Jolly Good Fellow

Anemia or a deficiency of red corpuscles in the blood stream, according to such scrupulous newsorgans as the New York Times last week afflicts the Right Honorable Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister, who looks exactly like beef-eating, red-blooded John Bull.

Anemic is exactly what John Bull's foreign policy has been for many a month, and Europe, on hearing last week that

Mr. Baldwin had taken secluded refuge in the country while the Opposition belabored him in the House of Commons, was more than ready to hear that he was about to resign. Stanley Baldwin stepped into his limousine at last and was driven 35 miles to the House of Commons where only his henchmen cheered. That night he went to the 100th anniversary banquet of the City of London Conservative Party organization, was greeted by the refrain, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!" and made a speech such as only frankly bumbling Stanley Baldwin can get away with.

"I have been in office, more or less, for 18 years, and, getting tired and not sleeping too Well, I took the liberty of absenting myself for three days," said the Prime Minister. "I am feeling so old I think I can remember 1836, when this association was organized (laughter). It was possible to do business 100 years ago and think about what you were doing.

I could have been a statesman in those days. Today, we have none of us, either in business or politics, one minute in which to think. Disraeli and Gladstone could have gone away on a long holiday and no one would have taken the slightest notice." Actually these great Victorian Prime Ministers had no such official country residence to which they could slip away as have their 20th Century successors.

Both Gladstone and Disraeli made it a point of honor to be in the House of Commons whenever they were attacked. However, serene Stanley Baldwin went on: "A man for whom I have profound admiration, Abraham Lincoln . . . once observed-- for he was subject in his lifetime to no less criticism than I am, and he minded just about as much--'I do the very best I can and I mean to keep on doing it until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not amount to anything, and if the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing that I was right would make no difference.' And that is a very profound and wise observation from a very great man."

In case this did not squelch his critics who have called his policy that of a poltroon, the Prime Minister said that he is "quite content to be called a coward," if that is the name people give to his avoidance of a war between Britain and Italy. He added: "Though I wish to retire some day, I shall retire when I think fit. It is for me to decide, and for no one to dictate to me."

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