Mr. MacDonald had indeed a dual personality which did him some harm with his own Party. Part get him was Liberal and the other rt Sociali: He had a firm friend in the late John Morley who resigned his Cabinet office, and Ramsay Mac-Donald resigned the chairmanship of his Party, vehemently denouncing the Government for having blundered into the war. Nonetheless he wrote to the Mayor of Leicester in support of recruiting; It was the young men's task, he argued, to retrieve the error of their elders.
Defeated at Leicester in 1918. it was four years before he could again find a seat. But the Parliament of November, 1922, contained a Labour Party in which the Clyde men were dominant, Dissatisfied with e chairmanship of Mr. Clynes, they chose Mr. MacDonald for leader.
The reinforced Party now became the official Opposition, and in 1923, the Government were out and for the first time in the history of English politics, Labour was in office with Mr, MacDonald as Prime Minister. But it was office without power and his leadership was not based on loyalty. His brief Premiership bristled with trials and misunder-andings.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.