MR STANLEY BALDWIN.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 October 1923, Page 4

MR STANLEY BALDWIN.

THE BRITISH RREAIIER AND HIS FAAfJLY. ENGLAND. Aug. 1 • Air Stanley Baldwin is something of a curiosity among British Prime -Ministers. He is, to begin with, an Englishman, and that, though not unknown (Air Asquith was a Yorksliirellian, sitting in Parliament for a Scottish cunstituteney ), has in recent years been a somewhat rare occurrence. Lloyd George was \\ eisli: Bonar Eaw. Balfour. Oan'phcll-B.innerniaii wore a'l Scotch. Air Baldwin, moreover, is not only English, he is extremely, chaiaeteristically English. He belongs to the Bewdley district of Worcestershire. In this tvpioai English countryside lie was born, find has lived most ot his life . and for tins same region he has sat as representative in Parliament since the death ol his fathei in L.Colt one thinks of the qualities that go with the English typo in a county line Worcestershire, one will find them in Air Baldwin, except, of course, that the qualities that are of the L n »- lish soil have been l 'f. nK '', and humanised in him by a good liberal education , , , Air Baldwin is patient, shrewd amt eouable. He is a retiring, modest man wiio spoke bis heart when lie said on his accession to the Premiership Ihfd be needed the prayers of his well-wish-ers rather thnil their congratulations ;\r>d w lie ii ho declared that ho •. ii *< bo quite happy if lie could retire to his books and his pigs in Worcestershire. lie has, in a high degree, the sense of humor that is the priceless gift of the Anglo-Saxon rave. H might reasonably be argued Hud " thev had had a sense of humor tin* Germans would never have plunged "do ami lost ilie w:;i . cciTaiiiiy the hisii owe their prolonged civil "nr to toe lamentable absence of lmmor from the equipment of l)e \ alern ami his especial friends. Humor is that quality which 1- i.cenlv alive to the lidiculous and disproportionate "i die ae.-i a liirli. In- realising the disproportionate,

j avoids it. 1 O’)GI. AND LEVEL-HEADED, j Air Baldwin will never set the 1 Lames on fire. 11" "ill never conduct a j Midlothian campaign like Air Gladstone, j i! L . would never threaten bis country witli civil war- an Air Bom"' Law. in his fierce “ Listeria." did in L'l I. He will never get up steam as Air Lloyd George lias done, am! will yet do again. He will never have the brilliance m dialects of Air Balfour, the silver tongue of Lord Rosebery, or the massive eloquence of Air Asquith. Ami yet he is already very much trusted and lilted in England as Prune Minister. He has no ail's and no graces, no “side. and no pretentions, but lie will be tool, level-headed, and yet tenacious—some say obstinate, which is likely enough viewing everything (itieluding bis cvn promotion) with a touch ot whimsicalness, avoiding excess ami impulse and exaggeration, and always persisting cn the course of England’s interest with the quiet, sane steadiness that el’.ararterises people m Bewdley. V« orcestershire. It may he quite untrue that the .Marquis Cumin of Iveolestuu had r< - ! ,ently in-ado up his miml. when lie launched his tell days ultimatum to Russia, to iol'ce a breach at any co-t, and that Mr Baldwin, suddenly becoming Premier, had quietly, but firmly put bis foot down, indicating that tins is a time for building-up and not lor pulling down in Europe. It limy be quite uni rue. but the story is believed. because if is thought to be a Iru'nt ill relief! ion of Air Baldwin's habit of mind in affairs both doeiosiic and abroad. Mr Baldwin is a business man of fonstquence, tin* bead of a great engineering firm in South Wales. He is not a hit above his trade. Before he gave so intialt lime to politics and London lie knew his business intimately, ami had a personal knowledge of many of ilig workmen engaged in it. It was mii hv chain - ;; thal one i f the earfi -st poia a to visit him in London and congratulate him on hi:-i Premiership was i (oinpir-ed of tads, apprentices, and so forth. Irma his own firm. 11 was is a business man that Air Baldwin w;.s first iakeu jpi o the Ministry as a .inuior. Now ii I- expected of him that as a iiosioc-s man he will a poly certain 1 ii.ij cotiioxwcia! aid economic tests 1 : paliiics. if it be true, for inslanv, that the depression of Eurooe. ami prcbdlv the occupatir.n ol the Ruhr is (aftvi a slight temporary spurt) crippling the iron and steel trade of I'.ng land, who should know more about if than tie* bead of Baldwin’s. Limited r GIFT HF SILLXI Is. A Bab! 'in “b gend” i- being rapidly l.uill up. No one could help budding up a legend about anyone so modest ami amiable as Air Baldwin, especially v. lien In* lue a wife not less inodesL and amiable than him-cM. It lias already be. ii said that he would like to get hack to toe country and his pig- -a ■ to title ! i ihe love of all Hum* v. ho jive in towns 'in! glorify tlm country and lb. pigs, lie v.'e.n's simple. almost shabb.'. eioj lies .oir.ot ime-. Then.

