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The Right Hon. Stanley Baldwin.

The Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin was born on 3rd August, 1867, and was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He entered Parliament in 1908 as member for Bewdley and became, in 1916, Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr. Bonar Law. Twelve months later he was appointed Junior Lord of the Treasury. In 1921 he became President of the Board of Trade, in 1922 Chancellor of the Exchequer and in 1923 Prime Minister and Leader of the Unionist Party. The General Election in December, 1923, which was fought on the great issue of protection versus free trade resulted in his defeat at the polls, but in 1924 he again became Prime Minister, which high office he still holds. Among his distinguished services to Britain may be mentioned his mission in 1922 to the United States, having for its specific object the settlement of our War Debt to that country. “We want to pay and mean to pay,” he said, but he reminded America that the fate of humanity depended upon Anglo-American co-operation—that heavy and rapid debt liquidation would depress the British market for American products which would be a disadvantage to both countries. Mr. Baldwin impressed America with his candid statement of the case, with the result that the period for payment of the debt was extended from twenty-five years to fifty years, and the interest rates were reduced considerably. Mr. Baldwin does not possess any of the arts of oratory which have made some of his predecessors famous, but he does possess the qualities which mark him out as a great leader. “All his actions and words,” says his latest biographer, Mr. Adam Gowans Whyte, “are the outcome of an intense appreciation of the human factor, and a conviction that leadership is, in its ultimate form, simply an appeal to the best elements in our common humanity.”