"Good Old Mac!"

''Never put off until tomorrow what you can just as well put off until next week"-- such was the Irish motto cheerfully followed by Scot James Ramsay MacDonald on his return last week to Britain.

The House of Commons had assembled from Autumn recess in advance of his arrival (see below) eager to hear his official version of the White House talks. But the Prime Minister decided to slip off for a few days to "Chequers," country residence of British prime ministers. Rumor was that a rough sea passage on the little liner Duchess of York had kept him from writing his speech. His own sturdy story was: "We had what I call a good Englishman's passage. There were four rough days, but we arrived. I did not miss a single meal."

Crowds of laboring men and poorly dressed women cried "Good old Mac!" as the tall Laborite and Daughter Ishbel passed through the Customs shed in grimy Liverpool. There were more cheers at London's grimier Euston station. But there was no such spontaneous, frenzied welcome from all classes as crippled Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden received when he brought home his piece of "Reparations Sponge Cake" from The Hague (TIME, Sept. 9). Mr. MacDonald was not "chaired" (carried in British triumph shoulder high) as was Mr. Snowden. In his empty hands he brought only Peace.

Of utmost significance was the comment of Britain's most British news organ. After warmly praising the Prime Minister for "sweeping away old resentments" between Britain and the U. S. the London Times went on to explain: "The idea of a Labor Prime Minister makes an irresistible appeal to the 'log cabin to the White House' sentiment of the Americans. He is not regarded with the wary distrust with which the American public regards British diplomatists and statesmen of what is called the old school.

"The average American, like the average Canadian and Australian, lives in the past, and he cannot resist a feeling, which in truth he rather cherishes as a grievance, that English men of that type, however much they may try to conceal it, regard themselves as members of an exclusive caste, socially superior to any one they can meet in any of the newer countries.

"Freedom from these suspicions would have been enjoyed by almost any Labor leader. But Mr. MacDonald has personal qualities of his own which attract Americans more, perhaps, than they do Englishmen. His capacity for expressing religious and idealistic sentiment in public speeches is more popular and more accepted in America than in England."