Thomas Out

Evidence, all of it circumstantial, continued to point last week to His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies James Henry Thomas as the source of the Budget leak which enabled sure-thing gamblers to bilk British insurance firms of over half a million dollars (TIME, May 25). On the evening that lean, bespectacled Mr. Justice Porter & associates wound up their investigation of this breach of Cabinet confidence, Cockney Jim Thomas, onetime locomotive wiper who became the friend of kings, sat down and wrote as follows:

"My dear Prime Minister:

"I understand that the tribunal has to-day finished its public sittings and will therefore proceed at once to consider its report. Before, however, the report is known and without any regard to what it may contain, I feel it is my duty, for reasons I will state, to send you my resignation from the Government. . . .

"You will know my only object in joining the National Government was because I felt sure the coming together of all political parties, regardless of past differences, was the only chance of putting this country through its crisis. Today ... I feel that instead of being a source of strength to your Cabinet, I will merely be a drag on it and not in a position to pull my full weight."

Stanley Baldwin wrote back:

"My dear Jim: You have acted as I should have done in your place. . . ."

From Downing Street came the official announcement:

"The Rt. Hon. J. H. Thomas, Member of Parliament and Secretary of State for the Colonies, having tendered his resignation, His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to accept it."

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