Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1942. CHURCHILL AND SOME CRITICS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 February 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1942. CHURCHILL AND SOME CRITICS.

■ —-9 - T)EMANDS now being’ made in. Britain for reorganisation of the War Cabinet and for related changes may or may not prove to be .justified. It is in any case noteworthy and a iMtter for satisfaction that nearly all the critics of the British Government are of one mind in'affirming that there can be no thought of attempting to replace Air Winston Churchill, as leader of the nation in this time of stress and peril. Exceptions to this rule are not likely to disturb or weaken the overwhelming weight of opinion which upholds Air Churchill in his leadership. Some of the more extreme criticisms of that leadership are indeed, of such a kind that they definitely answer and defeat themselves. Yesterday, for instance, the secretary of the London Trade Council, Mr AVillis, was quoted as saying, in an address to delegates at the end of last week, that: — We must break loose from the stupefying magic of Mr Churchill’s oratory. Fine words don’t win battles. Whenever we suffer a reverse we are treated to a superb example of mastery of the English language. The nation is being drugged by highsounding phrases. This is worth quoting, not on account of its point or merit, but because it departs so obviously and extravagantly from realities. It admittedly is true that Air Churchill, is a master of expression, but few men as gifted in that way have ever been, less open than the British Prime Minister to the charge of using stupefying oratory or of attempting to substitute fine words for the winning of battles. Tn his somewhat infrequent broadcasts to the Empire and the world, which will rank, doubtless, among the outstanding orations of history, Air Churchill has been of all things grimly realistic. These addresses owe their force and weight, primarily to their relentless and logical presentation of the naked truth. The broadcast reported yesterday, in which Air Churchill announced the fall of Singapore and dealt with the war situation as it stands, was in this commanding respect and others strictly in keeping ■with what has gone before. Extenuating nothing in regard to the disasters that have meantime befallen us in the Pacific, he claimed only that it would never have been in Britain’s power, while fighting Germany and Italy in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, to defend the Pacific and the Far East single-handed. With that presumably incontestable fact accepted, it remains only to add. that the American colossus, whom we now have as our principal ally in the Pacific, is only beginning to stir and has not yet had time to bring a tithe of his power and energy to bear against the common enemy. It. may or may not be true that m his war leadership Air Churchill is taking too much upon his own shoulders and is allowing himself, as some of his critics allege, to be preoccupied unduly with detail. There is always the danger of a strong leader falling into this error, but account has to be taken also of the opposite danger of allowing authority to be divided, with paralysing effect. The British Prime Alinister in any case is no spell-binding and stupefying orator, but a leader grimly intent on ■winning the war, warning the British people that they must expect hard adventures for many months, severe losses and many reverses and anxieties, and calling upon them for implacable resolution am] unsparing effort as their contribution to the mobilisation of Allied strength that will bring ultimate victory. There was an answer to much that critics have had to say in Air Churchill’s claim that of the resources available to Britain, “not a ship, not an aeroplane, not a tank, not an antitank gun or anti-aircraft gun has stood idle. Everything we have has been deployed either against the enemy or awaiting his attack.” Certainly, too, there was neither any raising of false hopes nor weakening of purpose in the British Prime Minister’s ’concluding exhortation: “Let ns move forward steadfastly together, into the storm and through the storm.