Mrs. Snowden Speaks

COMMONWEALTH

(British Commonwealth of Nations)

Nothing could have been more simple, more dignified and more sane than certain speeches that Mrs. Philip Snowden, wife of the onetime Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a fortnight ago in Montreal. She told crowded houses all about the Labor movement in Britain. She explained the uphill fight of the pre-Labor Government period, the inner frictions of the Labor Cabinet and what is now being done.

She made two unusually interesting statements.

The first was a pleasing reference to the British Royal Family which, in Canada, and Montreal not least of all, is reviewed with more general and genuine affection than it is in Britain. Mrs. Snowden declared that the sympathetic attitude of British Royalty to the Labor Ministers and officials had established forever the "English Throne in the hearts of the English people."

The second statement was a criticism of ex-Premier Ramsay MacDonald's leadership. Mrs. Snowden inferred that it had been bad; she actually said he had taken too much upon himself. She made no excuses for him. Unfortunately, coming from the wife of the ex-Chancellor who was notoriously out of sorts with his Chief, such a statement provoked much criticism.

From London, The Morning Post, relentless enemy of ex-Premier MacDonald, immediately put the capital created by Mrs. Snowden at interest by writing an editorial:

"The incorruptible member of the Labor Party (Philip Snowden), to do him justice, always played the game with his chief. Even when Mr. MacDonald was prepared to raid the treasury for the most unmitigated scoundrels who ever disgraced civilization, Mr. Snowden bowed his head, and if he cursed at all, he cursed under his breath.

"Mr. Snowden may have been foolish, but he was silent. Mrs. Snowden certainly is not foolish, and she is far from silent.

"Is Mr. Snowden going to round up the lady who, besides being his own wife, stands deservedly high in the counsels of Labor, or is he going to throw over Mr. MacDonald as a bad job and agree with his wife?"

The Post hoped that Mr. Snowden would stand by his wife, "particularly as he knows she is speaking the truth."

From another part of London, politically opposite to the great Strand newspaper, came a girlish outburst of indignation from Labor's only woman M. P., Ellen Wilkinson. She said that the women of the Labor Party "felt pretty sick when they read nonsense like that talked by Ethel Snowden in America and added that she would like to apply to Mrs. Snowden the epithet "The woman who wants slapping."

Angry at the attack on Mr. MacDonald, she became metaphorically livid over the tribute her elder sister, Mrs. Snowden, paid to the House of Windsor. Fumed she:

"If Mrs. Snowden has lost her head because the King happened to have said 'How do you do?' to her, there is still a mass of devoted women in this country determined that the Labor Party shall stand for the ending of all that show and theatrical glitter and tinsel which I saw at the opening of Parliament."