POLITICAL THOUGHT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 304, 18 August 1932, Page 4

POLITICAL THOUGHT

Mr. Stanley Baldwin stated an obvious truth when, in the course of a particularly inspiring speech to the Canadian Club, he expressed the opinion that the statesmen of to-day are so beset by a multiplicity of detail that they have little time.to think. There is, however, this qualification. It -depends very largely upon the stateman and his capacity for detail and thought. Mr. Baldwin himself, is an example. The Leader of the British Conservative Party has had a particularly strenuous political career, and led the country through one of the most difficult periods which it has encountered. The fact that the conditions were rather too much for the Conservative Party was not Mr. Baldwin's fault. In his own attitude, he has always been more of the statesmen than the politician and this, under our present deplorable political conditions, is something of a handicap. The same statement may justly be applied to his leader and colleague, Mr. Eamsay Mac-

Donald, and, in fact, to any man in political life who has sufficient vision to divert his attention from holding votes to the national welfare. Mr. Baldwin might more correctly have analysed the position had he said that statesmen have little time to think and politicians little inclination to do so.