MR CHURCHILL'S DEFEAT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3147, 11 December 1922, Page 7

MR CHURCHILL'S DEFEAT.

An offset to the loss sustained by Labor in the rejection of Mr Arthur Henderson and'Mr Havelock Wilson ;s the crushing defeat that bitter enemy and critic of Labor (Mr Winston Churchill) has met with. Mr E. 1). Morel, the able anti-militarist writer, and one of Mr Churchill’s most trenciiant critics, who contested the same scat (Dundee), though failing to capture*Jt, handsomely beat Mr Churchill, it is probable that Dundee is but a reflex of the nation’s aversion to military adventurers. The article published in the Oamarn Mail on Saturday last, entitled “Painful and Humiliating Memory,” by Sir Philip Gibbs, provides interesting reading regarding Near Eastern questions and Mr Churchill’s part therein". The writer refers to this scion of the House of* Marlborough as ‘‘the biggest gambler in world polities to-day.” “Ever since the armistice with Germany in 1918 this man Churchill,” says Sir Philip.

“whoso undoubted brilliance and audacity put a spell on Lloyd George and Ill's, colleagues, lias played with high stakes for the Eastern Empire. ignoring all cautious advice, contemptuous of his country’s burden of debts and taxation, fascinated by Oriental visions, lie adventured wildly into Mesopotamia and I’alestinc, challenged French interests in Syria, stirred np unrest in the Mohammedan world, used Greece as a trump card against the Turks. His responsibility is enormous; he ought not to escape the frightful consequences.” These remarks of the brilliant journalist recall a passage in Sir Seymour Fortcsque’s hook of reminisccnscs, “Looking Backward. ” wherein it is related that Lon.' Randolph Churchill (the father ol Winston) told Sir Seymour that “he had tried most things in the shape of excitement. Big game shooting was exciting; cngincerig a successful coup; on the turf was enthralling; but he found nothing in the world half so engrossing as the daily intrigues and jiianreuvres that formed the meat and drink of the politician.” Intrigues and nianuocuvres arc apparently a family trait of the,. Churchills.