22 OCTOBER 1932, Page 6

I am interested in the Prime Minister's studies in the

ethics of resignation, as unfolded to a National Labour audience on Monday. His Labour colleagues in August, 1931, " ran away " (the old cheap gibe, I suppose, will never die). Lord Snowden went out the other day at the dictates of " that very rigid sense of rectitude which has guided his steps all through his life." As for Sir Herbert Samuel and the other Liberals their action was " deplor- able " ; they decided the time had come " to stop trying to make a national effort and go back to party politics." And Mr. MacDonald himself—who by all accounts offered his own resignation when the Liberals withdrew ? * * * *