Malcolm's Day

The late George V had great respect for the late James Ramsay MacDonald, Great Britain's first and only Labor Prime Minister. Partly because of this, and partly because he threw over his own party to form Britain's first National Government in 1931, Laborite MacDonald held a Cabinet job in Conservative Governments long after he had lost his following and popularity.

Between Ramsay MacDonald and his second-born, Malcolm, there early developed a remarkable father-&-son relationship. Young Malcolm, a small, bespectacled, studious man as compared to his ruddy-cheeked handsome father, followed the Elder MacDonald from party to party. Mr. MacDonald was said to have turned down a peerage because he feared it would hurt his son's chances in politics.

Malcolm MacDonald entered Parliament in 1929--as a Laborite. Next year he served as his father's secretary at the London Naval Conference. At the Imperial Conference in 1930 and at Ottawa in 1932 he was the British delegation's press officer. At 30 he became Under Secretary for Dominions in his father's cabinet, handed his increased salary of $5,700 back to the Government on the ground that the $1,520 he earned as an M.P. was enough for a bachelor.* In 1935, when Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin switched jobs and Baldwin became Prime Minister, Young Malcolm, then only 34, became a full-fledged Cabinet member as Colonial Secretary.

But he was still very much his father's son and he had yet to prove his own worth. A member of one of the Oxford University debating teams, he still was to win his spurs in the hard school of the House of Commons. He quickly became known as a quiet plugger rather than a brilliant go-getter. He looked more like an office boy than a Cabinet member. His chief virtues were patience and calm.

Transferred to Dominions Secretary he had his first big job in settling the troublesome Eire-British trade war with a treaty satisfactory to both countries. Young MacDonald knew more about birds than either Ornithologists Neville Chamberlain or Eamon de Valera, and that knowledge came in handy when he wanted to deal lightly either with Boss Chamberlain or Antagonist de Valera.

Switched back to Colonies, Secretary MacDonald became fascinated by the black, brown, yellow peoples of the British Empire. With relish he discovered that the Empire's cannibals preferred black men instead of white. The whites tasted too salty. All the while he was gaining his superiors' confidence. Gloomily he expressed the fear that the British Empire might disintegrate before the onrush of "extreme nationalism." Prime Minister Chamberlain called that a "very brilliant and statesmanlike exposition."

Then one of Britain's most vexsome Empire problems--Palestine--was dumped in his lap. During one of the worst terroristic periods he flew out to the Holy Land, interviewed both Arabs and Jews. Jews and Arabs were invited to a round-table conference in London to compose their differences. Nothing came of it.

Fortnight ago, after many warnings, Malcolm MacDonald finally announced his and the Government's decision to stake out Palestine into: 1) a prohibited zone, where Jews could no longer buy land; -- For a similar example of self-denial, see p. 42.

2) a restricted zone, where Jewish purchases could be made only by "special permission"; 3) a small free zone, where Jews could still buy. Obviously this represented an Arab victory, a Jewish defeat, and loud was the cry of the Palestine Jewish Agency, its friends in the U. S. and Great Britain.

The Labor Party attacked the bill, introduced in the House of Commons a motion of censure. And last week Colonial Secretary MacDonald faced at long last his political trial by ordeal. He had to stand before the House and take the withering attacks of Parliamentary opponents, and he had to know the answers. Cried Laborite Philip J. Noel Baker: "In the last war the Jews were very strong. They had great influence in many lands, and we desired their help. . . . Today the Jews are weak and a hunted race. . . . It was because their influence had gone that we dared to do this shameful act today, to repudiate the moral contract we made with them when the Great War was going on."

Conservative Back-Bencher Captain Victor Cazalet snorted that the Government, by mollycoddling the Arabs, risked giving the world an impression that Britain is "prepared to make terms with the enemy." Liberal Sir Archibald Sinclair argued that the League of Nations should have been consulted, accused the Government of "presuming to be the judge of its own case."

In rebuttal Secretary MacDonald spoke for 80 minutes, and veterans of the House declared that he gave a bang-up Parliamentary performance. He pointed out that it was the impoverished Arab working class who suffered when wealthy Arab landlords sold out to Jews. These ousted Arab workers, he warned, made ideal tinder for an uprising.

"If there were trouble in Palestine, there would be repercussions in Trans-Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and India," continued the Secretary. "... I must tell the House that we have had the sternest warnings in recent weeks that, despite appearances in Palestine, there was beneath the surface growing unrest in Arab villages and growing suspicion that the British Government was not sincere in its professions that it would protect Arab cultivators, peasants and laborers." At the end Secretary MacDonald received a rousing ovation, and a motion of nonconfidence, the first raised against the Government since the war began, was defeated by the comfortable vote of 292-to-129--a far larger majority than that won by the Government on a similar Palestine question last May.

The Arabs had won a glorious victory in the British Parliament, and it was a bitter day for those many Jews who had labored so that--as Zionist Dr. Chaim Weizmann once put it--"Palestine should be just as Jewish as America is American and England is English." Malcolm Macdonald had passed his test.

*For a similar example of self-denial, see p. 42.

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