that Keir Hardie would never have approved its appearance in any other character than that of an absolutely free governing power. He was idealist pur sang an idealism born much more of the thought and personality of Henry George than of Karl Marx, but firmly rooted in disbelief in the political system which in 1892, the year of his appearance in Parliament, looked as solid as the British monarchy itself. Against the rock of this simple and intensely concentrated character every attempt at compromise beat itself in vain. Labor was to work alone and unaided, with a specially determined rejection of alliance with the Liberal Party.

Years passed before the lonely evangel of Keir Hardie became the accepted creed even of trade-unionism. In the early years of this century, indeed, it seemed as if the Liberal group of Labor members would become the predominant one. And at a later stage still an unexpected obstacle to the formation of a political Labor Party presented itself in a legal decision finally sustained by the House of Lords. This was This was the famous Osborne Judgment, which denied the right of a trade-union to support a Labor Party from its funds or to make a political levy on its members. For a time the bar on political action seemed absolute. Finally, the Liberal Party came, with some reluctance, to the rescue. The Trade-Union Act of 1913 enabled a trade-union to spend money on Parliamentary candidatures provided that a majority of its members sanctioned such a course, that the political fund was kept separate, and that subscription to it was not made a condition of membership.

Thus restored to the political field, Labor went forward to achieve its first great object the replacement of the Liberal Party in the votes and affections of the organized workers. It is enough to say here that that object was accomplished with the conversion of the miners, who for years had furnished a steady body of members to Liberalism.

The old Liberal enthusiasm died down with the fulfilment of its liberating mission, the close of its long struggle with the House of Lords, and the disappearance of its creative and inspiring figures. The Gladstonian age was over, and the succeeding imperialism of Mr. Asquith and Lord Grey had no magic for the workmen, did nothing to divert their fight for material betterment, and furnished no ideal comparable with that of Socialism. Pacifism, internationalism, the democratic organization of the state, the reform of local government, the control of industry, and the idea of a union of interests and moral attachments between manual- and brain-workers, passed from the guardianship of the Liberal Party into that of the new movement. Liberalism had become middle-class. It was the successful aim of the Labor Party to treat it more and more as a group, and to present itself as the heir of its tradition, its competitor in government, the true rival and alternative to the rule of the aristocrat and the capitalist.

82

With this preface, I pass to the immediate situation out of which, after a six-weeks' interval, has arisen the first English Labor government. The emergency which placed Labor in

office as a minority government, and yet as the only possible alternative either to a return to coalitionism or to a Liberal ministry, was none of its seeking. Without any adequate warning to the country, and in possession of a secure majority, Mr. Baldwin, the Conservative prime minister, chose to challenge the issue of protection, and was totally defeated. He lost a great part of the Conservative majority in London, lost Glasgow to Labor, and Manchester and Lancashire to Labor and Liberalism, lost Scotland and Wales, and found nowhere save in Birmingham a clear affirmative answer to his call. It was impossible to disregard a public opinion so emphatically expressed, and a non-Conservative, non-protectionist administration became inevitable. The constitutional recourse was to the Labor Party, which both in the late Parliament and the present one had acted as the official opposition; that is, as the normal alternative to a ministry defeated by a vote of the House or at a general election. At that point the Liberal leader showed no hesitation at all. As head of the smallest of the three parties, he could claim no mandate for Liberalism. There was nothing for it but a throw-back to the earlier days of Liberal coöperation with Labor, with the rôles reversed and somewhat altered; that is to say, with Labor in command, and Liberalism no longer all-powerful in prestige and predominant in numbers, but willing to play an auxiliary and also a modifying part. His opening suggestion that a Labor government representing only thirty-one per cent. of the House of Commons lacked the customary right of asking and obtaining from the king a dissolution in

case of Parliamentary failure, and must give place to a new combination, presumably formed by himself, was not a strictly constitutional one. But in the end the old Liberal tradition prevailed. A Liberal-Conservative coalition was passionately urged in the Rothermere Press, which had during the election done its worst to assure Mr. Baldwin's defeat. But the argument lacked weight, and the panic in Mayfair at the idea of a Labor administration awoke few echoes among the politicians. So a sympathetic, but cautious, hand was held out to Labor. The tie thus rapidly formed held in the division lobbies, and, with the exception of a small revolt on the part of a section of Mr. Lloyd of Mr. Lloyd George's followers Mr. Asquith's lead was confirmed.

The resulting ministry represents a singularly rapid and dexterous feat in government-making. Within an hour or so of Mr. Macdonald's journey to Buckingham Palace and his kissing of hands on appointment, the list of his cabinet was in the evening papers, and in two days the entire government, with the exception of some small and inconsequential appointments, had been formed and given to the world. The actual work of choice and appointment had been done in Mr. Macdonald's modest home at Hampstead, in almost entire secrecy, and with only the necessary measure of consultation with his colleagues. From the moment when a British prime minister assumes office, the Constitution leaves him a virtually autocratic power of selecting his associates. The party executive had, indeed, been consulted on the momen

tous question of whether a Labor ministry ought to accept office at all. But once assent had been yielded, there was never a question of the party electing the cabinet, as in the case of the Socialist members of the coalition government formed in Belgium during the war. Old constitutional practice has prevailed, joined to Mr. Macdonald's unrivaled personal ascendency over his following. The ship was in the pilot's hands, and it was decided not to speak to the man at the wheel.

The man who has been able to claim, under totally new conditions, a right inherent in the existing cabinet system of England, and affirmed by succeding precedents, is of no common order. Singularly handsome, and of a natural ease and distinction of bearing, Ramsay Macdonald might sit for a portrait of a cavalier or a clan chieftain of the following of Bonny Prince Charlie. To the Highland origin and Highland air of romance, he adds not a little of the Highland character. Attached and loyal friends he has many, but it is doubtful whether, since the death of the noble woman who was his wife, any member of his circle has ever asserted the rights of an intimate adviser. His critics would say that the reserve of his character amounts to an almost embarrassing aloofness, yet it is certain that an easily influenced man, with an ear for all opinions and a door open to every comer, could never have acquired his ascendency in the Labor Party's councils, or maintained it through the difficult crisis of December and January last. With Macdonald's Highland pride and sensitiveness goes, it must be confessed, a touch of Highland mysticism. It appears in his speeches,

with their recurring idealist strain, and in the quick instinctive working of his mind, and its sudden developments of ideas and strategy. But it is necessary to add that a canny Lowland Scot, with the native shrewdness, simplicity, and hardness of life, and upright and unfaltering Puritanism of character, keeps the Highland mystic well in hand. Above all, the new prime minister is a type, and indeed a flower, of Scottish culture. A reader and thinker, and a writer of more than surface brilliancy, Macdonald's long intimacy with the late Lord Morley was founded on a love and knowledge of books no less than on many common sympathies and a strong mutual affection. As an orator Macdonald stands high, if not in the highest rank of all. His voice, more powerful in volume than that of any of his contemporaries in political leadership, and trained to reach the mass audiences of these democratic days, is still best in modulation. As for his speeches, they suffer a little in quality from their excess, for a British popular party has no mercy on its leader, and Macdonald speaks too often always to speak well. At its best his platform style, refined by much reading, expresses itself in a strain of pure and beautiful English. At its ordinary, it is good rhetoric and more than ordinarily good reasoning.

For the secretaryship of foreign affairs he is quite well fitted to stand in the shoes even of Lord Curzon. Few of his contemporaries have done more European traveling or possess a wider acquaintance among the leaders of parties and the characteristic figures in the swiftly moving cinema show of the post-war period. His