A MAN OF PRINCIPLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 951, 1 November 1957, Page 14

A MAN OF PRINCIPLE

THE LIFE OF RICHARD STAFFORD CRIPPS, by Colin Cooke; Hodder and Stoughton, English price 30/-. IR STAFFORD CRIPPS is presented in this official biography as a man of great intellectual ability, strong convictions, and high moral purpose, who measured all his political beliefs and actions against the principles of his Christian faith. No "popular" biography this, but a serious study of the public life of one of the great men of the time. Dr Cooke ‘begins with a_ scholarly chapter on "Greatness in Politics," then. traces the family tradition in affairs of Church and State, then tells of the young man’s education at Winchester and at University College, London, where he read science for three years, But his aim was the Bar, and he became a member of the Middle Temple in 1913. In the war years he was unfit for active service and often seriously ill -ill-health dogged him all his days; but he did useful war work in various posts, Returning to the Bar in 1919, his brilliant advocacy in cases of compensation and in patent litigation was soon recognised, and in 1930 he became Solicitor General. In that year also he joined the Labour Party, and a year later entered the House of Commons as member for East Bristol. He showed in Parliament the skill he showed at the Bar (where he continued in active practice till 1939), but not less did he reveal his high moral principles and his practical Christian outlook. But apparently he was not a "natural" .politician; he had too much candour, too great a dislike for expediency at the expense of principle. From 1940 his ability at planning and in complex administration problems was put to good use both in Mr Churchill’s Government and in the post-war Labour Cabinet. The details given of his work as Ambassador in Moscow and at another time as Minister of Aircraft Production are of the greatest interest. After the war he went from President of the Board of Trade to Minister of Economic Affairs, and, in 1947, to his last office, Chancellor of the Exchequer. The biographer, of course, had access to Sir Stafford’s diaries and other papers; the sources of all quotations are

indicated in footnotes.

L.J.

W.