The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, OCTOBER, 5, 1940. MR. CHAMBERLAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 237, 5 October 1940, Page 8

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER, 5, 1940. MR. CHAMBERLAIN.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that reeds resistance, For the future in Ihe distance, And the Qood that we can do.

"My Rood friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downinsc Street peace with honour. ... I believe it is peace for our time. . . — Mr. Chamberlain. September 30, 1938.

"This is a sad day for all of us. and to none is it sadder than to me. Everything that I have worked for, everything that I have honed for, everything: that I have believed in during my public life, has crashed into ruins." —Mr. Chamberlain, September 3. 1939.

Few of our generation will ever forget the occasions on which Mr. Chamberlain spoke these words. On the first he was home from Munich, and after receiving the congratulations of his Sovereign he was addressing a joyous, adoring crowd. On the second, in the House of Commons atj noon on a Sunday, "a man pale with j toil and grief," he was announcing that Britain was at war with Germany. Barely eleven months separated tho two occasions. He, who had once acknowledged his dread and abhorrence of the possibility that as Prime Minister he might one day have to lead the nation into a war, had had to do it. Yet, as was recognised at the time .and will ever be recognised, he was the best man to lead the nation into war once the decision became inevitable. It could never be said that under his leadership the British Government "wanted war." Indeed, the bitterest criticism of Mr. Chamberla s i has been based on the belief that under him Britain sacrificed too much for the sake of peace. The controversy over this and kindred questions is not likely to be resolved in our time. Wherever the truth may lie, the fact remains that at a critical moment in Europe's history he did throw the whole of Britain's weight into the scales of peace, and that great multitudes of people, and not only in Britain, thanked God that he had done so. Moreover, when Hitler's duplicity became crystal clear to all, and the next and fatal crisis approached, Mr. Chamberlain left no shadow of doubt that the next Nazi aggression would mean war. If Hitler was capable of being convinced, he could have had no doubt that when he struck against Poland he launched a major war. Thus Mr. Chamberlain's own record enabled Britain, when compelled to take up arms, to do so with a clear conscience before tho world.

But, as in the war of 1914-18, it has been proved that qualities which serve to make a leader in peace time are not necessarily adequate in war time. It was not the failure in Norway, but the manner of it, and the manner in which Mr. Chamberlain defended it, that led to his downfall. As usual, he made a good case, and even gained a technical victory at the division, but the House and the country had no doubt that if the Norway campaign Represented the Government's best effort a change of Government was essential. How great a difference that change has wrought needs no emphasis. It is a change not only in men and in methods but in spirit, appreciable and appreciated afar, but most. of . all in the United Kingdom itself. But as we read of the British people's ordeal to-day, and as Mr. Chamberlain's political career virtually ends, it is just to remember that it was from such an ordeal that he strove to save them, and did for a time succeed in sparing them. Nor is it inappropriate to mention, against the fact that under his war leadership the military and civil effort of the nation was in important respects inadequate, that it was in his peace-time regime that Hurricanes and Spitfires were produced and there was begun a huge naval building programme of which we shall soon and increasingly see the fruits.