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Hokitika Guardian, 7 October 1924, Page 2

At this stage it will hi without interest to secure a more intimate knowledge of the leaders of the Brill id i ,M in islfy:. Beginnings have an interest all their own. There is real Instillation in the doings ol a young river or of a young life. Nor sue any records richer in ii.spii ation than those of the early dreams and struggles of men who have made good. The present Labour Government in Britain, says tin English clergyman, has unique interest from this point of view. There is a romance of struggle behind the names of almost every one of its leaders. A good proportion of them were boro in poor homes. They are a genuine working class production. The most influential of them are self-edu-cated. Apart .altogether from their political views, their careers are of rich human interest. In that respect they are one of the most interesting Governments that lias ever hold sway in Dmviiing-stfcret. The Premier’s career is another "Log; Cabin to White Mouse” romance. Mr liainsay Macdonald way retired in poverty. His forbears for generations have* been sturdy Scotch peasants. His lather was a farm labourer. Uama.s.v’a early and most formative years were spent in the little •Scotch fishing village of Lossiemouth. Since the days of John Knox. the Scotch have believed in education, and lads i.i' promise have had their chance. Such education as he got seems to have been a thorough and severe discipline. Ho has described it as a steady nltd hard grind to get at the heart of things. We turned everything; outside in; pulled everything to pieces in order to put it together again, analysed, parsed, got firm hold of tho roots, shivered English into fragments and fitted it together again like a Chinese puzzle. . . One of tho dominie’s generalisation was: “You master; that is education; when you have mastered one thing you are well on the way to master all tilings.” Too poor to go to tlie university, ho educated himself at night. When 17 years of ago he migrated to London to sink or swim. At first it looked as though he would sink. Alone and uirbefrionded lie got a living as he could. For a time he seems to have taken to addressing envelopes, that last refuge in those days of tho destitute. Then he got a clerkship and thought himself pretty well mT when ho got 13s a week. ‘‘All day lie worked in the office and in tho evening he attended classes in nature' science.” He studied for n scholarship and often it meant that he didn't go to lied until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning, and had to rise again at G or 7 for another day’s work. In the end came reward—for the worst does turn to the host for the brave. He got a post as private secretary to a mcmlter of Parliament, ami so came into touehwith public life, which has led. after ups and downs not a few, to tho chief place in British life.

Mr J. TL Clynes, the second in command in the Labour Ministry, has also come by the way cf poverty. He was one of seven children, whose father was

an Irish immigrant in a Lancashire cotton town, and who got 21s a. week to feed and clothe and horse a family of nine! Their home was in a dingy court off a dirty city street. If. began to work at 10 as a “little piecer” in a cotton mill, and at 12 he wont to work “full time”. Children had to go out at the earliest possible moment to augment the household exchequer. •It was an inhuman system and in many plates it still is. This little Columbus setting sail into the unknown, denied anything like adequate preparation. sought on his own initiative to educate himself. One of his treasured possessions is a wcll-tlunnbled dictionary—the first hook lie ever bought. It cost him sixpence. lie studied it at night i>y candle light. Ho had to provide his own candles—-threepence a week they cost—out of liis meagre pocket money. His method <;t study was to write out the unfamiliar words until he. had thoroughly mastered them. 'I he bigger the words the more he loved them. The" longer* they were, the oftener he copied them, in his slow, erablike hand. That is not the host way of beginning, but il was little Gl.vncs’ way. How he found energy to do it, to go to night school and read in the public library—after a long day in the mill —is difficult to understand. "Jt was a triumph of an unconquerable spirit over a tired body, which fills one with admiration.” Ho added to his little stock of hooks, purchasing them from second-hand stalls. He taught himself to speak in public. He took part in political debates, and so unconsciously prepared himself for the leadership that (Mine later as a trade union organiser. J.ike the Scotch Coy MacDonald. this hoy of Irish extraction graduated in the school of difficulty and of hardship. All their life has been a battle. The work of Government just now needs men of dauntless spirit. Deference will he made to three other members of the Labor .Ministry in the next issue.