Sir Kingsley Wood
Sir Kingsley Wood was a man whose great practical ability suffered under—and in some degree triumphed over—great physical handicaps. He had in many ways an unimpressive exterior and his voice was unfortunate, but his capacity was great. Not only had he courage, tact, humour, and a very real gift for debating, but he possessed a quite unusual flair for the practical, and wherever he went he got things done. He entered public life through the L.C.C., and nobody who watched him there or on the County of London Insurance Committee could doubt that -he would go a long way. In his first high national office, as Postmaster-General, he was quite a sensational success. He found our telephone service a by-word, and Great Britain surprisingly low on the list of telephone-using countries ; he set himself at once to improve, to cheapen, and to popularise the service, and in a few years worked a revolution. When he went in 1935 to the Ministry of Health, his three years there set housing and slum clearance humming as they had never hummed before ; and when in 1938 he took up at the Air Ministry the very difficult succession to Lord Swinton, he did a great deal to secure that the R.A.F., when the test came, had what margins it had on the right side. His last chapter, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was marked by the same qualities. He assumed no airs, but his Budgets were brave ones ; he was no economist, but it was he who brought back Lord Keynes into the service of the nation. Altogether a very unusual career.
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