NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16256, 5 July 1918, Page 9

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Tho death of Lord Rhondda, Minister of Food Control, robs Great Britain of probably tho most able and powerful among tho men of business whom sho has callcd upon for service during the war. For nearly 25 years as plain D. A. Thomas, he sat in the House of Commons as ones of the Welsh Liberals, and left it in 1910, a disappointed man, who had been unable to carry his political ideals into practice, and had been passed over in favour of men of inferior capacity. A man of remarkable business ability, he was never once, in all those years, invited even to sit on a Royal Commission. If, as is alleged, the reason for hi% being thus neglected was that he was not a very obedient party man, that fact is in itself a condemnation of the party system of government. However, when, at the end of 1910, he shook the dust of tho House from his feet, he said that ho would return to political life if ho felt that his services were to bo made use of. "When the war broke , out his opportunity came. In the intervening period he had acquired a position in tho business world of Britain second to none, and within the first year of war ho was invited liy the Government '.o visit the States and Canada in connexion with the purchase of munitions on behalf of Great Britain. It was while returning from this mission that, as one of the passengers by the Lusitania, he narrowly escaped death. For his great services he was created a Baron, and wag appointed, first, President of the Local- Government Board, and, on Lord Devonport's resignation through ill-health, in Juno last year, Minister of Food Control.

Lord Rhondda was a man of strangely compounded characteristics. He was, as all the world knows, a millionaire colliery owner, "the Coal King of Wales," but ho was also a Master of Arts of Cambridge and a Scholar of Jesus and Caius Colleges. Prom Cambridge ne went back to his father's littlo coalpits. Ho was a convinced individualist, who yet retained the respect and admiration of the men who worked for him j he fought them in many an industrial battle, notably in the great coal strike of some years ago, and yet he was never beaten at the poll, though sitting - for a purely mining constituency for twonty-threo years. Tho secret lay probably in the fact that he cared for his men. Ho liad the name, wo are told, of being the best "boss" to work for in the coalfields. He believed in the "personal touch," and is said to have known the family life and conditions of all his 5000 or 6000 workeris.

Lord Rhondda, who was inspired by a profound hostility to Socialism, must bave received some shocks from tho action of the Government in gradually assuming during the war so large a degree of control of the country's commercial and industrial affairs. But ho did not believe the present conditions would last. "In wan" be said once, "the State may take complete controS of a nation, it may interfere not only with trado, but even with, human nature. But peace will return, the ancient and normal conditions will reassert themselves, and trado will need the old incentives." It was one of tho ironies of lifo that this sturdy individualist should last year find himself in a position in which, for the 6ake of the State, he had to enforce upon the nation, as individuals, dietary laws more drastic than had been dreamed of—to dictate to the British householder how much sugar he might buy in a weak, to regulate his consumption of meat, even to the breakfast rasher, to make him forsake his beloved white bread in favour of a loaf compounded partly lot' mixed grains and partly of .potatoes, and in many ways to circumscribe the public's fondness for its meals. "I legislate," he said, "for (he meant "against") the selfish minority," hence he was the sworn foe of the profiteer and the food-hoarder. His position was one of enormous responsibility, but it must hr.ve satisfied even the passion for power which was on© of tho mainsprings of his life.

No Food Controller could have achieved anything if he had not had' the support of the nation. But that support was only accorded to Lord Rhondda . because he carried the nation's confidence. The people might grumble, as indeed they did sometimes, but they never seem to havo doubted that the Minister was doing his best, with, a single eye to the welfare of tho whole community. It was this confidence that ensured for the rationing system, when it was adopted, generai and hearty approval. His popularity in America, and the esteem in which ha was held by tho American business men whom President Wilson had called in to help him, was of great benefit to the Old Country, and the close co-operation between Lord Rhondda and Mr Hoover, tho Food Controller in the United States was undoubtedly the . means of keeping the British cupboard better supplied than would otherwise have been the case. His abilities as an organiser enabled Lord Rhondda to increase the country's supplies, to bring the prico of the necessaries of life within tne means of all, and to check waste and extravagance. If it is true that "food will win the war,'' then the late Minister undoubtedly did all that one man could possibly do to achieve that result.

No roforenco to Lord Rhondda's cuTCBf would be complete that did not include a brief notice of his work as President of tho Local Government Board. In that capacity lus idealism had fuller scope than in his later office. He was filled with hope as to what he j might be "able to do for the nation. "We must have a Ministry of Health, ho declared, soon after taking office. I "All this great nation wants to keep it in the forefront is sound health, real education, and incentives to rise. Every child in the land must bo given a chance, and genius of eveiy kind must be handsomely encouraged. He was earnest ia siting to promote crnia

welfare, and to stamp social disease, and, after the -war, his idea -was that the Government should deal with the housing question much more thoroughly than it had ever been handled before. A portrait of this remarkable man, in many respects one of the most notable whom Mr Lloyd George has called to his councils, is given by ono of his biographers. "He has tho look of a judge, the voice of a don, anil tho manner of a consulting physician who decides the issues of life and death. He is a grey-haired, grey-eyed man with a charming voice and a most agreeable smile." Another writer declared his chin was one of the squarcst chins in the kinedom, "jutting out like the Rock of Gibraltar, an index of character which was fully borne out by his career/'