A HEAVY GAMBLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 17, 21 January 1939, Page 7

A HEAVY GAMBLE.

CHAMBERLAIN'S JOB. BIG MAN IN U.S. EYES. BUT EDEN MAT BE RIGHT. (By JOSEPH ALSOP and ROBERT KINTNER.) WASHINGTON. Neville Chamberlain's visit* to Hitler were the first great surprises of the European crisis, yet the Prime Minister of England's sudden impulse to converse with the dictator of the- Reich had its precedent in Chamberlain's own story. Oddly enough, the precedent 13 one which shows how new Chamberlain is at his job. Some time ago, when he was still Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chamberlain got the rather naive notion that, if a representative of the English Government could only talk to Hitler as a friend, all Europe's troubles might be straightened out. The then British Ambassador at Berlin had no access to the Fuehrer, and Chamberlain pressed his point until the Berlin post was given to Sir Nevile Henderson. Henderson's orders were quite specific —"Get to know the Fuehrer." Unfortunately, not even his Britannic Majesty's Ambassador could penetrate the Oriental seclusion in which Hitler lives, surrounded by armed guards and nervous sycophants. Henderson was no more successful than his predecessor. Xo doubt, however, Chamberlain's old notion came back to hini with renewed force during the great crisis. In the crisis' first stages, the English Government not only had no friends at Hitler's court; it was even found to be impossible to transmit messages to the Fuehrer. Von Ribbcntrop, the vain and frivolous champagne salesman whom Hitler keeps as his Ambassador in London. was personally convinced that England would not ilglit, and refused to permit any contradictory prediction, even from the British Cabinet, to reach his master. Moreover, Hitler had sent his confidential agent, Captain Wiedemann, who was his superior officer in the war, to London to spy out the ground. Having seen none but the most pro-Gernian English politicians, Wiedemann had confirmed von Ribbentrop's report. Thus th* Chamberlain visits to Berchtesgaden and Godesberg, which did so much to shape world history, became a positive necessity. One Actor Miscast. The most moving speech of recent history was Neville Chamberlain's address to the Empire. Recent history's most stirring moment was that in the House of Commons, when the Prime Minister ended a speech announcing war with a promise of peace. Yet the central actor in these great events seemed curiously miscast. One did not expect an elderly English business man to play the tragic hero's role so aptly. His gates-ajar aspect and the outlino of his story are sufficiently familiar. How h© was chosen to be the business inon of old Joe Chamberlain's dynasty; how he followed his brother, Austen, into politics after an interval of decades; how he earned the respect of the Conservative party, and rose in it until he bccame Baldwin's obvious successor —these are known matters. He must have been a pretty cold fish from the start. When brother Austen made one of his early speeches at the huge Albert Hall, brother Neville's only comment wad: "It didn't surprise me that you should look so small. What did surprise me was that such a little man "ould make so such noise." A Man to Respect. A cold fish he still is, if the one or two men here who know him, are to be trusted. On such great occasions as his Empire address, he is capable of a deep emotion, but, most of the rest of the time, he thinks in terms of pounds, shillings and pence. Even his pacifism, which is larger and truer to-day, really began as the pacifism of an English business man, who knows that the City of London needs peace to draw its profits from the world. ~ And even now he is a less attractive figure than Anthony Eden, who would not congratulate him after the great speech in the Commons, who may yet prove to have been right. When Chamberlain discarded Eden and offered friendship to Mussolini last winter, he was gambling heavily. Hitler's march into Austria permitted him to win his bet, by frightening the Italian dictator into the Anglo-Italian Pact. Now again, Chamberlain is gambling heavily, preferring an extension of Hitler's power to the devastation of London and all the other fearful consequences of war. He may yet ldse. Nevertheless, he has grown immensely as a statesman since he stepped into Baldwin's place. He will never be the sort of fellow about whom people tell affectionate stories —so far as is. known, the only locally available fragment of personalia is that he had a passion for "Gone With the Wind." But from the chilly Tory of his first incarnation, he lias already become a man whom you must respect, however you differ from him. —(N.A.N.A.)