Eyes & Heart

The fiery Wartime pacifism of James Ramsay MacDonald has long since mellowed into compromise. Compromise has made him Prime Minister of England, the King's good friend and pet lion of the Marchioness of Londonderry. To the hard-headed Conservatives of the National Government, led in fact by Stanley Baldwin, mellow Scot MacDonald is an ideal figurehead, never more so than now as it faces an oncoming national election. MacDonald, however, is far from well. Over & over the Conservatives have prepared the voters for MacDonald's final fade-out by slipping out rumors that he was about to resign the Prime Ministership to Stanley Baldwin. Last week the chorus of rumors swelled, picked out a definite date, the Whitsuntide Holiday, June 9.

Calling on the King in office hours is a portentous political thing in England. Last week nearly every member of the National Cabinet trooped through the gates of Buckingham Palace to talk to the heavy-eyed old man. First it was MacDonald and his Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon; then Baldwin. Anthony Eden, Lord Privy Seal, also called. Later Scot MacDonald called again, then significantly turned his back on an emergency Cabinet meeting, went off to Scotland, leaving Baldwin to announce Britain's bellicose new air program (see col. 1). Finally Ramsay MacDonald was back again at the palace gates and everybody knew that something was up.

The dopesters had only one sure fact: the Prime Minister's eyes are failing from a lifetime of excessive reading. The Conservatives might not miss MacDonald's eyes but they would certainly miss his much-publicized heart. British dopesters were busy last week figuring that, if MacDonald resigned, he would take with him the weak men in the National Cabinet. This meant two in particular: Sir John Simon whose Olympian coldness in human contacts had not served Britain well in foreign affairs; and the Marquess of Londonderry, Air Minister, who should have known that Germany was building an air fleet.

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