He has trained himself to become a statesman as men and women train themselves to become painters and musicians.

He has learnt the rules of the game, marked the way of failure and the road to success, and his career may be pondered as an example to the young.

No generous outburst of wrath disfigures Mr.MacDonald's speeches, no rash utterance is ever to be apologised for, no hasty impulse to be regretted.

In the Labour movement Mr.MacDonald won success over older men by an indefatigable industry, a marked aptitude for politics, and by an obvious prosperity.

Other things being equal, it is inevitable that in politics, as in commerce, the needy, impecunious man will be rejected in favour of the man with an assured balance at the bank, and the man of regular habits preferred before a gifted but uncertain genius.