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A particularly fine piece of "muddling through" was the passage in which Mr. Baldwin referred to invalid Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain, who, just prior to his breakdown (TIME, Sept. 10), succeeded in thoroughly entangling and ensnarling Franco-U.S.-British relations with respect to disarmament (TIME, Aug. 13).
Sturdy, English, loyal Stanley Baldwin said of his sick friend: "I want to pay the highest tribute to my colleague, Sir Austen Chamberlain. The whole country and all Europe realize the devotion, skill and patience with which he has handled our foreign affairs for four years. With health renewed, I hope he will handle them four years more. . . . A great part of Europe's progress toward peace is due to his labors, and in those labors he has nearly worn himself out."
When newspapers containing accounts of the Prime Minister's speech reached Bewdley, his birthplace, a "Stability Baldwin" rally was held by the Venerable Guild of Bewdley Clay Pipe Makers. While guildsmen puffed their long-stemmed clay pipes, a onetime Mayor of Bewdley, Joseph ("Fiery Joe") Oakes, declaimed the speech entire, only stopping now and then to puff, at a pipe, which he said, "Was first smoked by Stanley Baldwin himself, when he was last among us."
Liberals began their campaign, last week, coincidentally with Conservatives. Said Mr. David Lloyd George, in Welsh, to an audience at Llangefni, Wales: "You have just heard me speak in support of my daughter Megan, who has been selected as the prospective Liberal candidate for Parliament from this division. . . . I am supporting her candidacy not because she is my daughter but because she is the choice of the party. . . . I cannot be responsible for anything she may say or do if elected."
*i. e. Between the two major parties: Laborite and Conservative. The Liberals held just such a balance in 1924 and used their leverage to assist into office the first and only British Labor Cabinet, namely that of Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald.