CHURCHILL’S DAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 April 1942, Page 4

CHURCHILL’S DAY

HOUSE OF COMMONS SPEECH SCENE DESCRIBED. A CHANGE IN ATMOSPHERE. Can it really be a crisis for Mr Churchill? wrote Barbara Ellis Browne in the “Christian Science Monitor” on February 2. The benches are by no means full. It is nearly luncheon time and the general atmosphere of the House is like that of a Chinese theatre, with its curtain already up, and stagehands and actors wandering aimlessly about.

Can it be that this is the vital debate for which the whole Englishspeaking world is waiting ... a debate in which a quiet sentence might, at any moment, burst like a dynamo into headline type? A rather dull speech is in progress. Members arc coming in quietly with a little bow to the speaker, and then up the broad, red-carpeted space to make a living background upon the tiered benches.

But suddenly the atmosphere is changed. The door on the- right-hand gallery opens and Mrs Churchill enters. She is very white and striking, wearing Black with a -blue fox stole. She leans forward and looks down to see if the Prime Minister is in his place.

Everyone is listening now. There is no real feeling of division in the atmosphere. It is as though the Nation’s assessment of the situation is borne up in the House. Mi’ Churchill is one of the few who foresaw this war and said so, whereas many of his opponents today were among those who did not foresee and who refused to prepare against it. The public choice rests upon the man whose judgment was sound.

And here he is! He talks quietly, with that strength behind each word which comes from its having been chosen because it represents his honest conviction.

He speaks, he says, of two things: United States troops now in Britain and what their coming means, and the question of two ships, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse.

He is encouraged by the first, and straight-spoken about the second. When, in beginning, he speaks of Britain as though it were to him the only country in the world today and in times like these, where Government could be exposed to such test, one can almost feel that having survived it, democracy here will have one growing pain the less. Surely it is almost come “of age.” But it’s the closing words before the vote of confidence that stir you, not with any fluttering emotion—for Mr Churchill isn’t like that—but with a sort of satisfied conviction that is so much more. They might well be adopted as a motto of democracy: “Let every man act according to his heart and conscience.” »

And then that famous head, which was all the eye could see of him, is gone and the House pours down from the benches and forms a column moving towards the door on the “Government” side of the House for a vote. A few abstainers resolutely cling to their seats. Major Randolph Churchill, in uniform, comes down from where he was sitting near Mrs Churchill’s gallery and speaks to his father. Together they follow the crowd for a few moments—it moves very slowly—and as they come opposite Mrs Churchill, the Prime Minister makes a little gesture to her with his hand, which she returns quietly. Two people talk to him. They all sit down on a near-by bench. Long-haired, dark-skinned Mr James Maxton, Independent Labour member from Glasgow, is talking to a couple of people now. He alone, the woman behind me says, will go out the Opposition door. The crowd is getting thinner at the Government door. Hurry up, Mr Maxton, or you’ll be too late to register your opposition. At last he goes, lingering as long as possible to speak to a man at a desk by the door. Then it is proclaimed that the doors are closed. A few moments later four men advance and bow to the Speaker and announce that the votes are 464 of confidence in Government, to one against it. As I go. down the corridors, the bobbies are hobnobbing together here and thei ' e - • -X,,, T “01’ Jimmie Maxton again was it? 1 hear them say to each other behind their hands. And they laugh. Another day in Parliament has passed. And so a great day is over.