BOOKS OF THE WEEK
The-Paradox of Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin. By G. M. Young. (Rupert Hart-Davis. 21s.) IN a few lines of preface to his life of Stanley Baldwin Mr. G. M. Young states the alternative verdicts which contemporary public opinion has pronounced on Baldwin, and between which history will be called to give a final judgement. Did he, for the sake of keeping his party in office, shirk his duty and deceive the nation on the issue of our defence—and for that matter on other scarcely less vital issues —or was he the true begetter of the national unity which saw us through the great struggle which none could have prevented? Mr. Young claims no more than to give, as faithfully as he can, the evidence on which that judgement must be grounded. His own
conclusion would seem to be that both verdicts are true. But in a deeply moving closing passage he suggests that ,his heart; at least,
leans towards the more generous interpretation. For the rest his volume is, as he himself explains, not so much a political life as a character-study. As such it is a masterpiece of sympathetic and yet critical analysis of a personality that seemed so simple to the outside world, but was so baffling and enigmatic to those who knew him, and the more so the better they knew and the more they loved him.
Profoundly illogical, he browsed over a problem till the vague cloud of his thoughts condensed into some shrewd conclusion which went to the heart of a subject, and led to swift action or, as often as not, dispersed again into nebulous inactivity. Fundamentally indolent, and never more so than when success called for energy in following up victory, he could be unexpectedly and even incompre- hensibly, impulsive. Impulsive in sudden decision, as in the case of the 1923 tariff election; impulsive in unwarranted panic, as after the Fulham pacifist by-election or in face of the criticism of the Hoare- Laval pact over Abyssinia—the saving let-out from an impossible position into which his Government had drifted. The split in the Conservative Party which left most of its leaders on the wrong side of the fence, followed by Bonar Law's retirement, found him Prime Minister before he knew where he was or, perhaps, even what he was. Presently there shaped itself in his mind the idea of what a Prime Minister ought to be. It was, to begin with, to be as unlike Lloyd George as possible—plain instead of brilliant; steady instead of restless; soberly truthful instead of romantic and imaginative; English and not Welsh. Like the first Elizabeth before him he was resolved to be "mere English," and suppress the Highland Celtic streak in his make-up--not only English, but English of the countryside, and not of the factory and counting-house of his upbringing. Aboveall he must be patriotic; a lover of all his fellow countrymen, of his country's history, of its institutions, its ancient monarchy, its great parliamentary tradition, its fairness, its tolerance. All these things were innate in his own disposition. But he steeped himself in them as the part which it was his duty to play as a Prime Minister, and they became more deeply ingrained in consequence. It was because he lived up to his ideal that his party and the nation followed him over the General Strike of 1926, over India, over the grave Abdication crisis and, not least, when war came, in their response to the test. His supreme vindication there was the letter, which Mr. Young quotes, from that rebel of the First World War, David, now Lord, Kirkwood, describing why he and his friends acted so unhesitatingly in the Second. Unfortunately, in this world of complex political and economic problems and urgent situations calling for swift and decisive action, a Prime Minister must do, and know what he is doing and, why, as well as be. Men who have risen to the height of power and responsibility have, as a rule, either been spurred to ambition by their passion to do what their knowledge told them needed doing, or learned to know and act in the course of fulfilling their ambition for fame or power. Neither applied in Baldwin's case. Neither ambition nor reforming zeal had brought him to a goal at which he had never aimed. Such little administrative experience as he had enjoyed had not inspired him with any enthusiasm for the matters in hand. He had done conscientiously what needed doing in the House of Commons to satisfy his Department and the Cabinet, but that was all. It was for his colleagues, once he was Prime Minister,
to do the same, if only they would be content to do the same; he was always ready to trust their judgement. If they were restless and wished to. do more, that was their affair; time would work against excessive thirst for action, and too active advocates of one policy or another might be allowed to cancel each other out.
In any case his natural inertia was fortified by a profound scepticism as to the results of any particular legislative or administrative action. "The sublime instincts of an ancient people," to quote his favourite Disraeli, would somehov, work out right in the end. His own model was Walpole, as depicted in F. S. Oliver's Endless Advennur, or Trollope's Duke of Omnium—models suited to a quieter age, but far from sufficient to meet the storm of our times. If we have much for which to thank Stanley Baldwin, it must also be admitted that, in our unpreparedness to meet not only a ruinous war, but its economic and social consequences, he left behind him a heavy legacy for his successors to beer. All this,. and much else—his persuasive and moving eloquence, his command of the House of Commons, his humour, his kindliness, his love of literature—is admirably brought out in Mr. Young's brilliant study, a study which no one would have enjoyed more than Baldwin himself.
L. S. AMERY.
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