MARGARET BONDFIELD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16705, 10 April 1922, Page 6

MARGARET BONDFIELD.

A WOMAN OF MARK. QUALITIES OF LEADERSHIP The working rule of political parties often seems to be very much that of the jungle; the fight within is more constant and more strenuous, conducted with more genuine gusto, than the fight without (writes “ Xanthippe, m the “ Westminster Gazette. Although. the Labour ‘Party has as its basis the ideal of co-operation, ot mutual aid, of disinterested social service this by no means prevents its members, whether leaders or followers, or followers who hope to be lenders, from viewing one another with malice and all uncharitableness. et I have never heard a friend—she does not appear to have any enemies—say nnvthing harsher of Margaret Bondfield than that she is never tired. This is not because her personality is tame or colourless. On the contrary, the first thing that strikes one about her, as the last, is the vivid quality of her vitality. She positively tingles with life. She may, like other people, have her off-days, her solitary hours of gloom, depression, moral fatigue; but when one meets her, even if it bo on a committee she is keen, alert, and the one person there who gets on to the

real business, elicits the real issue, *vfc once. Her mind has a magnetic attraction for the point. One can see her brushing a-side irrelevancies, as she brushes aside the dark lock that sometimes strays across her broad, open, forehead, though it never comes down far enough to get in the way of her clear, wide open, sparkling eyes. With those bright eyes, clear-cut, fresh-

coloured face, and small, compact, strongly-built figure she reminds one of an excessively wide-awake and pertinacious but essentially friendly robin ; the sort of early bird that would certainly not miss the worm, but that, ten chances to one, is carrying it off to make a breakfast for some poor thing for whom it has made itself responsible. LEARNING FROM LIFE. And this impression would be correct. From the beginning, Margaret Rondfield has been looking after other people, never after herself. It is not her own reputation, ever, that she cares about, but that, for the good of others, this or that should be done. She does not tiilk about it. but she is herself the living incarnation of the ideal of service. She started, as everyone knows, as a shop assistant; and with her electric energy had. soon laid the foundation of a union among what were then some of tho weakest workers in the country. Once, among her audience, there was a young girl whose father owned a big shop. Her words tired this girl’s imagination : in the teeth of her well-to-do pa rents’ opposition, she determined to learn for herself what the life of her father’s employees was actually like. With characteristic generosity, Margaret Bondfield not merely helped Mary Macarthur to find her feet; later she served under her, in the Women’s Trade Union League, and was, to the end, not only her closest friend, but lier most loyal admirer. No trace of jealousy ever entered in to spoil their relations ; not even the possessive jealousy of the devoted friend. Margaret Bondfield’s happiness in the union of the Andersons was a lovely thing ; their tragic deaths the darkest sorrow her life has known. But, always a tremendous worker, it gave her a renewed strength of purpose in the resolve to carry on their common work. Of all the women candidates, she is the best equipped. Not only is she one of the bese .speakers in a party rich in speakers, with a power to rise, upon occasion, to heights of genuine eloquence—no one who hoard her on Ireland. in the Albert Hall, will ever forget it; she is, a thing far more uncommon. a first-rate debater, with a

good temper, surprising in one with so much natural fire : more than that, she knows industry and industrial organisation from A to Z. The Labour Party puts women upon its executive because they are women ; the Trade Union Congress elects Margaret Bondfield on to its executive year after year because she is supremely competent, and they know it. PURPOSEFUL BUT HUMAN. She is not only competent. She is good to work with. There is not a 6crap oi nonsense about her. She can enjoy u joke and enter into a frolic. Although the central purpose of her life is serious, and no one strikes one as having more clearly made up her mind as to where she is and whither she is going, she can enjoy a holiday, on the very rare occasions when she gets one. witli the innocent abandon of a child. Back of her earnestness are convictions which, though she would perhaps not formulate them in dogmatic terms, are essentially religious. She is one of the numerous distinguished persons who sits at the feet of Dr Orchard: more than that, her Socialism, all her political convictions, are the expression of spiritual certainties. Slie can. when speaking, light a flame in lier hearers which in her own case burns steadily and continuously. This and her courage are its characteristic notes, r remember another Albert Hall meeting at which, rising to her feet at a moment when it seemed more than probable that the whole thing was going to degenerate into a free fight, she rated the audience, which had l>een indulging a passion for cheap interruption that tlie chair could not control, with a verve and point that in a very few minutes shamed them into positively terrified attention, and before she sat down had converted a fiasco into a triumph. Not a merely personal one either. She brought their minds back to the object of the meeting; it was about that she cared, and made them care too. Of all the members of the British Labour Delegation, she took the most disinterested mind to Russia, and brought tho most interesting impressions back. The disinterestedness" and lucidity of mind, allied to a warm and alert vitality, make her ideal as colleague, as companion in a common effort; whether she has quite the qualities of leadership in the highest sense time will show.

Mr Clutha M’Kenzie, M.P., arrived from the north yesterday morning, and is staying in Christchurch for a few days in connection witli the Pearson Memorial Fund. Mr "W. Kelly, who has been appointed as one of the delegates from ! the New South Wales Rugby Football League to visit New Zealand in tho interests of the code is an ex-New Zea- I land representative centre three- j quarter. He was a member of the ! New Zealand team that toured Aus- j tralia in 1913. Returning there, he ‘ was elected as captain of the Balmain Club and ho brought that club’s senior team from a weak position into championship honours, and won the New South \\ ales premiership for twoi successive seasons. He also represented New South Wales and Australia against the 1914 English team, afterwards going with the A.I.F. to France, where he was severely wounded. Mr Kelly is ! an old Westonri