17 NOVEMBER 1928, Page 3

Mr. Baldwin embedded in his speech at the Lord Mayor's

banquet on Friday, November 9th, a charac- teristic passage, in which he prophesied an immense usefulness for wireless in bringing about understanding between nations. He mentioned how in a casual moment at Chequers, he had been trying to switch on to a foreign station when he captured some exquisite music from Berlin, and shortly afterwards heard the singing of a hymn. He reflected that there would be a new bond in the world when every cottager would be able to hear foreign people at their prayers and hymn- singing. Mr. Baldwin is very good at this kind of artful artlessness, which is part of the material of all political oratory that succeeds in being human. John Bright understood it well. Readers of his speeches will remember how a homely description of a chance meeting at a little bookstall in London with a soldier who was a fellow-member of Bright's in the House of Commons was the prelude to the magnificent sentences—it was at the time of the Crimean War—containing the words, " His, body lies by the stormy Euxine. His wife is a widow, his children are fatherless." Similarly, Mr. ilaldwin led up to a moving end which. we .wish could have been relayed to the White House at Washington :- "For, believe me, the alternative before us in Europe is very simple, and the choiCe ought to ' be easy. We either keep faith with the spirit of the Pact that we have signed or, in time, we go down a steep place altogether like Gadareno swine and .perish eternally. Let us all to-night--and there are representatives of many Great Powers here—grasp this opportunity which has been givon us for a new start with both hands and go forward with a now faith and a new hope."

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