The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-24

RAMSAY. MACDONALD
 British labor leader, who is playing a large part in influencing English opinion on the war.
 
 House of Commons, nor had he the ad- vantage of birth or Of more than in- different education All that he knows he has taught himself; all that he is he has learned to be. He is, in fact, the exact type of Scot that has gained such marked success in British poltics--a man with but one ambition-power- and prepared, for the sake of it. to scorn delights and live laborous days
 The son of a poor Scots farmer at Lossiemouth, he was taken out Of school early to work in the fields, and might have wasted himself in this way had 1t not been for his teacher in the board school who, recognizins. the boys calibre, arranged with his parents to take him back at half fees on the understanding that he should help with the teaching This lasted for a couple of years. after which young Macdonald had shot at private secretarial work l in Bristol, where he was anxious also to try for some scholarships but this | experiment did not turn out success fully. so he went back home again. | lie was far from being dscoura ged however, and soon decided to become a pilgrim to the Mecca of the poor but ambitious Scot-London.
 Here he arrived without knowing a soul and went through weeks of mis- cry before he finally found a job AL most in despair. after no end of letter writing and fruitless interviewing of possible employers, the youngster ac- tually had begun to inquire how omni- bus conductors were appointed, when, just as his last assets were doing the disappearing trick and his landlady was threatening to evict him. he got letter from a firm in the city to whom he had made application for an advertised post asking him to call. Call he did with the result that he got job at making out invoices in an un- derEround cellar. his screw" as they say here, being the regal one of S3.75 per week. He kept this job for F months at the end of this time being promoted to a pound, or SD per week
 The famous labor leader says that he though more, at the time, Of getting that 15 shillings a week job than he subsequently, did of getting into the l House of Commons. And meanwhile he lived, as one might say, in the house of short commons.
 That year was a great triumph for mo. he said to the present writer, flor l not only lived on 15 shillings | week and clothed and fed my self put l also paid certain college fees at the Birkpeck, the Highbury institute, and the City of London college, but I saved enough money to go home for a holiday in the north of Scotland How did l do it? Well, I solved the prob lem of how to live on sixpence or sey- enpence (12 or 15 eents) day. I often bought my food myself in the street markets in the neighborhood of Kings e ha al nal, It,x. tea and coffee were beyond me, but l soon found that hot water was every plt as good as tea as a food, and 1t is quite as palatable when you get used to it."
 His office hours in this year were rom In the morning until at night, put this did not constitute his work ing day. by a jugful, for he got up at o'clock in order to read and through attending classes, seldom got to bed be- fore l1:3O 'T was greatly interested in science and economies" said he, "and bent on satisfying my intellectual cu- riosity
 q considered Macdonald added
 that that year gave me sufficient ex- perehce to last me my lifetime-expe- renee Of unemployment, experience of the industrial conditions under which Engiish clerks have got to work. and what one can do on personal thrift if one has the constitution of a horse and Is young. There is no use in talking to me about personal endeavor and all that sort of thing, for I know it for myself l succeeded in getting through
 nanny because l brought great in- neritance of vitality from the open air life l had lived in Scotland
 Ihat experience, With my predis- positlons, brought me actively into the labor movement My first success in this was at an open air meeting in Re- gent park, one Sunday afternoon I remember quite well that it was the irst sunday after l saw John Burns and R. B. Cunninghame Graham in the uoch at BOW street. That was the tlfSt tune l ever had seen Burns 1,ba heseht park meeting was the first at which l ever had spoken and I sun- pose It was a success as I was asked 10 speak again the following Sunday mat began my work for the socialists movement in London. It was a oueer insignificant movement then, doing ,ios. or US work in the open air or III pokey little halls. During the fol- lowing years l did a lot of work and began being invited into the provinces to speak,"
 Most of this happened before Ram. say Macdonald was 21, in which vear hSoI irI ne became private secretary to Thomas Lough, M. P, one of tbo od | as DE tea merchant has just been protesting vigorously in the House or commons against the government,s pan on the export of the constituents of the cup that cheers. Meanwhile Mac donald had taught himself to write and begun to contribute to the sociaIistic press and also became a member of tbe famous Fabian society, which then numbered Shaw. Wells, Sidney Wehh and many other political and other lit- erary lights among its numbers ana or the Independent labor party and nefore long was elected to the execu- tive committees of both these bodies And all the time he stored his mind with the kind of knowledge likely to be valuable to him.
 Today his study in his chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields is lined with books rom floor to ceiling Prominent among them are works on modern the ology,, economies and history and po- htlcal philosophy and there Is one large section set apart for blue books and of ricial publications, among which is a complete set of the historical manu- script commission. of which he is a close student His windows, by The