THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1935. POLITICAL SCAPEGOATS.

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 301, 28 December 1935, Page 4

THE WAIPUKURAU PRESS SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1935. POLITICAL SCAPEGOATS.

There has been no incident in recent British politics at all to be paralleled with Mr. Baldwin’s sacrifice of Sir Samuel Hoare, but an incident of the same sort, and even cruder in its shape, occurred thirty years ago when Mr. Balfour threw Mr. George Wyndham overboard, states the <‘Christchurch Star.” “The affair is long since forgotten, of course, but it created a great stir at the time. It was concerned with Ireland. Mr Balfour’s Unionist Government was in office. The Prime Minister himself had formerly been Chief Secretary for Ireland and had earned a reputation for ruthlessness. It came as a surprise, therefore, when he sanctioned the appointment of a well-known Home Ruler, Sir Antony Macdonnell, as under-secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. It was not long before Macdonnell, who was in reality the chief administrative officer of the country, became concerned in a movement to conciliate the Irish by the creation of an Irish Council with rather extensive powers of local legislation. As this ‘devolution’ movement had originated within the Unionist party and apparently was regarded by the Government with a certain degree’' of benevolence the Ulster Unionists jumped to the conclusion that it was intended to surrender to the Home Rulers and they made a most vehement protest. They were joined by irreeoncilables in England and Scotland and a first-clas crisis rapidly developed. Mr. Balfour had a substantial majority-elected on a patriotic wave following the Boer War—but his position would have been untenable if he had allowed the party to split. He made the Chief Secretary the scapegoat and Mr. Wyndham was compelled —just as Sir Samuel Hoare has now been compelled—to tender his resignation. The Balfour Government never regained the prestige it lost in this incident and Mi. Ba c win will perhaps find that in this respect, also, history has a tendency to repeat itself.