THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1913. SIR STUART SAMUEL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 10 February 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1913. SIR STUART SAMUEL.

Tho position occupied by S:r Stuart Samuel, member for Whitechapel, m the House of Commons, lias oecasumed considerable comment of late At the moment of writing, tho lrivj Council is unravelling tlie case; which clearly indicates that there are aspects'of. the question which oi-Iy those who arc well-informed are entitled to discuss. London lruth furnishes tke following piquant details: "Sir Stuart Samuel, still member for Whitechapel, has, up to the present, basked in 'tho reflected glory of ins younger brother, tho Postmaster-Gen-eral Yet just as there are. people who tell us that 'Arthur,' not 'Joseph,''is the-reallv gifted person in the Chamberlain 'family, so we aro sometimes informed that of tho Samuels, the ablest man is not 'Herbert,' with his speeches on Irish Finance, but Stuart,' sleeping on a sofa in his counting house. Thus it is ulways with the Man who Might Have Been. A typical son of his inscrutable race, Sir Herbert Samuel is swarthy of complexion, dark and lustrous of eye, and placid of mien, as if heavy-laden with tho age-long patience of the East. He has the massive head and lofty brow, thought not the beard, of his patriarchal undo, the first Swaythling, and anyone could detect their kinship, for tho Montagus and Samuels are a single, familv, allied as closely as Quakers or the Rothohilds. Tliey know the valuo of acting together as one clan, however small in numbers. They utterly abhor inter-marriage with Gentiles; and while their houses are ornate and luxurious, they do not obtrude their riches. They belong to the stricter Jews, to whom the pedigree, the rules of. diet, the ancient ceremonial, and all charitable duties aro paramount factors in life. This is the impenotra.ble fremasonary which hind* them together more compactly even than the class meeting of the Wesleyan Methodists. They confront the world with an. impassive countenance, and. a smile, which, is genial, without revealing anything. AntiSemites of tho Bolloekian school, seeing names like Samuel Montagu, and Schuster in print, conclude at once that here must be a foul conspiracy, against the State. It seemed so obvious— n great contract for silver placed iby India, not with the good old ■Bank of England, as heretofore, but with the firm of Montagu ; tho UnderSecretary for India himself a Montagu"; a partner of the firm having a seat in the House, and his brother a seat in the Cabinet; the financial advisor to the Tndia Office was, by a coincidence, the firm's banker, and another scion of an ancient stock. The

whole- affair was kept .secret as the grave until it was exposed by a j>atriotic Conservative members. Was there ever a clearer case prima facie? Gentlemen, your verdict. It did not occur to the Auti-Somitos that men can conspire, not only against the > State, 'but also in favour of it. A family which has given three hostages to politics in the persons of a Cabinet Minister, an Under-Secretary, and a ! private member, with a safe constituency, would scarcely be so fatuous as to indulge in a vulgar intrigue to diddle the India Office. However easy it might be that inviting enter- ' prise, exposure would be certain, and j its consequences disastrous. It was j :i much shrewder notion to step in and prevent the poor India Oflice . being diddled by someone else. If it ■ had been suggested a year ago that Lord Crewe could purchase £5,000,000 'of silver without having the market ' raised against him, experts would ' have laughed. All over the world the ' dealers knew that the Indian Mint i was seriously short of rupees, and that a. good time for speculation was coming along. Suddenly, the horriMo truth was discovered that the vaults, which were supposed to be empty, j were already bursting with the metal, j bought at a cheap rate no one knows when, no one knows where. The • would-be rinrr regarded the said bullion almost in the light of stolen •.rood*. They want to bear all about how the trick was done, so as to prevent any such crimes against a legiti- ' mate industry being perpetrated in the future. And the rage of the market against I lie linn that bamboozled three continents out of a flutter break' nil bounds. It is hard to say oxaotly whafc sum was saved to the Indian Exchequer, but by common consent ifc was six figures, and the amazing' story of deferred shipments, blank bills 'of lading, masked sales, and other mysterious devices for putting the | hounds off the scent will be for all i time a classic romance of the bullion ring. Broadly speaking,' most men are I outTto exploit the public interest. It | may bo that even among thechildren ; of Israel the idea of spoiling _ the Egyptians has not altogether disappeared amid the ages. But to refer j once more to the affinity between the V.strict Jews and the strict Quakers. ' the Samuels—like the Cadburys and Rowntnvs— realise that the basis of business is not profit as such, but ' service to the enmmunity. Sir Stuart Samuel is an impenitent Freetrader. life belongs to the <£r:>up which likes ! to see Consols bought up at a reason- ' able price, like 75. instead of at fancy ; figures like 05 or 111. He would nr- ' gue that the public gets more of them for the money. He looks upon V.'lute■ha.ll, and Downing street as an .'.roa ! where mental deficiency requires the guidance of sagacity, accumulated through countless generations. Just as China leans on foreign advisors like | the late .Sir Robert Hart or Dr Mor- ' rison, and just as Korea—a country with many points of affinity to England—turns for aid to Japan, so our own mandarins, living as they do each in his own pigeon-hole, are as 1 children when they touch a thing of ; substance like silver. Either these ' attractive simpletons will fall among j thieves, or they will be wisely convoy|ed by honest folk; and it is the duty l of honest folk to bo there first. Honest folk must be allowed the usual brokerage for their assistance; but the idea that beyond their legitimate eight per cent, they would take adi vantage of the ignorance of Whitehall \s absurd. After all, the, game must be played between equals, and the game wa.s not between the firm and the India Office, but between the firm and the market; It so happens ' that the firm won the came, and as ! the narrative was unfolded before an J astonished Select Committee, the j features of Sir Stuart slowly developed into a quiet smile. The wonder of the Prime Minister and Mr Lyfctleton, the worried looks of Mr Butcher and Mr Pollock as they pored over the proofs, the blank acquiesance of a Mr Euirene Wason and Mr Ramsay MoDonald —mil this merely showed . that English and Scotsmen need to he I taken care of. The favoured mystic, ' who invoked Jehovah before fixing the price for the day, emerges from his ! sanctuary, and, without any unneoosjsarvfuss about it, manages the universe.