The Press WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1942. British Cabinet Changes

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23804, 25 November 1942, Page 2

The Press WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1942. British Cabinet Changes

The British Cabinet changes, and particularly Sir Stafford Cripps’s departure from the War Cabinet, seem to have surprised and puzzled the press and the public. The general significance of Sir Stafford Cripps’s change of office is plain; he goes from policy-making to administration. Mr Churchill correctly anticipates that this will be regarded as “ stepping down in the political “ hierarchy,” but adds that “ the pro- “ posal is conceived solely to meet “ a most serious war need.” Mr Churchill will not find it easy to convince the British public that the Minister of Aircraft Production is for the time being a more important person than the Government’s leader in the House of Commons. If a crisis has arisen in aircraft production, this is the first the public has heard of it; official statements have suggested that aircraft production is now one of the most satisfactory departments of the British war effort. In any case, it is difficult to believe that Sir Stafford Cripps is the man to cope with a crisis in aircraft production, since his capacities and experience are scarcely those of an executive. The most plausible explanation of Sir Stafford Cripps’s departure from the War Cabinet is that, with Indian policy and colonial policy in the political foreground, he finds it hard to agree with his colleagues in the War Cabinet and still harder to speak for them in the House of Commons. In the last two debates on India in the House of Commons his attitude has suggested that he is unhappy over the course of events in India and unhappy over the War Cabinet’s India policy as enunciated by Mr Churchill and Mr Amery. As “The Times” points out, what is particularly disturbing about the change is that “ Sir Stafford Cripps, in joining the War "Cabinet, brought a certain assur- “ ance to a large body of opinion “that in the highest councils there “would be ample consideration of “ forward views in shaping the “policy of both war and peace.” Though the selection of Mr Herbert Morrison to succeed Sir Stafford Cripps preserves the political balance in the War Cabinet, it does not compensate for the loss of a vigorous personality. The other change, the substitution of Mr Oliver Stanley for Lord Cranborne at the Colonial Office, is optimistically hailed in some quarters as meaning that the importance of the Colonial Office is at last being recognised. The only justification for this point of view is that Mr Stanley will give his full time to the job, whereas Lord Cranborne was in addition the Government’s leader in the House of Lords. Apart from that, the change has little meaning. Mr Stanley is one of those useful politicians who will fill almost any Ministerial post competently and none with distinction. Colonial policy needs new ideas and a new vigour; it will get neither from Mr Stanley,