BRITAIN’S LEADERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 725, 28 December 1933, Page 2

BRITAIN’S LEADERS

WICKHAM STEED FINDS NO OUTSTANDING MEN. PEOPLE READY TO FOLLOW. The quality of British leadership is to-day at the lowest ebb in forty years, declar.es Wickham Steed, former editor of The Times, in an article in Current History. "If the King and the Prince of Wales be left out of account — land Iboth of them have given real leadership in xnore .than one emergeney — there is no man in British public life to whom the nation instinctively looks l as to a leader, of whose guidance it I would se:ek and follow as being inspired by a sense of resolute wardenship of the public weal," the article says. "The last of our elder statesben, Lord Grey of Fallodon, has been taken from us. There is none to fill I his place or to speak with his especial | accent of temperate and persuasive ] authority. Yet never in my experi1 ence have the people as a whole been I sounder at heart or readier to heed j and act upon strong and wise counsel." Mr. Steed says that the national Government has failed to give leadership, though it has had ample opportunity to do so. "Neither in the Manchurian dispute aior in the handling of the Lytton report, nor at the Disarmament Con- , ference, nor in the series of higgledypiggledy improvisations that led to the Four-Power Pact nor in the presence of German Hitlerism, has the 'Government or any memb.er of it spoken with a voice Lhich the nation could recognise as its own." Under Review. Mr. Steed exammes Britain's prominent public men, one by one, but finds little cause to be hopeful. "Mr. Ramsay MacDonald," he says, "may be unaware how subtly and swiftly public trust in him has ebbed durihgi the last twelve months." The cduritry "has weighed-Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and found him w.antirig." ' "About Mr. Stanley Baldwin it is not quite sure." Mr. Neville Chamberlain "commands more respect than enthusiasm." Mr. W(inston Churchill no longer comjmands public confidence. As to Mr. Lloyd George, "it will not be safe to say that he is out of the picture while life lasts." In the popular mind the other prominent Liberals — iSir Herbert Samuel, Sir Archibald Sinclaar and Mr. Wlalter ' Runcimian — i"are first-rate secondrate men." The Labour politicians are .even more hastily dismissed. "There remains one man," adds Mr. Steed, "of whom much is being said and .whispered. He is Sir Aust'en Chamberlain. He has borne himself with much dignity, ha's supported the Government in difficult moments, hut has not withheld friendly counsel an'd criticism when the national interesf made passive acquiescence in Ministerial policy seem something less than a statesman's duty. Among British public men of front-bench rank Sir Austen is now the only' Cbnservative who might ' acceptably succeed Ramsay MabDonald as national ' Prime Minister without arousing suspicion that a national ma jority _ was being used for parfy purposes.?' ' ,