GREAT BRITAIN: Prop for Baldwin

The most British of Britons, famed Sir William (“Jix”) Joynson-Hicks, went out to Hunterston Castle, Ayrshire, and verbally propped the prestige of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

People have been saying that the Cabinet is politically on the rocks, and especially that a three-sided split had opened between “Jix,” Mr. Baldwin and “Winston.” The latter statesman is the Right Honorable Winston Churchill, Chancellor of His Majesty’s Exchequer; and “Jix” is His Majesty’s tall, frock-coated, impeccable Secretary of State for Home Affairs.

Said “Jix” to gaping Ayrshire yokels, while London listened: “All the stories you have heard or read about dissension in the Cabinet are absolutely without foundation. Mr. Churchill is, like myself, entirely in agreement with the policy the Prime Minister has laid down . . . , and on that policy the Conservative Party can unite [for the 1929 election].

“I express my entire devotion to the leadership of Mr. Baldwin. During the last four years the man has grown in wisdom, in stature, in power, and in ideas and ideals until he has become one of the greatest leaders the Conservative Party has ever known.”

Since no words can cloak the fact that Sir William is a protectionist and Mr. Churchill a free trader, that fundamental disagreement between them was dismissed jocularly by “Jix” thus: “I should like to point out that this is the first occasion I have spoken in public since I made one of my indiscreet [protectionist] speeches some months ago.

“After all somebody must make an indiscreet speech now and again. Lord Palmerston made them from time to time and he was one of the finest of Britons. The indiscreet speech of today may be the policy of tomorrow.”

Finally “Jix” launched into his grand, eternal theme: the “Red Scare.”

“Communism is not dead yet!” he warned impressively, “Mr. Ferguson, the Communist candidate at the recent Aberdeen by-election, polled 2,618 votes. Communism is being propagated insidiously throughout our land today.”

Insidious persons, continued “Jix,” are proposing even to regulate the number of a man’s children by law. “I cannot,” said Sir William with a wry smile, “I cannot help feeling rather for the father of a family, who has got almost up to the legal number of children, when the nurse comes downstairs from his wife’s room and says, ‘I am sorry to tell you it is twins.’ I am afraid the nurse would have to ring up the police and tell them of the new crime that had been committed.* “Is it not extraordinary, in a country like ours, educated, prosperous, and fairly happy, that doctrines of this kind should be taught by learned men as well as scatterbrains?”

*Supposing that the legal limit were six children, and supposing that twins should be born to Their Majesties, who already have five children, then the position of Sir William Joynson-Hicks would be that of his hypothetical nurse.