CHURCHILL’S LECTURE ON DUTY

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31109, 12 July 1966, Page 7

CHURCHILL’S LECTURE ON DUTY

Attempt To Check Beaverbrook

JN June, 1927, Beaverbrook chartered a yacht for three - months and asked Churchill and his wife whether they would like to come for a voyage in it. He said he did not mind where they went —south, north, west, or east.

Churchill replied that he could not get away in June or July but he could manage the last part of August. He suggested, with bubbling good humour, a trip to Holland:—

“What is the matter with Holland? The Dutch are a respectable people. I have never seen them in their homes amid their dykes and dams. Their coast-line appears to be furnished with harbours affording secure and handy refuges from the turbulence of the sea. Moreover, they can be got at in a single night of open sea from Harwich. Altogether since you ask me, I pronounce for Holland Ja! Ja! as Motley said in his admirable history of these Batavians.”

But the trip was not taken. Early in August Beaverbrook's mother, who was then in England, died. On August 7. 1927, Churchill wrote:— “I am grieved to learn of the death of your mother and offer you my deep sympathy. It must have been a great pleasure in your life to have had her to watch your successes and to be able by your own exertions to make the path of life smooth for her. Eightyfour is a venerable age, and no-one would wish to live for ever. “Nevertheless, as I know well, the death of one’s mother breakslinks with the past that can never be revived, and without which the world is different I thought you would not mind my writing these few lines, for I know you will be in the shadows. “Do not, I beg you, hesitate to put us off for the 18th if you would rather be alone. In fact I shall assume that you will do so. “With deep sympathy, “Believe me, “Yours ever, "W." A still heavier blow fell upon Beaverbrook in the winter of this same year when his wife died at the age of 42. No doubt Churchill wrote to him on this sad occasion,

too, but no record of this remains. In 1928, Beaverbrook planned a trip to Russia. But he thought he should ask Churchill’s opinion on this project. After all, Churchill was the noblest anti-Russian of them all, and there had been dissension between Churchill and Beaverbrook over Russia at the end of the war. Churchill replied:— “Of course, it wd ba frightfully interesting, even thrilling, to go to Russia: & I can sympathise with yr curiosity. It wd not make an irreparable breach in our friendship. But can you expect me, of all others, to recommend you to go? “You wd certainly find yrself in the following dilemma: Either you wd speak up for them on yr return, or you wd run them down. If you did the former, you wd probably (unless they have changed vy much) run counter to prevailing public opinion here. If the latter, they would think it rather shabby of you after having lavished, as they no doubt would, their most seductive caresses upon you. “Nearly everyone who

has had anything to do with the Bolsheviks, in every country, not least in Germany, has come off soiled or disillusioned or poorer. Still, you are a free man; I cannot conceive there would be any official embarrassment; & the spectacle of yr leading the Red Bruin back to the European Circus wd certainly be impressive. Lastly, as somebody said to somebody (& there are several versions) ‘lt would always have been an interesting experience.* ”

The General Election of May 30, 1929, turned the Tories out and Churchill lost his post of Chancellor. In July he set off on a visit to America, arranged by Beaverbrook and sponsored by the American newspaper proprietor William Randolph Hearst, and from the United States on July 20 he wrote quite frankly to his friend about the tiresomeness of British politics. Hew pleasant it was to be free of any responsibility for the nation’s affairs. One reason for Churchill's visit to America was to make some money. His ministerial salary had, of course, ceased and Beaverbrook guessed that he might need financing. He wrote offering a gift in November, 1929, but Churchill replied:— “I was deeply touched by the warm and faithful friend-

ship of your offer to me; and though it is not necessary for me to avail myself of it, I appreciate it and the spirit just as much.”

