Evening Post.

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1937, Page 8

Evening Post.

FRIDAY, MAY 28, 1937. BEWDLEY TO BIRMINGHAM From Birmingham, in the heart of the English manufacturing district with its smoke and grime, furnaces and chimneys, it is only a short motor ride to the historic country of Warwick, Kenilworth, and Stratford, or, in another direction, to the rural beauty of Worcestershire, and Bewdley on the Severn. Britain, politically, has had its heart in Bewdley. Today <it returns to Birmingham. Mr. Stanley Baldwin, though he has been called "Britain's Baldwin," has ' always belonged to Bewdley. Son of a great manufacturer, and financially interested in industry, he has yet typified that aspect of England that is wholly rural. He is succeeded by Mr. Neville Chamberlain, and the Chamberlains are Birmingham. If Mr. Baldwin belonged to Bewdley and was lent to Britain, .Mr. Neville Chamberlain equally belonged to Birmingham and business, and was lent to politics— particularly business politics. This is not to say that the two men have not much in common. They have, in character, in beliefs, and in hobbies. Both have a love, of nature and the country. Mr. Baldwin is interested in farming, and walks about Worcester; Mr. Chamberlain makes a hobby of gardening, and goes fishing. Neither man set out deliberately to make for himself a political career. Circumstances forced to the front the Worcester squirebusiness man who would have been content to take his politics easily on the back' bench. Circumstances also, through the agency of Mr. Lloyd George (there is something ironic in that now), brought Mr. Neville Chamberlain from" private business to direct * great national' services during the War. But he 'retired' to Birmingham after the War, and not till some years later did he again become interested in national politics. It is said of him, even now, that his interest is not truly political, though he is the son of Joseph Chamberlain and the brother of Austen. He looks on. politics from the business angle, and regards chiefly their effect upon industry. Persuasion brought him in and he* stayed in because there was work to be done. One of the chief persuaders (twenty-one years ago) was Mr. Lloyd George; and part of the work that Mr. Chamberlain has done has been the rejection of the Lloyd George New Deal. The great strength of Mr. Baldwin has lain chiefly in his personification of what is. typically British—even to the faults. Professor Harold Laski, who is poles apart from Mr. Baldwin in political outlook, has called him "Britain's Baldwin" and written of him: .. . whatever the criticisms that may b& made of Mr. Baldwin, he remains one of the most' attractive figures in British, national life. Integrity, devotion, high purposes, directness, all these he has in abundance. . . . Even his Socialist opponents give him an affectionate respect they reserve for some 'three or four only of their own leaders. They can trust him while he leads his party to respect to the limits the principles of constitutionalism. They know that, all in all, there is no more stolid bulwark than he against those Fascist tendencies which might easily under another Prime Minister sweep over the Tory party; there is a genuine fund of democratic faith in Mr. Baldwin. In a word, Mr. Baldwin represents British stability. Years hence, when events are seen in true perspective, it will not be chiefly remembered of him that he made a bad debt bargain with America, that he blundered into Conservative election defeat on a Protection issue, that he was not blameless in the Hoare-Laval episode. But it will be remembered that on the eve of a national crisis he put aside narrower political points to join a National Government that he served with the highest loyalty under a Labour Prime Minister and that he kept his head and preserved British faith in democracy when Europe was rushing to Communism, Fascism, Nazism. What does the change from Baldwin 'to Chamberlain portend? It may be a journey from Bewdley to Birmingham, from the politics of Mr. Baldwin which somehow suggested the easy-going ways of the countryside, lo the more businesslike and unimaginative policies of the manufacturing town atmosphere. But one thing will remain—stability. The qualities which produce stability

provide the strongest points of resemblance in the characters of the retiring Prime Minister and his successor. Both have been men upon whom Britain might rely in a crisis and the greater the crisis the greater their reliability. When strength and steadfastness were needed to bring Britain safely through the difficulties and dangers of the depression Mr. Chamberlain never wavered. Mr. John Gunther, who is sparing in praise of Conservatives, has written of him: His qualifications for his job as Chancellor of the''Exchequer are perfect. He commands the complete confidence of the plutocracy in the city; he is as orthodox as a bishop; he abhors the grandiose; he provides a facade of respectability for sluggish reaction; he distrusts idealism. Not a complimentary description; but it might be stated in another way: that he is trusted by business men who are the trustees of British industry, and trade, that he will not engage in risky experiments, that he prefers to move slowly step by step on solid paths, not venturing into unknown and boggy byways. This is theway of British business and Mr. Chamberlain typifies the" solidity and integrity of Britain in business. The test is in results; and Britain has emerged from'the time of trial with her prosperity renewed more quickly than thatof countries which have pursued less safe courses. And her democratic foundation is stronger than ever.