Evening Post FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1940. A CAREER OF HONOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 83, 4 October 1940, Page 6

Evening Post FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1940. A CAREER OF HONOUR

One of the most criticised men of the hectic period 1938-40, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, former Prime Minister, has just resigned from the War Cabinet, under the combined pressure of age and indifferent health. Criticised, because not understood. The pre-

war year 1938 was a period in which a Prime Minister of Britain was certain to be condemned for not fighting for Czechs and Poles, and equally certain to be condemned if he did fight. Except by those who understood, Mr. Chamberlain was criticised for weakness at Munich, when the real weakness was the military weakness of France and of Britain. If France could collapse so easily after Mr. Chamberlain at Munich had won a full year's respite in which to arm, what must have been the result if the British Prime Minister, instead of going to Munich, had sent Hitler an ultimatum? To play "the strong man," when the national forces are weak, is to sacrifice the national cause for a mere personal pose; but to offer an appeasement policy, on account of which the unthinking are certain to concentrate their wrath upon its author, is to be both a strong man and a patriot. Even if the peace sought by Britain at Munich were a hopeless gamble, the re-arming opportunity secured by postponement of the crisis was tangible, certain, and vital. Democracy, far from being "Muniched into impotence" by Mr. Chamberlain, was given time to strengthen its right arm; and if France had gone too far along the road of defeatism to profit sufficiently by the time gained by the muchabused appeasement policy, that disaster at any rate cannot be attributed to Mr. Chamberlain. Another Chamberlain victory, achieved through that rare virtue self-efface-ment, was his retirement from the Prime Ministership and his facilitating of Mr. Churchill's advent not only to that post but to the post of Leader of the Conservative Party. I Mr. Chamberlain resigned, took office under his successor, and declared in the House of Commons that if he (Mr. Chamberlain) resigned the leadership of the Conservative Party, only Mr. Churchill would have a chance of being elected to it. And that is confirmed in today's messages,, which regard as "a foregone conclusion" the Conservative Party's election of Mr. Churchill as Leader. Mr. Chamberlain's retirement is therefore far from being a passive, personal event; it is, indeed, the lever |in a constructive happening of vast i importance, whereby the old and reluctant Conservative Party seems to be about to receive a Churchillian complexion and to enter upon a new era. Looking forward, the British Ministerial and party changes open a challenging field for speculation. Looking backward, we see a career devoted to patriotism, and not to self, ending in honourable retirement and certainly not in eclipse.

In a sentence addressed to his former chief and recent colleague, Mr. Churchill fairly sums up Mr. Chamberlain's career: "You did all you could for peace; you did all you could for victory." Peace, never really possible, at least bought the essential postponement. To Mr. Churchill's tribute—which includes the submission that history may find j Mr. Chamberlain's loyalty to the Churchill Cabinet to be "the turning point of the war"—there is little to J add, but it will be noted that the "Montreal Star" subscribes to the essential postponement value of Munich when it hails Mr. Chamberlain as "the man who really saved Britain and the Empire since his policy really gave Britain time to prepare." Space and time forbid dealing in detail with the important Cabinet changes. Those British observers who hold that "the Churchill Government in all its virile parts is Left Centre' 5 will hail the promotion of Mr. Bevin and Mr. Morrison. Airraid precautions now come under the latter, whose work as leader of the London County Council will have brought him very close to the people of the bombarded metropolis and to their shelter problems. Mr. Bevin now goes right into the War Cabinet, and so does Sir Kingsley Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer and one of the former Government's pillars. The Cabinet changes generally denote efficiency, also recognition of business ability, without ignoring party balance. The Germans, of course, dissent, but the Americans note that a rearranged Cabinet is not a sign iof democratic disunion, but represents a strengthening war effort, a better morale, and the complete failure of the German air-murder campaign to break down the public nerve.