MR. CHAMBERLAIN STARTS WORK AT 7 a.m.

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 307, 29 December 1939, Page 2

MR. CHAMBERLAIN STARTS WORK AT 7 a.m.

L' K r President Roosevelt, Mr. Chamberlain can shut his mind to one subject while turning to another. Like the President again, he can concentrate upon fishing to the exclusion of all other matters, writes Robert P. Post in the New York Times.

Mr. Chamberlain's day starts about seven o’clock. First, he breakfasts and reads the papers, some of them very closely. This is succeeded by an hour or so with his private correspondence. Then comes a walk in St. James’s Park, sometimes with a colleague, but more often with Mrs. Chamberlain.

On his return he settles down to work. He uses the famous Cabinet room where most of Britain’s historic decisions have been taken. It is a light and airy room facing the Downing Street garden, and it is lined with books. A portrait of Sir Robert Walpole, Prime Minister from 1721 to 1742, looks down at the long table at which the Cabinet sits. The Prime Minister’s seat is in the middle of this table, as also is his working desk.

Unless it is Wednesday, when the Cabinet meets, Mr. Chamberlain’s morning is taken up with callers. The strictest sort of punctuality must be followed by those who wish to see the Prime Minister. His engagements run right to the time designated and one minute before an appointment his bell rings for a secretary to show the preceding caller out.

then blared forth with a Beethoven piano sonata. “Oh, it’s you,” said the proprietor, grinning. And he promptly switched back to Moscow. Then there was the unlucky fellow who fell asleep at an open window on the ground floor, with his radio playing. When he woke up it was giving a Russian programme and two Gestapo agents were listening outside the window. He went to a concentration camp.

There have been several fugitive stations inside Germany, moving from place to place in trucks, broadcasting short, violently anti-Nazi programmes, then hurrying away. One of them used an ordinary passenger car and toured Berlin for weeks until the police used detector vans to run it down. Three men in the car were arrested and disappeared. Straight news programmes are sent into Germany from England and from Strasbourg, across the Rhine in France, and there have been other propaganda efforts along the western front A privately financied group in England has leaflets printed which state the case for democracies—the sort of thing whose circulation would be permitted in a free country. These are dropped over Germany by planes flying at night from Belgium, Holland and Switzerland,

All papers necessary to any discussion are digested before it takes place and decisions are taken immediately. After the calls are finished or the Cabinet departs, Mr. Chamberlain has luncheon, usually with Mrs. Chamberlain or some member of his family. The Prime Minister may take a whisky and soda with his lunch or dinner, but little more. After luncheon, Mr. Chamberlain leaves for the House of Commons, a cigar, of which he is very fond, in his mouth. Perhaps the most trying time of hi s day comes during question time, for then he must answer not only the usual queries addressed to the Prime Minister but all important questions on foreign affairs as well. After question time, which lasts from two forty-five until about four o’clock, Mr. Chamberlain goes to his office in the Houses of Parliament. He remains there conferring with colleagues, Ambassadors, or other callers and studying reports and documents until dinner time. After dinner, he usually returns to the Commons and remains until it adjourns about eleven o’clock. On returning home he works until the day’s grist of reports and memoranda are cleared up. This may mean that he is at his desk until one o’clock in the morning. His week-ends are spent at Chequers, the country place of all British Prime Ministers. But even on holidays telegrams and red boxes follow Mr, Chamberlain.

Some of this truth begins to force itself into Germany, as in the case ot President Roosevelt’s message oi April 15 to Hitler and Mussolini, He said that the people of the United States are opposed to Nazi-Fascist conquest by force but not opposed to Germany and Italy gaining markets, raw materials, room to live—that we would help them to gain these things by peaceful means. That message was addressed primarily to the German and Italian people, literally forced through to them by means of the air waves. German and Italian newspapers ignored the message or gave garbled extracts. But it wa s broadcast into Germany and Italy from New York, from London, from Strasburg and elsewhere. Next day the German and Italian papers were ordered to publish its full text. If in the future Hitler finds himself involved in a war of blood and iron as well as words, his plans are well laid to defend himself from propaganda such as that which broke the German will in the last war. Experts predict that one of the first decrees will be the confiscation of all private receiving sets in the Reich. The people will be commanded to gather at stated times around publie loud-speakers to hear official propaganda, *