From Lossiemouth to London

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1016, 5 July 1930, Page 5

From Lossiemouth to London

Life Story of Britain s Prime Minister

A Scots Lad’s Rise to Fame

(By Mary Agnes Hamilton.) =

TIIR SUN has secured the rights of teresting biography of J/.-. Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of England. The fifth instalment appears below. The biography lcill bo continued each Saturday. JJERE tlie great ‘’Court” question comes in, and with it a problem ot psychology of a kind open to various solutions. Important intrinsically the question is not. A great deal of the throwing about of brains on it was sheer waste of time. One way or the other the matter was, plainly, secondary. The Constitution was there. The Court was part, of it. A minority Government had not power to alter it. Labour Ministers, like other Ministers, had to be sworn of the Privy Council, and assume, in many cases, including Mr. MacDonald's own, with genuine regret, the separating courtesy title of Right Honourable. Like other Ministers, they had to go to Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace received them with an impartial courtesy, warming in many instances to definite friendliness; its good manners demanded at least equally good manners in return.

“What a silly thing it all is. I have known people who showed vanity by the clumsiness of their clothes. A tattered hat and a red tie, a tone of voice and religious repetition of Marxian phrases may be as indicative of a man who has sold himself to appearances as the possession of a ceremonial dress to enable him to attend ceremonies which are historically parts of his duties. Perhaps it is some defect in me, but I regard those who make these criticisms, by reason of the emphasis they lay upon the matter, as being farther away from the qualities of self-mastery and single-minded devotion to the cause of Labour than those who, when occasion requires it, put on a ceremonial suit without thinking of it and put it away without troubling about it.” Did not Lenin tell his ambassador in Berlin in 1918, perturbed about the garments expected at Hohenzollern functions, to ‘‘put on a petticoat if it-will help to get peace?” But MacDonald refused to get excited about this question one way or the other. I remember seeing him innocently—or largely innocently—reduce an unfortunate and serious-minded individual to something like fury, while he expiated on the superiority of knee breeches and silk stockings, above all if white. 'When he realised that he was revealing to his interlocutor a degree of moral depravity which deprived the latter of any power of expression, save facial, he mischievously piled on the agony by describing to him the loveliness of the ensemble of a State ball. The said interlocutor, not being blessed with his peculiar sense of humour, went away convinced that Labour Government was a whited sepulchre; evidence that the nation regarded it as a business Government of high efficiency only exasperated his inflamed nerves.

Ramsay MacDonald as Foreign Secretary! Ten years ago, even two years ago, the idea would have made patriots turn green. Yet, in Jajiuary, 1924, the incredible happened. At a surprisingly early hour in the morning the pacifist quietly took possession, and without any fuss or preliminaries settled down to work. A minor revolution, it is true, did take place. The new Foreign Secretary told the departmental chief, standing, according to custom, at his table, to sit down. Later in the day he made another Civil servant take a seat beside him to study a map. In the same way, he asked to be shown all over the building; took it for granted that the entire etaff, from secretaries to messengers, were cooperators in a common, task, and from start to finish treated them on that footing. It was quite simply done. The change can only bo appreciated by those who know the Foreign Office.

Stories that, lie was run Try his staff soon died of inaccuracy; stories of their devotion, being true, will live on. On details of administration Lie was quick to learn, and very soon had a grip on the machine; on principles of policy his mind was in control from the first. There have been hard workers at the Foreign Office before, and powerful minds; what was speedily felt as differentiating this new chief was an idea. For some time, indeed, this was better realised inside than out. Mr. MacDonald conceives of ideas in relation to action rather than expression. He wanted to apply pacifism, not to enunciate it. Manifestos did not issue from the Foreign Office, whether in Notes or in any other form; there were no preliminary statements of what he was going to do; above all, no prophecies. “I am one of those people who like to get on with work, and not to waste time with prophecy. lam a very bad prophet. I try to do my best to get the day’s work done day I>jv day, knowing perfectly well that if one works on a scheme of thought, work done by that is like laying tier upon tier of a great building, the end of which you will never see, but the completed form of which, nevertheless, enlivens your heart. “Even in making the changes which difference in party outlook implies, it is well that statesman should have some rules to remind them that he who can transform things without violence and sharp breaks is possessed of a higher degree of greatness, and is more likely to do good that will last, than he who demands for his work a clean slate, and can write nothing in history except what begins a new volume, or at least a new chapter. The crudest form of diplomacy is that of revolutionary forcefulness, scrapped treaties, the clean slate.”

Whoever contemplated failure, the Premier did not. As usual, it called upon his resources. A little story reported by the “Daily News” puts in a sentence a good deal about him. In June while M. Herriot was settling not too comfortably into the saddle, Mr. MacDonald went home to Lossiemouth for a few days. There he played golf with Lord Thomson, the air Minister. Not on the Morayshire golf links—its committee remained obdurate—but at Spey Bay, which, in January, had seized the chance to make him a member. “At the 13th hole Lord Thomson and his partner became four holes up and five to play. Something had to bo done, so the Premier took off his coat, and at the 14th tee hit the finest drive of the match.” “Something had to be done, so the Premier took off his coat.” When something has to be done, he always will take off his coat, and, very often, hit the finest ball of the match. In conference, in the House of Commons, this has happened again and again. Some men like to take off their coats at the beginning; it is a fine gesture, fuller of uromise often than performance. Mr. MacDonald keeps his on, till the moment comes. Then, whether at golf, or something more important, the brings up reserves, held, not to frighten the opponent, but to do work. Not -that the distinction between golf and something more important is one that he would accept. When you are playing golf, there is nothing more important. In the first week of August “something had to be done.” Failure would have spelt disaster in Europe, for peace. His informal, apparently easy-going methods had so warmed tho chilly atmosphere in which Germans and French had met that, by now. no one in the meetings was thinking any longer on those lines. A final effort brought achievement. On Saturday, August IG, the Loudon Settlement, was signed. It incorporated an agreed method for putting the Dawes plan into operation imme diately: annexed thereto was an un dertaking for the evacuation of the Ruhr, to begin forthwith and be com pleted not later than 12 months henco. Mr. MacDonald presiding at the closing meeting, began by an expression of gratitude to “the colleagues from Premiers to typists,” who had worked to make the conference a success. Ho went on with a gentle reminder of some of the obligations and implications of an agreement. “Some of us would like to see different provisions here and there,* but we offer to our countries the agreement as a whole, and those who fix on this detail or on that with a frown or a shake of the head must remember what alternative faced us. . . . T believe that we have given Europe something better than an agreement drafted by lawyers and printed on paper—we all negotiated, discussed, put ourselves in each other’s shoes. That is the greatest advance we have made.”