Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1940. WELL-EARNED RESPITE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 265, 7 October 1940, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1940. WELL-EARNED RESPITE.

The motive which has characterised the whole of Mr Chamberlain’s service to tlie nation animated his decision, for reasons of health, to retire from the Cabinet and possibly bring his political career to a conclusion. “In the national interest” —because he is to such an unhappy degree physically unfit- —he asked Mr Churchill to release him from his responsibilities. With precisely the same objective he served the Empire for twenty years, and it was with the end of. best serving the country that early this year lie resigned the Premiership. This third notable Chamberlain, he lias perhaps been the greatest of the three—certainly he became Prime Minister while neither his father, the famous Joseph Chamberlain, nor his half-brother, Sir Austen Chamberlain, attained that dignity. “I am a man of peace,” he reaffirmed when the crisis loomed upon the horizon, and that spirit directed his administration of national policy. Whatever present-day opinions may be upon an issue that at the time was excruciatingly acute, history will record the desperate efforts of Mr Chamberlain to negotiate a peaceful settlement of pressing problems. Not forgetful of the horrors of warfare, he strove to the utmost to keep the peace, but when Hitler launched the attack Mr Chamberlain turned in the sharpest terms upon the German Fuehrer. “We are resolved that these methods must come to an end,” he declared in his momentous speech in the House of Commons on September 1, 1939, affirming that Britain’s primary objective was the overthrow of Nazism. And when he realised that the nation required the leadership of Mr Churchill, “the man of war,” he did not hesitate to implement the necessary change. Mr Chamberlain started his political life late. At 21 he went to the Bahamas for six years to manage a hemp plantation with notable success. He then returned to engage in industry in Birmingham, where, indeed, he entered public life, ultimately becoming Lord Mayor. It was in this manner he gained a profound knowledge of the housing question which he was subsequently to apply. Ills first acquaintance with politics was in I9IS, when he became Conservative member for the Ladywood Division of Birmingham,. and so diligent did he prove that he became, succes sively, Postmaster-General and Minister of Health. 'The Housing Acts of 1923 will always be associated with the name of' Chamberlain, and so keen was his interest that, though lie was given the Chancellorship in 1923, he returned to the Ministry of Health to continue his housing work. He reached the pinnacle when, on May 28, 1937. after Mr Baldwin’s resignation, he became Prime

Minister. Moulding Lis foreign policy along the lines of appeasing the German and Italian dictators, he made great sacrifices in an endeavour to disperse the elements of latent war, liquidating the sanctions policy against Italy, dismissing Mr Eden, maintaining British neutrality in the Spanish War, acquiescing in the unexation of Austria, and negotiating the Munich Agreement. These policies to-day still strongly divide opinion, but the single purpose of Mr Chamberlain and his devotion to things of peace command the highest respect. He lias “put down his pack” with the regard of the whole Empire.