CHURCHILL'S REALISM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 48, 26 February 1942, Page 6

CHURCHILL'S REALISM

When a war leader speaks in terms of false optimism, he is charged—and correctly—-with deceiving the people. When he speaks in terms of realism, he is liable to be charged—incorrectly—with depressing the people. People who are willing to look facts in the face will find no depression in Mr. Churchill's latest speech—no depression, no moaning—unless they themselves impart it by a process of mistaken inference. Mr. Churchill offered "plain, brutal facts"; how his readers react to those facts depends mainly on themselves. It is their own fault if they expect him to "dilate on hopes that might soon be falsified." That he will not do. At the same time, he has not gone to the . other extreme, by "painting tlie picture in its darkest view

. . .' spreading despondency . . . encouraging the enemy." From the point of view of realism, his speech is a well-balanced performance, exaggerating neither light nor shade. But it is a strong dose that can be absorbed only by a strong people. In the third year of the kst war people were able to lake the following dose administered by Mr. Churchill when he resigned from the Asquith Government:

We are passing through a bad time now, and it will probably be worse before it is better, but that it will be better if only we endure and persevere I have no doubt whatever.

If tlie people of the Empire wereiable to accept a bad time—:as the approach to a better time —in the third year of the last war, surely they can do so in the third year of ibis war. Mr. Churchill's analysis of the facts of tlie Far East campaigns was intended to reveal "plain, brutal facts" to a people whose national record does not suggest that they are too cowardly to face the truth. Without passing judgment, he left on the local and regional commands the onus of explaining failure. The local and regional commands would have a grievance against the British Government if the Far East forces had heen under-supplied or unduly interfered with by orders from London. But Mr. Churchill quotes the nine convoys sent to Singapore as prima facie evidence that the British Government did the best possible in the mailer of supply. In the mailer of interference from London, no such charge has been made, so there is no charge to answer, but the Prime Minister's statement on the working

of the higher machinery of the war contains -some pertinent information:

While I take constitutional responsibility for everything that is done or not.done, and am quite ready to take the blame when things go wrong—as they very often do, and as they are very likely to do in the future in many ways—l do not, of course, conduct this war from day to day myself.

After describing the rather complicated higher machinery, Mr. Churchill informed the House of Commons that no fundamental changes w^ill be made in it "so long as I retain the confidence of the House and the country." His argument is that the system gives the regional commands freedom of action without removing the responsibility of the Prime Minister, and he gives this assurance: / -

However tempting it might be in days to come, when much trouble lies ahead, to step aside lightly and put someone else to take the blows, heavy and repeated blows, which are coming, I do not intend to adopt that cowardly course, but, on the contrary, to stand at my post and persevere in accordance with my duty as I see it.

Persons who shrink from the prospect of blows and more blows may fail to appreciate tlie self-reliance which finds expression in this sentence. But most people will surely interpret it in its proper spirit, will take their courage in both hands, and will go forward.