Change at No. 10

Stanley Baldwin ambled into the House of Commons one afternoon last week with the wistful air of a boy in his final day at school. As he had done so many times over so many years, one last time now he "caught the Speaker's eye," stood up to announce that the salaries of Members of Parliament will be raised from -L-400 to -L-600 ($2,000 to $3,000) a year. From the benches on both sides came shattering applause. For his very last "last word" before retiring from House harness, "the most popular Prime Minister since Balfour" could scarcely have picked a more felicitous topic.

Next morning, 14 years after he formed the first of his three Governments, 69-year-old Prime Minister Baldwin entered Buckingham Palace to hand over to King George the seals of his office. Forty-five minutes later plain Mr. Baldwin reappeared, and pulling blandly at a cherry-wood pipe, entered his car. Tucked under one arm were two framed, inscribed photographs of Their Majesties.

Back at No. 10 Downing Street Mr. Baldwin slid into a loose coat, gave last orders for the removal of his personal belongings to his big new private town house at No. 69 Eaton Square, set off for a three-week holiday in the country. A crowd of Londoners standing outside No. 10 cheered Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin loudly, gave a special yip when he declared with a smile and a wave, "I am now a gentleman-at-large."

As "the gentleman-at-large" had driven away from Buckingham Palace, another motor had passed him on the Mall going in the opposite direction. Sitting in it ramrod-stiff was hawk-nosed, sallow-skinned Chancellor of the Exchequer Arthur Neville Chamberlain.

"I appoint you Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury." These were the traditional words, spoken by King George, that greeted Mr. Chamberlain a few minutes later. Mr. Chamberlain knelt, kissed His Majesty's hand. The King passed over the seals of office and the keys of the Prime Minister's dispatch box. 'Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain rose to his feet. By this brief ceremony he had reached the top rung of Britain's political ladder, a height attained neither by his father Joseph nor his more-publicized late half-brother Sir Austen.

First item of business was for the new Prime Minister to "advise" His Majesty to confer an earldom and a knighthood in the Order of the Garter on Mr. Baldwin, to create Mrs. Lucy Baldwin a Dame 'Grand Cross of the British Empire. The Earl and his Countess thus reaped the reward of their joint services to the country, could retire among their pigs in Worcestershire with the calm eye, the warm glow that bespeak the performance of hard work well-recompensed.

Prime Minister Chamberlain next showed the King a list of his new Cabinet and sub-Cabinet down to the most obscure, unpaid assistant Government whip. At 5 p. m. that same day every one of these was summoned to the Palace to take his oath of office in strict order of precedence. A meeting of the Privy Council (His Majesty's advisers, including the whole Cabinet) was then held.

Two other peerages were glad-handed out by Prime Minister Chamberlain: a viscountcy for 66-year-old Walter Runciman, retiring president of the Board of Trade and another viscountcy for retiring Sir John Colin Campbell Davidson, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Stanley Baldwin's closest political friend.

One other peerage had been offered and rejected. James Ramsay MacDonald, resigning as Lord President of the Council, turned down the offer of an earldom. He knew that on his death, if he accepted the title, his Laborite Son Malcolm, Secretary for the Dominions, would be "kicked upstairs" to the House of Lords, would lose all chance of political preferment. For his son's sake, Ramsay MacDonald will remain plain Mister, will continue to represent the Scottish Universities in the House of Commons. Stanley Baldwin was prevented by no such scruples from taking a peerage though he, too, has a son with political aspirations. But Oliver Baldwin, one-time Labor M. P., has less claim to such consideration from his Conservative father. In a London Daily Mail article called My Father, Son Oliver last week wrote: "He has been lucky. His patience and inborn laziness have been among his greatest assets."

With Oldsters Baldwin, Mac Donald and Runciman out of Neville Chamberlain's new Cabinet, the average age was reduced from 55 to 53. Fifteen Conservatives received portfolios, four National Liberals, two National Laborites--the same party proportions as before except that the First Commissioner of Works, a Conservative, was excluded from the new Cabinet. Only infusions of fresh blood were the appointments of Edward Leslie Burgin as Minister of Transport and Lord De La Warr as Lord Privy Seal.

