POLITICAL SCALP-HUNTING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 301, 27 September 1940, Page 4

POLITICAL SCALP-HUNTING.

There is a broad distinction which we may Well keep in mind between the historical judgment which will come some day and contemporary recriminations in"the heat, of battle, writes Mr ,T. A. Spender in comment on political scalp-hunting in Britain by those wise after the event. When the time comes for history to judge, not one party but nil parties, not one country, but many countries, the event not of one year, but of many years, will come under scrutiny. If there is anything that can he predicted with certainty it is that the historical judgment will differ widely from contemporary partisan conclusions. Explanations which could not be made at the time will be forthcoming, and will justify some things that were misunderstood by contemporaries. Those are not excuses for contemporary shortcomings, hut they aie warnings against the hasty sacrifice of men of proved ability and long experience to an angry or ill-formed opinion of the moment. We cannot afford those sacrifices in war-time. When vendettas sot in, the stock of human material is too soon exhausted. The cry foi vendettas is, in fact, one of the subtlest forms of “defeatism.”