industrial see- • retary of the railwaymen, was foirner- ! ly a passenger guard on ike railway, and I should imagine that his gentle, smiling urbanity in that capacity must have won him at least the offer —-1 don’t know whether he accepted them —of a huge guerdon of tips from firstclass passengers. The common impression of Mr Cramp represents him ! as a long-haired, wild and frantic Boi- : shevik; he is, on the contrary, an es- | sential “ gentleman ” of the most ! gentle and well-bred suavitv a stuclij ous reader, and L doubt whether he | ever cut the throat even of an eari wi g* ! Mr Robert W dliavns aga:n is a curi- [ ous mixture. Ho presents to the world j a largo and Dam on-like figure, and j appears at public conferences as a | mighty master in the subtleties of that | sort 61 rhetoric which one associates I with tho bludgeon and tho blunder- ! buss. He lias a fine gift of vituperal tive passion and fury, and sometimes seems so much in earnest that one is | almost tempted to believe that ho J really moans what he Eays. Yet in 1 private conferences there is no more suave or diplomatic negotiator. | Mr James Wins tone was one of a party of trade union leaders whom 3 “escorted” during the war over the 1 battlefields of the Somme. He had a | sou in the thick of the fight, and In? chief care was to seek him out. But j all the soldiers from South Wales were sons to his capacious and catholic symtpa thy. Yet all the while he fiercely denounced the war, and though professing democratic views appeared intensely hostile to his country's elected Government and the democracy which lias raised him and tho other leaders of Labour to representative distinction and power.

The mixture of dreamy idealism and bitterness presents in most of the Labour extremists the most curious and character istic contradietion.