Earl Baldwin.

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 83, 5 October 1938, Page 13

Earl Baldwin.

lieve there was another man in this country who could have brought about or could have done what he did Avhen he got into those discussions in Germany. It is an action for which his country owes him much."

Mr. Baldwin went on to attack the fallacy of the doctine of inevitable war. "War was never inevitable. .He described how last Wednesday he sat in the gallery of the House of Commons next to Lord Halifax while Mr. Chamberlain was making his speech. "I do not believe there was any thought by anyone present." he said, "but that war was inevitable. My mind went back to that day in August, 1914. and I have never forgotten. Sir Edward Grey's face—the face of a man who looked as if he had been through hell—and I thought the skies were completely black. The prayers of the nations had been ascending night and day not only in this country, but in other countries, and no answer had come. In the middle of the speech Lord Halifax was handed a telegram and he showed it to me. It was the answer, the expected answer, to Mr. Chamberlain's appeal. It was just as if the finger of God had drawn a rainbow once more across the sky and ratified again His Covenant with the children of men.

"The children of all nations," Earl Baldwin concluded, "have their part to play now in these fleeting hours that are before us. May the rulers of all nations be guided with understanding and with knowledge."

these events and it had required great personal courage to act, in that way, Mr. Chamberlain had made a stand for democracy. , . ' Dr. Burgin went on to refute the argument that greater firmness would have prevented war and mentioned that evidence in the possession of the Government pointed to the fact that a decision to invade Czechoslovakia was taken on September 34 and there was no evidence to show that Herr Hitler would have refrained because of a threat of the use of force against him.