Evening star., 1938-12-24
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EnrH i THE STORY OLA
~ WORLD DICTATOR

of the Liberal party: but in those
days very little was left of the
Liberal party except rising hopes;
many of them were already middle
aged and they had shown very
clearly that an addition to their
numbers would be unwelcome. He
was an imperious rather than a
patient wooer and so he had trans
ferred his protfer of leadership
almost convnlsively to the Commun-
ist wing of the labor party.
Reception Inadequate.
Here again his recpetion was in
| adequate; the Labor party did not
seem to realize in the least what
an accession this splendid and bril-
liant young aristocrat would be to
its all too pedestrian front, and
While he was still reluctantly real
lzlng this poverty of the leftist i'm
aglnatlon, the successes of Musso-
llni and the Nazis gave a new turn
to his ambitions. He became the
scdulous student and ape of the
Italian and German adventures,
not realizing that there was GER
tam incongruity between their
methods and formulae and the pc
culiar large scepticism of the Anglo
Saxon tradition, with its lamen-
table disposition toward facetious-
ness on serious occasions.
What WAS moro Y,at,Iro1 tI,o,, fo,
the rejected romantic leader of the
Reds to invert himself in another
swift transformation, become an
antl-Red, and stretch out his strong
right arm to protect the rich old
ladies of the land from the Red
Horror? They responded to his
heroic gesture with copiouS sub
scriptions and profuse press support.
Lord Thunderclap and all the Daily
Clarion group of newspapers hailed
him with enthusiasm. He was
speedily in a position to provide
headquarters, highly decorative
purple shirts, brown belts and a
sense of purpose to a perceptible
following of unemployed young men.
So far as the police would let him
and at first they let him quite lot
II only on account of his rank-he
organized a series of demonstrations
againstS the Reds. and he induced
the Jews to advertise him by CAM
paign of annoyance and menace
against these far too responsive, ex-
preSslve people.
So it was Lord Horatio after his
abortive explorations of the alter
native avenues to the left of life,
made his definitive entrance upon
the political scene from the right.
No further transformation was pos
slble for him, for there was nothing
more for him to copy. He was now
past the first blush and beauty of
youth and he found himself in a
bright limelight of expectation. For
a time-indeed until the dynastic
trouble about the Duke of Windsor
in 1887 superseded him-the first
question the travelling Enghshman
was asked was. What is this new
man, Lord Bohun, going to do?'
Salu Same OF Hitler.
To which the more intelligent
Englishman said, HE isn't much of
man and he isn't going to do
anything"
But that's what they said of
Hitler"
But Hitler was a national growth
and Bohun isn't even a growth. /" 3" ="
What the less intelligent English
man said about him varied and
anyhow it does not matter now.
There he was upon the British
scene in nimbus of expectation.
He took large halls and addressed
meetings at which he regurgitated
the masticated leading articles of
the opposition press and more par
ticularly those of the Daily Clarion.
He never made an original remark,
he never coined phrase of his own,
not even by accident. He organized
professions, which had a diminish
ingly irritating effect, in Jewish
districts. Nothing ever ensued from
the meetings and professions except
dribble of police court proceedings
that died away. Then he would
pass out of the headlines for a space
and then again would come another
great and entirely vacuous meeting
and another temporary obstruction
in the streets.
Slowly, incredulously, the world
realized that Lord Horatio was doing
nothing and did not know how to
do anything. But he kept up his
movement with all the dignity of
Tristram Shandy's bull
The nimbler years slipped by.
and even his loyalest adherents
were forced to realize the progress
sive ravages of middle age upon his
former fatluous elan. His pogroms
such as they were, lost pep. The
Daily Clarion ceased to feature him.
1t did not SO much turn against
him as fade away from him. 1t
looked as though he and his Popular
Socialists were going to sit down
and fade out altogether.
Source of Grave Discomfort.
This sessile disposition on the
part of their leader was source
of grave discomfort to many of the
youngsters who had got into belts
and purple shirts and broken their
adolescent voice shouting 1--WE want
Bo-oo-un" in those so much more
promising early days. More and
more he had to rely on the sub
sidized element in his following.
More and more did the growing
tension of the super armament Pc
riod emphasize his essential un-
reality, his amateurism.
At one or two of his recent meet
ings unidentified and disregarded
voices had cried out: Get on with
it,"
The world situation darkened.
The sense of impending catastrophe
increased All over the world it
was felt that the now-or-never mo-
ment was approaching. There was
sort of paralysis of grim eXpecta-
ton. In 1910 the chief employment
of human leisure was anti-aircraft fl