THE NEW CABINET
MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S new Government has been received with acquiescence rather than enthusiasm. Most, indeed, of the changes in the Cabinet were so well prepared that when they came they could cause little surprise. But the ease and smoothness with which they were made is striking evidence of the essential stability of the Government ; even the attack on Mr. Chamberlain's new tax would not have been fatal, and the abandonment by the Prime Minister of the measure he introduced as Chancellor will strengthen rather than weaken his position. Despite all the propaganda of the Left, the " National " character of the Govern- ment, in which Conservatism is diluted with tinctures of Liberalism and even Socialism, still corresponds to the temper of the electorate. In the new adminis- tration there is no one with both the will and the capacity to change this character and there are likely to be few alterations in policy. Some changes there must be, if only because nothing can stand still, but this Government like the last seems likely to wait on events, rather than anticipate them. The departure of some of its most experienced members may make it less adroit in questions of political management ; but this, it may be hoped, will be compensated for by less ambiguity in policy.
In foreign affairs especially there will be little change, for Mr. Eden at the Foreign Office is known to possess the confidence of Mr. Chamberlain, as of most men in this country. Sir John Simon, as Chancellor, will show the same technical mastery in finance that he shows in every other subject ; but it will need more than that to secure him the confidence of the business community after the shock his predecessor has given it. Sir John's succession to Mr. Chamberlain at the Treasury was expected and obvious, but the changes at the Defence Ministries emphatically were not. Of them it may be said that one Minister, Sir Samuel Hoare, who ought to have stayed where he was, has gone; another, Lord Swinton, who ought to have gone, has stayed where he was; and Mr. Duff Cooper, who might with advantage have been transferred to a different type of office, has been transferred to another of the same type. Even if Sir Samuel Hoare desired the Home Office, and was entitled to have his wishes respected, that does not account adequately for the other changes at the Admiralty, or for the appointment of Mr. Duff Cooper to the chief position there. Mr. Hore-Belisha will no doubt be bustling and executive at the War Office, and those are useful qualities when it is desired to stimulate recruiting. But the defence changes are not reassuring, except on the assumption, not entirely flattering to the three Secretaries of State, that it is Sir Thomas Inskip, the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, who really counts. And Sir Thomas, though he has made an increasingly good impression, is still in a sense on trial in an office which is itself an innovation.
In the civil departments Dr. Burgin, who becomes Minister of Transport, has secured promotion by hard work as Under-Secretary to Mr. Walter Runciman at the Board of Trade ; and indeed Mr. Runciman has given his deputy every opportunity to obtain Parliamen- tary experience as head of a department. The Board of Trade itself goes to Mr. Oliver Stanley, who has to his credit a singularly timorous Education Act and a far from impressive retreat before the violent opposition aroused by the unemployment assistance regulations he introduced as Minister of Labour. Now he has new scope, and a speech made by his Under-Secretary, Captain Euan Wallace, last week, with its insistence on the benefits of a new trade treaty with America, arouse.; hopes that the new Minister will use his exceptional opportunities at the Board of Trade to put a constructive policy for freer trade into operation. Of Lord Stanhope's qualifications for the Board of Education it is difficult to speak, as he has so far given no conspicuous evidence of his interest in that subject ; this is the more unfortunate because the Government's educational record has not been a good one and because Mr. Chamberlain is suspected in some quarters, perhaps unjustly, of a none too generous attitude to the social services. For that reason it is gratifying that Sir Kingsley Wood, a Minister who has most deser- vedly earned promotion both by his record as an administrator and by the excellence of his public statements, is to remain at the Ministry of Health. Sir Philip Sassoon has gone to the Office of Works, for which he is excellently fitted by his interest in the arts ; if he had gone there sooner he might have spared London the colour-scheme in which the Office of Works chose to carry out its Coronation decorations.
The new Government is more dependable than brilliant ; it has no statesman of the calibre of Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Lloyd George or Mr. Churchill. Indeed, it has lost much, in political experience and sagacity, by the departure of Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Runciman. Both have had a long career of service to the State, Mr. MacDonald's the more spectacular, but Mr. Runciman's conspicuous for the period in which he has held high office, in all, since 19o8, some 15 years. If Mr. Runciman was always remarkable for the lucidity and Mr. Mac- Donald for the obscurity, of his public statements, both had a fund of political shrewdness and insight based on long experience, which have served the Government well. Indeed, if this Cabinet be compared with last, the quality in which it is most likely to show itself deficient is a certain quickness of mind that is essential to political success ; it suffers from a certain lack of men capable of grasping and formulating the more general aspects of policy and national life. Neither Mr. Chamberlain, Sir John Simon nor Sir Samuel Hoare is quite capable of that kind of attitude to politics of which, like Mr. Baldwin, Mr. MacDonald was in his own way a master. There were moments perhaps in which he was not wholly clear ; Mr. Chamberlain does not suffer from that defect, but the Prime Minister's mind is essentially concrete and he may be in some danger of overlooking the impondera- bilia that can often play so large a part in the evolution of public opinion. It is worth noticing as a significant fact, that at a time when Europe is threatened by a war of ideas, the Government of Great Britain is primarily one of technicians, jurists and administrators. But the least a new Prime Minister can claim is that he should enjoy the full confidence of the nation till he forfeits it by his acts. No one, certainly,will deny Mr. Chamberlain that.
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