The rest was a cagey reshuffling. By far the most newsworthy switch was that of cocky, shrewd Leslie Hore-Belisha. He was upped from being the comparatively unimportant Minister of Transport to become the all-important Secretary of State for War. The dearth of volunteers for the Army has long been a major worry of the British Government. Swank, Socialite Alfred Duff Cooper, husband of beauteous Lady Diana Manners, whose job it was as Secretary for War under Baldwin to fill the Army's ranks, proved himself a poor salesman. Leslie Hore-Belisha in the last three years has assiduously sold Belisha beacons and other road-safety gadgets to the British public. It is now hoped that his Jewish drive and guile will be as successful at selling them khaki uniforms. Duff Cooper instead became First Lord of the Admiralty; the British Fleet is in better shape than the British Army.

That Duff Cooper was included in the Cabinet at all surprised many Britons because he is notoriously the most tactless person on the Government benches. Day before Neville Chamberlain took over the Prime Ministership, Duff Cooper staggered his colleagues by defending the practice of bribing foreign powers to buy British armaments. He declared: "We live in a wicked world. It is certain that other nations are extremely corrupt. ... A British firm might not be able to obtain a contract--say, in Ruritania--unless it paid a substantial commission to a corrupt statesman. That contract might give employment to the people of this country. . . . We have been told that British soldiers have been killed by British bullets. It could make little difference to the men themselves where the bullets were made."

Other major Cabinet shifts were the anticipated transfer of brilliant Lawyer Sir John Simon from the Home Office to the Exchequer, whence England expects him some day to follow Mr. Chamberlain's footsteps to the top of the ladder; the surprising transfer of modest, much-maligned Sir Samuel Hoare from the Admiralty to the Home Office. Lobby-loungers and wise acres pointed out last week that Sir Samuel has lately spent his own money in having the Admiralty redecorated, that he was as surprised as any at being moved. In the Home Office his job will be straightforward domestic administration and there he is less likely to meet with repercussions from the unsavory Hoare-Laval Ethiopian "Deal" (TIME, Dec. 30, 1935, et ante).

Britons last week scrutinizing "Chamberlain the Unknown" mostly concluded that he would be more liberal than his prede cessor. He was born in middle-class Birmingham. As a youth he was not introduced to the hierarchy of Eton and Oxford, but went to hard-boiled Rugby School. His father has been described as "one of the most aggressive social reformers in, British political history," and Neville in his recent "Soak-the-Rich" Budget (TIME, May 3) showed that he is no dyed-in-the-wool Tory. Slow and cautious, he was past 40 before he married Annie Vere Cole, pretty daughter of an Irish major; almost 50 before he entered national politics. To do this he gave up the chance of making a fortune' out of a U. S. screw patent that his father had bought. In private life Prime Minister Chamberlain is shy, retiring. Every week end he goes away to fish, catch moths, or just brood. In London he likes nothing better than to listen at home to his wife playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. This week the Conservative Party unanimously elected Prime Minister Chamberlain its leader to succeed Stanley Baldwin.

New Cabinet:

Prime Minister & First Lord of the Treasury -- Neville Chamberlain.

Chancellor of the Exchequer--Sir John Simon.

Secretary of State for Home Affairs--Sir Samuel Hoare.

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs--Anthony Eden.

First Lord of the Admiralty--Alfred Duff Cooper.

Lord President of the Council--Viscount Halifax.

Secretary of State for War--Leslie Hore-Belisha.

Minister of Transport--Edward Leslie Burgin.

President of the Board of Trade--Oliver Stanley.

Lord Privy Seal--Earl De La Warr.

Lord Chancellor--Viscount Hailsham.

Secretary of State for the Dominions--Malcolm MacDonald.

Secretary of State for India--Marquess of Zetland.

Secretary of State for the Colonies--William George Arthur Ormsby-Gore.

Minister for the Coordination of Defense--Sir Thomas Inskip.

Secretary of State for Air--Viscount Swinton.

Secretary of State for Scotland--Walter Elliot Elliot.

Minister of Agriculture & Fisheries--William Shepherd Morrison.

President of the Board of Education--Earl Stanhope.

Minister of Health -- Sir Kingsley Wood.

Minister of Labor--Ernest Brown.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.