nd women, and the annals of
these movements are full of heroic self-sacrifice. But an aptitude for
politics was not a distinguishing mark of Socialists, and therefore Mr.
MacDonald's experience and abilities gave him at once a prominent place in
the council of the Independent Labour Party, and soon made him the
controlling power in that organisation. With the formation of the National
Labour Party a very much wider realm was to be conquered, and Mr. MacDonald
has been as successful here as in the earlier Independent Labour Party. But
now the Labour Party having made Mr. MacDonald its chairman, it can do no
more for him. He is but forty-five years old, his health is good, his
talents are recognised; by his aversion from everything eccentric or
explosive, the public have understood that he is trustworthy. We may expect
to see Mr. Ramsay MacDonald a Cabinet Minister in a Liberal-Labour
Government. It may even happen that he will become Prime Minister in such a
Government. He is a "safe" man, without taint of fanaticism. His sincerity
for the improvement of the lot of the poor does not compel him to
extravagant speech on the subject, and his imagination is sufficient to
exclude dullness of view. He has proved that the application of Socialist
principles does not require any violent disturbance of the existing order,
and is compatible with social respectability and political authority. A
public opinion that would revolt against the notion of an ex-workman
becoming Prime Minister would not be outraged in any way by Mr. MacDonald
holding that office. Mr. Burns and Mr. Hardie have remained in their own
and in the public eye representatives of the working class, all education
notwithstanding. Mr. MacDonald has long cut himself off from the labouring
class of his boyhood. He has adapted himself easily and naturally to the
life and manners of the wealthier professional classes, and he moves
without constraint in the social world of high politics, as one born to the
business. No recognition of the workman is possible in Mr. Ramsay
MacDonald's case, and this fact is greatly in his favour with the
multitudes who still hold that England should be ruled by "gentlemen."

The Right Hon. D. Lloyd George is a striking figure in our new democracy,
and his character and position are to be noted. It was not as a labour
representative but as the chosen mouthpiece of the working middle class,
enthusiastic for Welsh nationalism, that Mr. Lloyd Geo