There is hardly a man, if there is a man
at all, whose departure from the House of Commons will be more genuinely regretted than George Buchanan's. He came there as a red-haired Clydeside rebel twenty-six years ago, he leaves it as a still red-haired Minister universally and deservedly popular. His promotion to the Under- Secretaryship for Scotland was matter for general satisfaction, but it is as Minister of Pensions that he has finally established his hold on the House's esteem. His administration is, of course, limited by the terms of the Royal Warrant, but he could always be relied on to stretch the limitations to the utmost if a question of some special grant to a man in special need was involved. The humane attitude he has always maintained as Minister of Pensions will be equally requisite in his new office of Chairman of the new National Assistance Board, which he assumes for intelligible reasons and his own choice. But the choice, for so good a House of Commons man, cannot have been easy to make.
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