International photographer (Feb-Dec 1929)

Thirty-eight The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER September, 1929 Britain's JVelv £abor Qabinet Labor's Big Five All Sons of Laborers — High Culture Among the Twenty-seven Ministers by CEASAR SAERCHINGER, Assistant Chief, L ondon Bureau of the New York Evening Post In estimating the political complexion of the new British Government the diarist of the Evening Standard says that it consists of "two ex-members of the I. L. P. and two present members, two Fabians, six ex-Liberals, two ex-Conservatives, eight representatives of trade unions and one member of the Co-operative Party." It might be said, on this evidence, that it runs from red through all the shades of pink to faded blue. There are, of course, other ways of sizing up the group of men who have undertaken to rule the world's biggest commonwealth for the next two years or more. As the avowed representatives of the working class they are perhaps not as "proletarian" as one might expect. In so-ejjJEHs "R* fact only six out of twenty-seven are or have been out-and-out working men. Six more belong to the white collar brigade of clerking, shop-keeping and small officialdom and one is a working journalist. The rest are definitely what the Englishman does not mind calling "upper class." Four of these are lawyers, four are professional economists and scholars, one an ex-general. The remainder are sons of "gentlemen" who have devoted themselves to politics. One hesitates to call them professional politicians, since that is a term of deprecation in America. In England politicians are not people who make a living out of politics but those who can afford to spend money on it. They are in the majority in any government constituted by the Conservative or Liberal Party, but even among the Labor Party there are such "swells" as Lord Ornold, Sir Oswald Mosley, Sir Charles P. Trevelyan, Captain Wedgwood Benn and Noel Buxton, whose ancestors have labored so that they might devote themselves to the gratifying and ornamental career of public life. The Big Five The cleavage between the English classes is fixed in school and it sticks all through life, irrespective of success, posi To those who know little of the import of the Labor movement throughout the world and who are inclined to take alarm whenever the term "Labor Union" is used, a careful reading of this reprint of Caesar Sacrchinger's letter to the New York Evening Post is commended — likewise to members of Local No. 659. Almost the first act of the MacDonald government was to stop construction of certain British war ships, a constructive gesture toward peace, if it did throw several hundred men out of employment. Who says Labor has no ideals outside of power and money-grubbing. — Editor's Note. tion and power. By this token the members of the new Government are almost equally divided into upper and lower classes. Fifteen of them have been educated in upper class schools and universities, twelve others have had to be content with a common school education or no schooling at all. These twelve, however, comprise most of the important members of the Cabinet, the core of which is made up of Labor's "big five." These five men, Ramsay MacDonald, Philip Snowden, Arthur Henderson, J. H. Thomas and J. R. Clynes, are all sons of laborers, and most of them have labored with their own hands at the manual trades. Henderson was an iron molder, Thomas an engine driver, Clynes a textile worker, and so was Tom Shaw, the Minister for War. William Adamson was a miner's son and himself went down the shaft when he was eleven. F. O. Roberts, the new Minister of Pensions, was a compositor and later an official of the Typographical Union. Ramsey MacDonald himself started life as a farm lad, became a pupil teacher at twelve and after coming to London made his living as an invoice clerk, getting $3.75 a week. In spite of his humble beginning he is recognized today as one of the great intellectuals of the party, its greatest idealist and its logical head. More than any of his working class colleagues he has stripped off the working class manner and become one of the most polished and diplomatic men in public life. His personal charm must have been a great factor in his success, and if he is an idealist he is also ambitious and autocratic. When he was thirty he married a niece of Lord Kelvin, and for seventeen years his wife helped to groom him for the great position he would one day occupy. Even America can show no more striking case of the self-made man. Philip Snowden, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was a Yorkshire weaver's son and by dint of his great head for figures got into the civil service, where he spent seven years. There he studied economics and became a Socialist. Snowden is all head and no body. A little man, he walks about on two sticks, having been crippled in a bicycle accident many years ago. His brain bristles with figures and facts. In spite of being a Socialist he is a personal friend of Lloyd George and has in common with him a fondness for music. This is shared by his wife, who has the reputation of being one of London's musical hostesses. Culture, indeed, is by no means absent from the Labor Cabinet, for MacDonald is credited with considerable understanding of art, Cynes shares the Snowdens' enthusiasm for music and F. O. Roberts is an amateur violinist who doesn't mind sporting his musical gifts in public. A surprising number of the Cabinet are active churchmen. Henderson is a staunch Methodist and George Lansbury, the pinkes tof the party's flaming leftwing Reds, is a faithful Anglican and a former church warden. Both are teetotalers. Lord Parmoor has a long career as an ecclesiastical lawyer, was vicar general to the Church of England, as well as attorney general to the Prince of Wales. Lord Justice Sankey, the new Lord Chancellor, fought against the dis establishment of the Church of Wales and wrote the constitution of the church when disestablishment came. And A. V. Alexander, who has been placed at the head of the Admiralty as a heavyweight pacifist to hold the admirals down, is a former Baptist lay preacher. Colorful Lot If the Conservative Government, except for the mercurial Winston, the redoubtable Jix and Chamberlain's mon