Evening star., 1932-01-03
Britain's New Foreign Pilot


Lawyers did not gee what could be
done, and they were even more per-
picked when 1t became known that Sir
John Simon had been brfefed. Simon?
For years now he had been the man for
big financial and commercial and tax
cases.
Calm, expressionless, the tall. slim
lawyer walked around to the Old Bailey
on the day Of the trial The court
gasped when he stated that he had no
intention Of putting his client In the
box
With his faint, chill smile he de-
clared that there had been a quarrel
which resolved itself into question OF
one mans life or the others, and the
crown must disprove his theory of a
Stand-up fight and Staying in self
defense before the trial could 20 FUR
ther. He submitted that the crown had
failed. The officer was exonerated and
restored to the service Of the King.
Opposes Irish Policy.
After the war came the coercion
phase in ireland. A Parliament packed,
as a result Of the celebrated 1918 elec-
ton, won on slogans of Hang the
Kaiser" and Make the Germans Pay"
with hard-faced men who had done
well out of the war, approved the poll
icy. From outside Simon denounced 1t.
He tried to rally religious opinion
against the Black and Tans' and re-
prisals.
The Tories cursed him, but this phase
Of war politics faded out. So did the
plethora of hard-faced parliamenta-
rians. The coalition collapsed. In 1922
Macdonald was restored to Parliament
and so was Simon.
But Simon, the Liberal, was not blood
brother to Lloyd George, his titular
leader. The watching world became
aware Of strains and stresses.
The general strike came. Lloyd
George did not jump into the national
fight against it, and carefully refrained
from doing anything to ALLEVIATE Labor,
in which he glimpsed his political allies
of the future. Simon, on the other
Labor, and his pronouncement of the
movement as illegal was turning point
in the conflict.
For quite while after that he kept
outside party politics and parliamentary
affairs, A complete investigation OF
the situation in India and the question
of what was to be done about that vast
subcontinent in the matter of its rela-
tions with imperial Britain had to be
undertaken, and a detached man was
required to head royal commission
composed OF parliamentarians chosen
by the respective leaders of the Con-
servative, Liberal and Labor parties.
Simon was the unanimous choice for
chairman, and after he and his COM
mission had made two comprehensive
tours OF India in successive years the
mass of evidence they collected was re-
duced to the two big volumes of the
report which bears Simon's name. It
Is recognized as one of the most mas
terly documents of its kind ever pro-
duced. 1t Is Simon's magnum opus.
Conducted R-1o1 Probe.
1t had not long been published be-
fore the giant British airship, the
R-101, crashed in flames on the low
hillside outside Beauvais. The British
air minister and the chief Of the air
staff were among the victims. The
Inquiry looked like being political high
explosive.
The government cast around for
man whose name would inspire conf
dence to handle the inquiry. They
found the man in Simon.
These two services-which in hard
financial terms meant q sacrifice of
anything from half a million TO a mil
peerage, If he wanted one, and political
preferment when the time was ripe.
The India report especially threw a
smoke cloud over whatever remained Of
his marrying of the wartime govern
ment on the conscription issue.
A good many people had thought
that Simon's long absence from his
practice would mean that lot Of the
work that used to come to him would
be stolen by professional rivals and
would not return to the Simon cham
bers. They were mistaken. Briefs
flooded in and Simon had to raise his
fees beyond their already dizzy level to
reduce the food to the capacity of
single brain.
1t also became apparent that in the
period he had been detached from poll
tics his antagonism to what might be
called Lloyd Georgism had been grow
ing stronger and that these two were
nearing a showdown. Lloyd George,
looking for an issue and pending the
emergence of one playing adroit politics
to keep himself in good strategic posi-
tlon, had put Labor in Office twice, The
cold, poised lawyer, who before the war
had been considered rather on the ex-
treme radical side, did not like this
move the first time and protested the
second time. The split between him
and his Welsh chief widened.
At last Simon took the Jump. He
declared that the case for ending the
Socialist government was clear. 1t had
become for Liberals an issue of the ma
tional interest versus a shifty policy of
party expediency. He (Simon) was
through.
Rallies Liberal Band.
He rallied his little band of dissident
Liberals to Macdonald, keeping them
distinct from the larger band which
finally deserted Lloyd George en- bloc
and rallied around Sir Herbert Samuel,
The Simon band was and is separated
from the Samuelites on the question of
tariffs.
The Manchurian business has been
SmonS first task. Lawyer-like, he saw
me complications and deliberately
avoided coming to grips. When he read
out a long statement in Parliament on
MS return from the League Council
meeting in Paris he avoided the dam
gerous spots so adroitly that a. member
got up and inquired sympathetically If
ne at least couldn't tell them what the
var was about, exactly. He could tell.
out did not. He Is not the sort of man
whose fire can be drawn until he Ia
-eady and the big game crosses his
lights.