SEA AND POLITICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 261, 4 November 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

SEA AND POLITICS.

A NAVAL RADICAL, ; LTVXI.Y;., REMINISCBNCES. • ' (By> CYRANO.); That the soldier is a failure in politics is a commonplace. When we say this, however, we mean the politics of democracy. Caesar was a genius in dictatorship, and so was Napoleon. In our own time Kemal Pasha, the . creator of modern Turkey, whose name has been prominent again in the news this week, is a great figure. The soldier does not fit easily into the system of party government. Wellington was much more successful as a statesman than many people realise, hut a large part of his success was gained away from party politics. It was as a diplomatist handling the affairs of Europe that he was most impressive off the battlefield. Grant was the ablest soldier on the Northern side in the civil war, but a failure as President. Hindenburg surprised,the world by his ability, as head of a State, but it was as a constitutional ruler. Ludendorff, his right-Band man, and by general consent a fine if riot a great soldider, plunged into active politics and made a fool of himself. Foch kept clear of ordinary politics, but his political ideas about the peace settlement were not on a par with his military genius.

In British; politics professional soldiers and sailors' rarely, if ever, become national figures in the political sense. Indeed they rarely reach Cabinet rank. Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy mentions in the book before me*, that the present First Lord, Sir Bolton Eyres Mbnsell, is the first naval officer to hold this post for generations. The Service mind is too rigid, too set in its ways to work easily with a medium that demands so much give and take.

The Old Navy. Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy, who as a sort of Fat Boy wishing to make our political flesh creep, is well known to those who follow British affairs, is an exception. He must, I think, have, been born a Radical. At any rate, he was for a time that unusual thing, a Liberal ex-Service member, until he became that rarity, an ex-Service Labour member. A man of remarkably physical energy and fertility of ideas, he would have made a name for himself in any walk of life, and perhaps he would have gone further in politics had he been less aggressive and egotistical. In Lis restless energy, his assurance and variety of his interests, there is a touch of the one and only Winston. Since, however, Lieut.-Com-mander Kenworthy is ' still under 50, much may happen. He has already 'been mentioned for the position of-Viceroy of India and no doubt, like Winston, he also sees himself as a possible Prime Minister. In the meantime his reminiscences are a lively piquant record of a full life— the story of a man who has lived with great zest, has, seen much of the world,, near the centre of world-shak-ing events. As a young naval officer Lieutenant-Commander Kenworthy saw

the last days of the old "spit-and'-polish" school, and. of the old discomfort and poor food. ' It is remarkable that as late as- the, first years of this century there were ships in which the allowance of practice ammunition was dropped overboard. Gunnery was .despised, and it took all the energy of Percy Scott and "Jacky" Fisher to raise it to its proper place. Conditions on shipboard have greatly improved since those days, and one surmises that conduct has improved with them. When the war came the author was in command of a destroyer in home waters. He had ideas of his own about naval methods, and he was not deterred by etiquette from expressing them.. Called to the staff afc the Admiralty, he ranged himself on the side of the "forward" school, which thought that our naval strategy was too timid. Plans were prepared for operations on a big scale in the Baltic, but the proposal was dropped, to the deep disappointment of the author and others. One result of this, he says, was ■to dishearten the Russians; indeed he calls our failure to support Russia in the Baltic, a betrayal. Ho recounts in detail the fatal blunder at the Admiralty on the night of Jutland. The position of the German fleet was worked out by the wonderfully efficient intelligence service at the Admiralty, but the information was not passed on to Jellicoe, with the result that he placed himself in the wrong spot to intercept the enemy next day.

Post-War Politics. After the war the story seems to accelerate in speed.; Lieutenant-Com-mander Kenworthy was elected as a Liberal in a by-election shortly after the general election of 1918, and set himself up as a critic of the peace settlement and the Government's Irish policy. The pictures he gives of that Parliament — composed largely, according to Mr. Keynes, of hard-faced men who looked as if they had done well out of the war —is riot pleasant, and unfortunately it is supported by much other evidence. There were many who wanted a crushing peace. Extravagance was rife. A party in the Government wished to make full war on Russia.. As it was, Krassin, when he was Soviet Minister in London, told the author that but for the intervention of the Allies in backing the "White" armies in Russia, the Bolshevik regime would have fallen in six months. It enabled the Bolshevik rulers to rally the peasants to their cause.

No Sportsmen. Details given of the excesses of the "Black and Tans" in Ireland will surprise and shock many readers. It is in this connection that Lieutenant-Com-mander Kenworthy tells his best story. It is paralleled by . a passage in- that classic of'interpretation of the English— M. -Andre Manrois, "The Silence ofColonel Bramble." The mess to which Aurelle is attached as interpreter is discussing, sport .and war, and the Germans. "We never imagined," said the major, "that such cads existed. Bombing open towns is nearly as unpardonable as fishing for trout with a worm, or shooting a fox." "You must not exaggerate, Parker," said the colonel calmly. "They are not. as bad as that yet." LieutenantCdmihander Kenworthy could not arouse the indignation of the young sporting Conservatives of the Commons by'talcs

of "Black and Tan" outrages against persons, but'when "lie told them that" aparty of these police troops had bombed all the pools in a length of salmon river rented by him, they were enraged. "What! Do you mean to say they bombed that salmon river? I have never heard of anything so disgraceful." Liberal to Labour. 'From Liberalism the commander turned to Labour. When he went to Mr. Lloyd George, his titular chief, to acquaint him of his decision, he suggested that the great man should do the same, but Mr. Lloyd George said that, while his heart was with the working classes, he must die as he had lived—a Liberal. "As for you, Kenworthy, you are quite right. If I were your age I would do the same."

The story is taken up to the financial crisis of 1931, and the National Government election that almost annihilated the Labour party. The author was one of the many who lost their scats in what he regarded as a "stunt" appeal to the country. He is naturally concerned about the leadership of the party. Mr. Mac Donald will never lead it again, and the light the author throws on this secretive and sensitive man is interesting. Mr. Mac Donald, he says — and this is the opinion of others—finds much in the society of his former opponents to satisfy him. He craves a certain cultural sympathy, which, ho can find more easily in Conservative and Liberal circles than among his own party. The old leaders chose,. Mr. A. V. Alexander as a future leader, but Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy doubts if this industrious, well-meaning and affable man is big enough for the post. The Left, he says, needs a man with divine fire and a first-class brain, and no one with these gifts is in sight.

♦"Sailors. Statesmen — and Others," an autobiography, by Licut.-Commnnder the Hon. J. M. Kenworthy, B.N. (Rich and Cowan).