MACDONALD (J. Ramsay, 1866-1937, Prime Minister)

Fine Long Typed Letter Signed with autograph corrections as Prime Minister to T. Ll. Humberstone B. Sc. regretting “that a Cabinet Meeting will prevent my attending your Conference at Wembley... I have been looking forward to this meeting with great pleasure, as I wished to try and say something to impress upon the public the necessity of treating political questions in a scientific spirit, and not merely in a short-vision, partisan frame of mind. Until we regard administration and legislation in precisely the same manner as a scientific worker approaches his work in a laboratory, we shall never be able to get results of a permanent character, nor shall we secure respect for our public institutions. I was hoping that one of the results of the war would have been to have eliminated from the House of Commons the ‘methods of the dog fight’. Unfortunately, there are far too many signs that that hope is not to be fulfilled. The matter ultimately rests with the public, which ought to scan with scrupulous vigilance proceedings in Parliament, not merely in relation to this topic or that, but to the spirit of national concern which its debates show. If our social organisation is still so very rudimentary that the public are open to the exploitation of any interest that is placed for the moment in a position of economic advantage, it is mainly owing to the fact that scientific methods have hardly yet been applied to Society itself. I hope that as a result of your Conference a beginning will be made in the scientific consideration of the of the problems which confront Parliament, and if that happens the promoters of this Conference will have great cause to congratulate themselves on what they have done...”, 2 sides 4to., 10 Downing Street, blindstamp headed paper, 28th May

At the 1923 election, the Conservatives had lost their majority, and when they lost a vote of confidence in the House in January 1924, King George V called on MacDonald to form a minority Labour government, with the tacit support of the Liberals under Asquith from the corner benches. On 22nd January 1924, he took office as the first Labour Prime Minister, the first from a working-class background and one of the very few without a university education.

Item Date:  1924

Stock No:  41817      £325

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