Baldwin Goes Home

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

Ruddy, jolly, pipe-smoking Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister of Great Britain, last week delivered his 'valedictory at Halifax, Nova Scotia, sailed on the S. S. Empress of Scotland for England and his official duties at Westminster. Said he, speaking also for Mrs. Baldwin, who accompanied him:

"We have loved every minute of our time. We are tired, of course, because we have worked hard. When I am through with the duties of my present post I will come again."

Continuing, in response to an address of welcome from the Mayor of Halifax, the Prime Minister concluded:

"I have seen the unlimited and untapped natural resources of the Dominion, and on my return I shall see what I can do to develop the overseas settlement work being done by these countries. I have heard that the majority who have come to this country recently are doing well.

"I have got off the train at every station at which the train stopped and talked to the people from the old country, and in every single case the people were happy. There may, of course, be some grousers but they kept away and I am convinced that if a man cannot make good it is, in 95% of the cases, his own fault."

At North Sydney, Nova Scotia, far away from his tour-companions, Edward of Wales and George, his brother, in Alberta, gathered a distinguished group to bid the Prime Minister and Mrs. Baldwin farewell. It included Dominion Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King; National Defense Minister Col. J. L. Ralston; Postmaster General Hon. Peter J. Veniot. Sirens shrieked and the big liner moved away on its voyage across the Atlantic. Handkerchiefs waved, silk hats were lifted, last messages shouted. And gradually the great ship became like a rowboat on the horizon and eventually was seen no more.

Thus ended the 18-day tour (TIME, Aug. 1 et seq.) of the first British Prime Minister ever to visit the Dominion of Canada while in office.