THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1909. MR WINSTON CHURCHILL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9543, 15 July 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1909. MR WINSTON CHURCHILL.

I One of the most interesting personal studies offered by contemporary political life is Mr Winston Churchill and he is interesting principally because he affords us an opportunity of observing youth, and the abounding energy and enthusiasm properly belonging to youth, exhibited on a large scale and in a conspicuous sphere of action. Important office is nowadays, in European countries at least, reserved more exclusively for men of mature age and wide experience than it used to be; and political life, whatever it may have gained in steadiness, has undoubtedly lost some of its freshness in the change. And politics and war are perhaps the only stages on which | youth can Jully exert its influence on the grand scile. Mr Churchill is cer- ' tainly not the most favourable example one could imagine, for in him the defects of youth and inexperience are unfortunately more conspicuous than the advantages. No member of the Imperial Government excites such strong feelings of hostility in the breasts of his political opponents, and a good many ot the rank and file even of his own pirty regard Him wjth feelings that may be ca'lied mixed. By tk? Coilafi'vtiHvee, whom he deserted, he is considered a renegade; by Imperialists his name is now being bracketed with those of the "little navy" minority; Parliament as a whole is beginning < to show signs of impatien:e under his audacious effrontery and self-suffici-ency; and the Cabinet itself must be feeling weary of the irresponsible escapades of its enfant terrible. The Prima Minister has on several occasions found it necessary to explain indiscreet statements made by his impulsive subordinate in public speeches, and the manner in which he did so might have abashed a modest or sensitive man. But it is doubtful if any language of Mr Asquith's will damp Mr Churchill's serene self-confidence in the least, or will guard him against repetitions of those "terminological inexactitudes" which have so pleased hH enemies and embarrassed his friends. The invective to which he has been treated by the Opposition press has probably merely flattered his sense of importance, for a man of his temperament likes to think he has hit his enemies on the raw. Even when a journal so accustomed to weigh its words as the "Spectator" sajs (hat "for brazen political im-

pudence. for flagrant paradox, for unblushing sophistry" a speech of his recently delivered at Birmingham would be hard to beat, he can at least allay the sting by reflecting that he is considered of sufficient consequence to merit a full-dress two-column attack.