Hole Filled

Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin last week mulled the problem of filling the hole in his "National" Government made by Secretary of State for the Colonies James Henry ("Jim") Thomas' resignation after last April's scandalous Budget leak (TIME, June 1 et ante). Jim Thomas, after a week's brooding, returned the seals of the Colonial Office to King Edward VIII. A few hours later his son Leslie Thomas, whose clients had made a killing by insuring themselves against tax rises in the Budget, resigned from the Stock Exchange firm of Belisha & Co. This week, however, a court of inquiry exonerated Son Leslie. In scathing verbiage its report put the blame for the Budget leak squarely on Jim Thomas.

As to who might be the new Secretary for the Colonies, the newspapers of Lord Beaverbrook were vociferous that it should not be First Commissioner of Works William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore, 51, arch-Conservative son & heir of the third Baron Harlech and specialist in the British colonies, geography and Florentine art. Last week Stanley Baldwin, who immunizes his pious convictions against criticism by not looking at a news paper over the long British weekend, named Mr. Ormsby-Gore Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Just the man for last week's trouble in Palestine (see p. 16) was Ormsby-Gore. His Wartime service included political work in Palestine, intelligence work in the Arab Bureau and active service in Egypt. Since then he has twice been a politically intelligent Undersecretary of State for Colonies and Britain's member of the League of Nations' Permanent Mandates Commission.

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