man has always been a little distrustful of cigar--: they -avnur of wealth, or “cla-... - ’ or uppishiios. lie resents it when, a! a superior hotel w on lbContinent, lie i- told that a pipe is not permitted. Snobbishness, he calls it. <o when lie reads that at a ipeat- dinner Mr Baldwin declined cigars and cigarettes. 1 produced bis favoin it-' cherry-wood pipe, he thinks more of the lieu I’rcniier than if he had made a live-column s|)c-'ch. described in the nwsp.ip.-rs as a “fnilliaol “ ora “lighting” effort. Beside-', the word has gone about that in political councils, even in the Cabinet Conned. Mr Baldwin speaks but Hill". In the popular estimation, that too, is in his favour. Most politcians rise to place and office by virtue of gifts of speech. It bellows that if a man is an infreriueu!

talker. mid yet rises to llie lik'liest oftieo. In' must lie oxtranri!ii'.nrily wise. That is what some people say of Mr Baldwin.

To make this nenumt complete ami jn-l. il is only loir 10 say tiinl some people who pretend to know him well snv Unit .Mr Baldwin is not an nhlo or acute limn. They ininut that ho sf*i ih'il tho American debt- nuesihni, hut. they say that he only saw the com-mon-sense of tile situation, ami that the rest was (lone hy the tenacity which he undoubtedly possesses. I'nr the rest thevsav that he was horn with a silver spoon in his month, that ins business was marie for him. that, ho simply stepped into Ids father's shoes in trade ami in Parliament, and that he won’d never have made a (treat position in polities had not fortune enabled him to lead it party revolt against all his aide ’. leaders. On this view he is an 1 n.i'.-li-.h country ponflemen of cultivated - 1 1 t... 111. out I.rito!.'a mnl < tie cdiirvciv

of an! inn's, and interested both in business and in politics, but .“till to pi'uve that lie lias anything of statesmanship about him. THE PBEMfEIPS' V.'IFK. Mrs Baldwin, everyone agrees, ; s a “kindly, friendly" woman, as devoid ot pretentiousness as her husband, aii-'i very fond of stood works. tie tornit v homes for poor women interest her groatly. and so do schools for the demesne training of girls. The principal thing that worries her about her now home at 10 Downing-streef, the Premier’s official residence, is the ted carpet. “Against a dark oak it would look all right." she says, lint a red .;>rpet on white wood, with a lot of gilding about, looks awfully regal, and ] like simple, plain tilings." She takes the same moderate view of her husband's success that one would expect from her general attitude towards h f c: "It (the appointment to the Premier- j ship Honk our breath away. My bus-i hand." she said, “has never been out | to make enemies, flo has always end i a definite aim in life. ITis chief ton- j cent has been his work, and people I have always treated him kindly. Ho j has an extraordinary faculty of seeing i both side 4, hut sometimes when T nave j been expressing n strong conviction he | lias laughed at me and said ‘l wish 1 could be as sure of anything as you aie of everything.' '' i Mr and Mrs Baldwin have six mild- i ren. Of four daughters only one . t j them is at heme. The others are mar- | ried. During the war. while two w:o j nurses, the third worked on a farm as j shepherdess, getting up at 4 o’clock in I the morning and driving sheep to mar- j ket. This one is married to Heroert | Whiteley. heir of Sir H. H. AVhitelev. j of 'Worcester. Of the others one is ; married to a son of Lord Sirathcona, J

rind another to a Captain Gordon Muuro. Tliore are two sons, one of whom is at Cambridge. The other has had ;.n adventurous career. A youth of LD years, lie had fought during the war in the Irisii Guards, and then in 1 s>2o he went out to t he borderland of Bii-sut Turkey and Armenia. While in Armenia he was thrown into prison by the Bolsheviks, who had taken the country. After being released, and while on a painful march across the Caucasus, lie v.as arrested at Aiexandropol by the Turks, and sent to prison at Kars for a month. “Then I was moved to another pri"on,” he has stated, ■‘where 1 was shut tip with chains oil my feet and starving for five more weary months. ] used to crawl about oil my hands and kiihes looking for crumbs and in her scraps of food. During that time T he Bolsheviks asked for me to he handed hack to them for execution, hut tie Turks were not quite as unprhrripk'd as that, li-.it in prison with me were two Communists who were exec iron outside my window. At last an exchange was fixed up, and after a weary walk from Erzurum to Trehiitond I made my way hack to England.” If Air Baldwin, senior, can only live tip to the agreeable impression made bv his truly amiable wife, his dashing

.-on his Worcestershire pigs, and his ei el-presell'., pipe, lie will in; one of ill.' greates! Premiers that 'England has known.