TOE AMAZING CHURCHILL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23489, 28 October 1939, Page 5 (Supplement)

TOE AMAZING CHURCHILL

A MID the harsh reverberations . i/a and clangour of war, the voice ■llXol Winston Churchill speaks 4tronf;ly, as First Lord of tho admiralty, of- Britain's will and strength. As a recent .American critic put it: "He is one of the few British gentleman who can talk a Wnguage that the Nazis readily understand. jj 0 j s once more a force, vigorous in action, masterful in speech, confident jn bearing, ai.ul loathed by tho leaders of Hitlerism. Tho enmity of the Hitlers anil Goerings and Goebbelses toward Winston Churchill is fierce, almost hysterical, and not- untinged with a certain fear. To them Mr. Chamberlain j 8 a cautious and gentlemanly old business man, rather easily put upon, and representative of the ."effete democracies." Conservatives like Sir John ginion and Sir Samuel Hoare can be "handled." But Winston Churchill is a deadly enemy, a menace, and a malignant threat. To them he is more dangerous than their other enemies among British statesmen Anthony Eden and Alfred Duff Cooper. Prophetic Warnings " And what a strange turn of it has been that this extraordinary man should have been, .swept back into the maelstrom of activity as Britain lights her second' Avar with Germany in a generation! And that ho should again be First Lord of the Admiralty, the post lie was occupying when the last wsr broke out! He l ins - come back becauso he has heen right about Nazi Germany. At least three years before the British Government and tho Conservative party became convinced that the Nazi movement was incurably aggressive, and that it would load to world turmoil. Churchill was uttering gloomy prophetic warnings of crises to come. It was he, • who, like a modern Cassandra", foretold threatening disaster, and led the agitation for increased armaments'. 'His prescience has been' amazing, and in articles which appeared in The Herald before the outbreak of hostilities he prophesied what was to happen with Almost uncanny accuracy. Whau sort of man is this? How has he been able to surmount obstacle after obstacle, and survive some of the most spectacular failures of modern times. How can a man who was once thrown out of .public life by his electors, and had to seek three constituencies before he cduld find one to-send him back to the House of Commons, have swept back into leadership? Tlie reason is thivt Winston Churchill is a freak of the British aristocracy. In some ways he is a throwback to his brilliant and famous ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough. brilliant, adventurous, clear-thinking, audacious, and,

abovo all, extraordinarily energetic. Ho is positively eccentric in his versatility. Ho can write a scholarly treatise on history or tell the story of tho Great War in jwngont, lucid phrases; or ho can dash off a quick and frothy article for a Sunday tabloid newspaper. Ho can hold the House of Commons spellbound by his reasoning or his jovial wit, and lie can make an election speech full of line-sounding catch phrases that mean nothing in particular. He is ostentatious in his dress —his famous collection .of hats has becomo tho traditional butt of humorists. He is at 65 years enormously interested in food and drink, and likes his bottle of champagne for dinner. Ho smokes largo cigars and enjoys having his photograph taken, lie has a genius for publicity, and once proved it by joining a bricklayers' union after he had built his own garden wall. His career has been one of ceaseless and varied activity. Bottom of liis class at HarroWj he began life as a professional soldier. There was a distinctly

"He Talks the La Nazi Leader RIGHT MAN FOR DIFFICULT JOB

By NEVILLE SMITH

society touch to his soldiering, however, for ho pulled social strings to bo sent to tlie most exciting places—first with the Spaniards 'in Cuba, then with the British in Malakand, Tirah. and Egypt, where ho was present at the Battlo of Khartoum. In the South African War his soldiering began to give way to journalism, for at the ago ot 25 years lie was already an experienced military critic. He soon became a centre of political controversy by reason of his uncompromising way of telling the Government how to win the war. He was captured by tho Boers, but broke prison and travelled 300 miles through hostile country to tho British lines. He entered the Houso of Commons in 1906 as a Liberal, but party ties have never meant very much to him, and lie has several times changed his allegiance. When he was twice rejected as a Conservative in 1924, ho invented his own particular designation, and got back for the Epping seat as a "Constitutionalist."

For years ho was cold-shouldered by tho Conservatives in office, but as an independent critic he took revenge in plenty. There were times when ho baited Mr. Stanley Baldwin mercilessly, but he has treated Mr. Chamberlain with much more consideration, realising, no doubt, the different nature of tho problems faced by the two Prime Ministers. As the Nazi menace became more and more pronounced in world affairs, tho agitation for the recall of Mr. Churchill to the Cabinet began outside the House of Commons. It was felt that he was tho best man to deal with the Nazi type of politician, and it was oven hoped after Munich that his Btrength of purpose would succeed in staving off war. Whether that would have been the case is now, of courso, open to question, as history will probably reveal that tho Nazis intended to have war in any case, that being tho logical conclusion to their policy. Boyish Energy And so wo have the Winston Churchill of to-day. His once-famous rod hair has now faded, and much of it has disappeared. He is inclined to corpulence. He lisps slightly, and even stammers when he is speaking in public. But he lias lost none of his boyish energy. His mind is ceaselessly active, and no speaks and thinks with a terso lucidity which gets results more effectively than less-ordered brains. His confident and incisive reports to the House of Commons on the activities of tho Boy a I Navy have an inspiring ring that is perhaps lacking in the more cautious and careful statements of Mr. Chamberlain. And it is clear that at present the Royal Navy is doing a magnificient job. Whatever may be tho faults and criticisms of tho past, there is no question now that Winston Lionel Spencer Churchill is the right man in tlio right job.