His acceptance would certainly have put him in an invidious position. Later, the German Intelligence Service alleged he was in Beaverbrook’s pay, but he never was —except in the sense that he wrote for the “Evening Standard” in the mid-1930’s and was, of course, paid for his articles. Both Churchill and Beaverbrook had cause for despondency at this time. Churchill, who had been an intimate colleague of Baldwin, parted company with him over Baldwin’s acqulesenoe on the Labour Government’s project to give self-government to India. Beaverbrook was unhappy over the progress made by the United Empire League which he had formed with Lord Rothermere. And he suffered several bouts of illness. He wrote to Churchill: “I have paratyphoid. When you left me I found that my temperature was very much up.” As a result of his recurrent illnesses, Beaverbrook suffered a depression. What were all his political strivings worth? Had his efforts really made the slightest difference to events? Did anything matter?

At this moment Churchill sent him a long and encouraging letter: — “I am sure you have no reason to be depressed about the result to yourself, or your policy, of the year that has passed since you launched it It has been a great year for you. Eighteen months ago few people would have quoted your name on any platform or discussed you as anything but a wealthy newspaper proprietor. "Now—to put it mildly there are very few Conservative gatherings where your name would not be received with as warm a measure of good will as that of any of the Conservative leaders. Noone that I know of has ever risen to the first rank in politics in so short a space. Naturally I regret that the growth of your influence should have been almost exactly proportionate to the diminution of mine. Still I am old enough to take a

philosophical view of these things. “But what I wanted to write to you about following on our talk was the inexorable duty which has come upon you to use your political power to help our island out of the rotten state into which it has now fallen. “When I think of the way in which we poured out blood and money to take Contalmaison or to hold Ypres, 1 cannot understand why it is we should now throw away our conquests and our inheritances with both hands, through sheer helplessness and pusillanimity. “In the disastrous year we have written ourselves down as a second naval Power, squandered our authority in Egypt, and brought India to a position when the miserable public take it as an open question Whether we Should not dear out of the country altogether. “Currently with all this, we have so reduced our reputation abroad and among our own Dominions that, as you said the other

night, They all think that we are down and out.’ “My ooly interest in politics is to see this position retrieved. I am sure it can be retrieved if you will help and be a friend, a guide, and an inspiration to the Conservative Party instead of a dancing master teaching with much severity a somewhat oldfashioned minuet “If you broaden your policy and make It represent a new and strong assertion of Britain’s right to live and right to reign with her Empire splendid and united, then you will not at all weaken the particular views which you have made so prominent but rather you would carry them along in the grow-

ing surge of a national revival. “Instead of ail crabbing each other, we ought to be all helping each other, passing the ball from one to another, everyone helping the other as much as he can. And of course we must gather the Liberals to us. I do not think there will ever be a Government in England capable of restoring the position which has not got behind it a real majority of the Nation. “However, this screed is only intended to cheer you up and must not degenerate intd a lecture.”

What precise course of action was Churchill urging on Beaverbrook?

Clearly he wanted Beaverbrook to apply his energies far more directly than in the past to the affairs of the Conservative Party. It is difficult to see how Beaverbrook could have done this without making a bid for some position of power within the party. In view of Beaverbrook’s growing distrust of Baldwin, the possibilities are intriguing. But Beaverbrook was not having any. He had built his business fortune on certainties, not on dubious speculations. He replied to Churchill: i “Unhappily I cannot follow the path you mark out for me. I am only interested in a single issue. If it is settled I give up my activities.” Whatever schemes had passed through Churchill’s mind iwhen he wrote his letter were

dashed by Beaverbrook’s reply, and from this time onwards the two men gradually grew apart in politics. They continued to meet, even to have fun together, and on certain public mattersthey saw eye to eye. But the old easy interchange of ideas died away; even the sympathie faded somewhat, and in the years leading up to the Second World War the two men almost lost interest in each other. (To be continued) This series Is adapted from the book "Churchill and Beaverbrook: A study in friendship and politics." Lord Beaverbrook's letters are copyright The Beaverbrook Foundation 1966

Sir Winston Churchill's letters are copyright C. and T Publications, Ltd., 1966

THE CHURCHILL BEAVERBROOK LETTERS