MR. CHURCHILL'S POSITION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21029, 13 November 1931, Page 8

MR. CHURCHILL'S POSITION.

Always an interesting, frequently a challenging, figure in public life, Mr. Winston Churchill has indicated that he will take up an independent position regarding the National Government in Britain, or at least toward its three associated leaders. Though he had not withdrawn from it, he had become something of a free lance in the Conservavative Party before the election. Differing sharply from its leader, and disagreeing with its policy toward India, he had been replaced as its official spokesman on finance by Mr. Neville Chamberlain. It was natural, therefore, that he should not be considered for oflice, and that Mr. Chamberlain should bo allotted the one post to which Mr. Churchill would naturally aspire, that of Chancellor of the Exchequer. In consequence, he now appears in the role, partly inherited and partly acquired, of an insurgent inside a Government. His father. Lord Randolph Churchill, played the same part many years before, and the son has not always been amenable, to party discipline in his own career. He has broken away from the trammels again. In the speech defining his position there were allusions to two topics of interest in the light of his previous career —free trade and Socialism. Mr. Churchill left the Conservatives on account of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's tariff reform policy and gained Cabinet rank in a Liberal Government. After the war he left the Liberals because he was not satisfied with the force of their resistance to Socialism, and gained Cabinet rank in a Conservative Government. Now he proclaims his independence of the Conservatives and Liberals associated in a National Government, but there is no prospect of Cabinet rank anywhere. He could scarcely be accepted by, or serve under. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. despite the tribute paid to him as an effective opponent of Socialism. At the moment his future seems obscure. It has appeared in worse eclipse before, but he has reappeared in due seasonThe strongest probability is that so long as he retains his powers unimpaired. Mr. Winston Churchill will not become a nonentity.