WINSTON CHURCHILL

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 October 1939, Page 10

WINSTON CHURCHILL

A GLIMPSE AT HIS CAREER. As the Nazi Reich moved boldly from conquest to conquest and the tolerance of the British Government toward aggression at last came to an end, the figure of Winston Churchill loomed ever larger in British politics until, on the outbreak of war, he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Mr. Churchill is among the modern Cassandras who have been justified by events. At least three years before the British Government came to believe that the Nazi regime was essentially if not incurably aggressive, Mr. Churchill kept disturbing the optimistic tranquility of Parliament and public by delivering solemn warnings of crises to come. Since the more complacent Conservatives, who had the upper hand, would not credit such warnings when they came in the form of coldblooded news despatches from Berlin, why should they believe them when they emanated from the mouth of Mr. Churchill, a kind of “mugwump” Conservative who had on occasion bolted the party and once ; set up his son as a candidate against the party machine? Churchill, they said, was always a bit wild and should not be taken too seriously. But history has proved him right. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that many Britons wanted Mr. Churchill in the Cabinet mainly because Hitler did not want him there. He is one of the few British gentlemen who can talk a language that the Nazis can readily understand.

He has always believed (hat Nazi Germany is a menace to humanity. He never shared the widespread Tory view that Hitlerism was merely a

crude and rough form of Conservatism—that is. essentially sound in spite of occasional brutalities, and anyhow much better (han Communism. Mr. Churchill can write a scholarly book on his ancestor, (he Duke of Marlborough, full of maps of battles and careful studies of strategy; or he can dash off a quick and frothy article- for a Sunday tabloid paper. He can hold the House -of Commons spellbound with a masterly speech on foreign policy or a maliciously jovial attack in witty and ironical phrases upon a Conservative Minister, or he can make a. ringing stump speech that sounds well but will not bear close analysis. It is considered a bit eccentric for an English gentleman of 65 to be eagerly interested in food and drink, for English gentlemen of that ago are often on. an anti-gout diet, and the English generally seem to regard food as a necessary evil to be borne with fortitude-. Mr. Churchill likes a. bottle of champagne at dinner, particularly if he is to make a. speech afterwards: he smokes large cigars; and for amusement and diversion he builds his own garden walls.

Mr. Churchill has been in the House of Commons, except for two years, ever since 1900. He has belonged to the Liberal Party and the Conservative. Tie has held nine Cabinet posts, all the important ones except that of Pi ime Minister. Some suspect In? still ihas hopes of holding that one. I'OO ECCENTIiJ C." Of course the Conservative Central Oilice from which Great Britain is governed regards him as too eccentric! and enthusiastic and trenchant, of, f-l'i-ocl! and positive of mind ever to! be Prime .Minister. Yet Air. Churchill belongs by right of birth to what is -iiJl occasional!’.' called • 1 ■■■ ccvc"u- ■■■■■ 1.'.:.. •. e iv r v t

1930 when he wrote a charming and exciting book called “My Early Life.” He then quite frankly revealed his keen consciousness of being a Cliurcbill, a descendant of the Duke of Marlborough, a. member of “one of the few hundred great families who had governed England for so many generations and had seen her rise to the pinnacle of her glory”—a Churchillian phrase. Some consider him a bit arrogant, and none can. excel his contemptuous manner when he chooses to crush an opponent that way. Whether arrogant or not, Mr. Churchill did not in the least hesitate to capitalise that inestimable asset called “family”—an almost indispensable asset in a country still essentially feudal in social structure and tradition. He worked his ancestors for all they were worth when he set about the business of getting on in the world. He flourished the family tree in Whitehall and India and Africa. He enlisted the aid of his mother who pulled all the wires available —wires reaching to the highest places —when he was yearning for a commission in Kitchener’s army in order to get in on the fighting then abort t to begin in the Sudan. He got in on the fighting and he got on in the world. He had the incomparable advantages of both “family” and native ability. The first is rather more highly esteemed than the second in the ruling circles in England. Indeed Churchill's- abilities were, and still are, looked upon with a certain dubiousness. For intellectual brightness is distrusted in England, being somehow associated with lack of sincerity; while strenuous energy is often considered rather bad taste. Mr. Churchill’s once famous 1 red hair is now faded and much of it has disappeared. He inclines to corpulence. He lisps and even stammers a bit in addressing the House or a public audience. Yet his mind remains insatiably and boyishly active, and lie speaks and writes with a terseness of phrase and a lucidity of though which charm the lover of effective English. He first pushed his way into prominence as a gay warrier in India and the Sudan, and as partly warrior, partly war correspondent, partily critical politician in South Africa. In his youth he acquired a passion for war, which he then thought an amusing game; he was not content until his government had permitted him to. get into the fighting which the British Army was doing on the edges of the Empire in India and Africa. As an officer in the Twenty-First Lancers he engaged in the Battle of Omdurman.

The Empire soon provided still more amusement in South Africa, where Mr. Churchill went as a war correspondent (being, now at the age of 25, an experienced soldier and military critic). He was soon telling the Government in no uncertain terms Irow to win the war and became a centre of political controversy. That was fun, too, but not so much fun as escaping from a. Boer prison and travelling 300 miles through hostile territory and telling about it afterward in his despatches. It was even more fun for Churchill (then First Lord of the Admiralty) to move the fleet from Portsmouth to the North Sea one foggy night in 1914 without, the Germans’ knowledge, so that the fleet was at its war station a. week before war be-

It has always been assumed in England that if war came Churchill would surely be. called to a Cabinet post, even if Chamberlain remained. The call has come; and Air. Churchill has stopped writing books and newspaper articles to take charge of the navy. He will finish his career, as he began it, by faking part in a. war; this time not a gentlemanly war fought on horseback and for the fun of it, on the rim of the Empire, but a grimly mechanics war of end bombs fougbi to .-■,;vo he.-;-*; o! the Empire. Horn M vacation.