§ The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Mr. Baldwin)Before the House proceeds with the normal business on the Order Paper, I think that it will be the general desire of the House that we should pay a short tribute to the memory of the Minister for Education, Sir Donald Maclean. This House is yet young, and to many of the Members of it little can be known of him but just his fleeting appearances on the Treasury Bench; but to the older Members, and particularly to those of us in all parties to whom the traditions of Parliament and Parliamentary life are dear, Donald Maclean was a great figure and a great personality. He was essentially a House of Commons man. He was of the type to be found, I am thankful to think, in generation after generation in the Parliamentary life of this country; men who are the very salt and savour of our public life. He was not one who ever sought office. He was most assiduous in his duties in the House, and, while combining with that attention to business outside, he was yet able in the 19 years during which he served the House to become one of the most respected and best loved figures in it.
For seven years he was Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means, and in the War he performed a most delicate and difficult duty as Chairman of the London Appeals Tribunal in a way which gave satisfaction to all. It was in 1916, just before I first got office, that I worked through the whole of the year with him in the closest companionship on a very important committee dealing with aliens and spies and kindred matters, a committee which kept us at work three, four, five and six days a week, and in that companionship I learned to know the man and to form there the basis of a friendship which has continued on from that day to this. When you have regard to his position as a private Member, to the strain of work outside and to the amount of political ambition which was in him, I, as a political opponent, have always thought that one of the most remarkable periods of his career was when, with the courage which was profound in his nature, he felt that it was his duty to undertake in this House at a most difficult time the leadership of a small party which thought with him and 536 faced the ranks of the Coalition in its brightest days when it was led by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) at the height of his fame and reputation. He performed those duties, as I have said, with courage, with good humour, and with a tact and sense which gained for him, even if he had not had it already, the respect of the whole House, friend and foe alike.
He was very proud of this House, and I remember how often he would say to me on fitting occasions, "This shows the House of Commons at its best," and he always looked for the best from the House. He had infinite faith in it—a faith that it is exercising a wise and common judgment on great affairs. I always think that when these great Parliamentary figures are taken from us one does not look back so much on the externals of the man, his position, his influence, his gifts of debate, the cut and thrust, in this House, or his oratory, but in these first few quiet hours after they have gone we look under the surface at the soul of the men we knew, and that is what remains with us. In Donald Maclean, I see a soul as clean as the West wind which blows over Tiree where he was born. I see a courage, a love of justice; I see a soul that could not be deflected from the straight course, and I see in it that deep affection for his friends which he always manifested. The memory of such a man will abide with us who knew him as long as our days shall last. The House has indeed lost in him a cherished son, the State has lost a wise and loyal counsellor, and many of us have lost a dear friend, and I am certain that the sympathy of the whole House goes out in this moment of their sorrow to his widow and his children.
§ 3.30 p.m.
§ Mr. LANSBURYIt is not possible for me to enter into any personal statement, because I only knew Donald Maclean as a Member of the House and in a public capacity. I met him first when he was Deputy-Chairman of this House, and those of us who met him during that period always experienced a courtesy, a consideration, and a kindness which we remember just now. Someone said the other day, I think it was the Attorney-General, that it would be a good thing if we said the best of one another while 537 we were alive. I find it extremely difficult this afternoon to do more than say that we who sit here join with the rest of the Members of the House in putting on record our appreciation of the personal worth of Donald Maclean, and our feeling that in whatever he did he acted according to the best that was in him. That is everything that can be expected of any man. We would also like to join, more than any of us can express, in sending our very deepest sympathy to his widow and family. It is a terrible bereavement that they are suffering, and we all hope that the fact that their grief is shared by so many and that he has passed out respected and loved by all who knew him, will be some consolation to them.
§ Sir PERCY HARRISIn the absence of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), the Father of the House, who I know would have liked to have been here but, unfortunately, he is away, my friends have asked me to say a few words, on behalf of the party with which Sir Donald Maclean was intimately associated for 30 years and for which he did such loyal and magnificent service. I had intended to say a few things about the history of his work in the House of Common's, but the Leader of the House, the Lord President of the Council, has so well expressed our thoughts and ideas about the man that I feel it hardly necessary to do so. We thank him for his splendid tribute. Liberals throughout the country feel that we have lost in him a great leader and a good friend, and we feel that in his friend and colleague we have found someone who understood him and who has so ably expressed his worth to the country and the House of Commons.
§ Mr. MAXTONI should like to say a few words to associate myself with the tributes already paid. In this small community of ours, numbering 615 people, when anyone vanishes who has been here it leaves a blank, it matters not who that one is, but when he has been so kindly and genial a figure as the late Member to whom we are paying these tributes, the loss is recognised by all. I can only say, as a man very much his junior, both in age and in years of service in this House, and poles asunder in political view, that I have met no one in this House who was so completely capable of 538 seeing the other man's point of view and regarding it with sympathetic understanding. For that, I am personally glad to pay a tribute to his memory and to associate myself very heartily with the expression of sympathy to his widow and family.