“HONEST AND BRAVE”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21979, 25 March 1946, Page 4

“HONEST AND BRAVE”

CHAMBERLAIN PRAISED

STRAIGHT TALK TO CRITICS

The late Sir Nevilc Henderson, formerly British Ambassador in Berlin. made it quite clear when war broke out (hat he was in favour of Mr. Neville Chamberlain’s pre-war policy. In his book, “Water Under the Bridges,” which records his diplomatic reminiscences, written from his bedroom when he knew that he had only a few short months to live, he makes it clear by writing:— “The fact of the matter was that Mr. Chamberlain was courageous enough to attempt, at the eleventh hour, ... to grasp the nettle which everybody else had been too scared to touch with their finger tips. The policy of treating Hitler as a joke, and abusing the Nazis, and treating them as outcasts, and at the same time of sitting still and doing nothing had proved a dismal failure.

“Mr. Chamberlain felt that something had to be tried to save civilisation from slipping ever the abyss. He realised the fact which the anti-appeas-ers Seemed unable to do, that there

was somehing rotten in the state of France, and that little reliance could be placed upon her alleged strength and vitality. “British rearmament in 1937 was largely in the shadow category. He consequently endeavoured to use conciliation to pursuade the Nazis to abandon their resolve to use force and to sit round a table with a view to negotiating. ITe may have been lacking in personal charm, but he was an honest and brave man. “By an unjust world he has been labelled and maligned as the archappeaser in the false significance which has alwa3 r s been given to that word. That is the way of a world which is always ready to worship the destroyers, such as Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon, but finds little time to pay tribute to its saviours and peacemakers.

“Personally, I honour him for _ his courage and disregard of public criticism and because I still believe that the experiment of negotiating with Germany had to be tried, that we would never have entered the war as a united Empire in 1938 as we did in 1939. and that it was by the mercy of Providence that we were not plunged into war in 1938. . . ."