INTERESTING BUDGET OF VIEWS AND DOINGS

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9076, 22 June 1915, Page 6

INTERESTING BUDGET OF VIEWS AND DOINGS

From Our Special Correspondent. LONDON, April 30. This week has been notable for_ a particularly bitter attack on Mr Winston Churchill. Since tho early days of tho war, and even before the war, ■ personal attacks on Mr Churchill were common enough. Latterly ho has been tho object of constant and veiled and vague criticisms in certain well-known London newspapers. But now at last the ‘‘Morning Post,” apparently supported to some extent by “The Times” and its satellite the “Daily Mail,” has come out into the open with ■ a “ >y grave and categorical charge - the First Lord of the Admiralty." The allegation made is that Mr Churchill, in his youthful impetuosity and arrogant cock-sureness, has overridden Lord Fisher and hoodwinked tho Cabinet. He is said to have forced naval operations on his own responsibility, against the bettor judgment of tho brilliant and experienced veteran, Lord Fisher, and to have deliberately allowed his Cabinet colleagues to believe that what were really his own decisions the approved policies of tho First Sea Lord and the Board of Admiralty. These are grave charges. If there is a word of truth in thorn, tho Admiralty, or any other responsible position under the Crown in this country, ought to bo made too hot to hold Mr Churchill for another second. Impeachment would be almost too good for him. And it is surely the business of Parliament, since these charges' so vitally affect the security and confidence of tho nation, no longer to ignore these innuendoes, which have now become grave and explicit charges, but to clear the matter up at once beyond a shadow of doubt for ever. No man draws breath between earth and sky in the world to-day bn whose shoulders rests a heavier weight of responsibility than Mr Churchill bears. The man who is responsible to Parliament and tho nation for the British Navy, in a war with Germany which is neither more or less than a fight for national existence, bears no light load on his mind and conscience. If anything went wrong with the British Navy at this moment, the cause of the Allies, would be as good: as lost, and the future of Europe would lie in the hollow of Prussia’s bloody hand. If tho man who bears, the brunt of. that responsibility is not fit for the high role to which Fate has called him, the nation should know it, and he should disappear. from the great stage of affairs as speedily as possible.’ But, on the other hand, nubile opinion through the House of Commons should insist on the Minister concerned being protected from the poisoned malice of calumny and chagrined self-interest. . . ' AN APPEAL TO REASON.

Personally, I sefuse, until the facts are (proved beyond dispute, to believe a word of these amazing allegations. In - tho first place, what high secrets of policy are known to any London Unionist journal that ore not also known to the Opposition leaders? And if Mr Bonar Law and -his colleagues aro aware of these facts, why have they remained silent so long? Moreover, having the advantage of some personal knowledge .of Lord Fisher, I should soy unhesitatingly that Mr Churchill has about as much chance of over-riding his judgment as a baby would have of hustling Jack Johnson off a -tramcar. The ; First Sea Lord is not built that way. He knows that the nation will hold him responsible for -the, high naval strategy of the war, and for the proper handling of the British fleets. And he is not the man to sit down meekly at Whitehall, and say, nothing, while an ex-cavalry subaltern in a frock boat plays ducks and drakes .with the Navy. The chief charge against Mr Churchill is that he rushed the fleet into the Dardanelles adventure against Lord Fisher’s advice, and before the military were ready to provide the indispensable cooperation on land. This seems e very unlikely tale. If Mr Churchill overruled Lord Fisher and hoodwinked his Cabinet colleagues in this matter, who over-ruled the French Admiralty and who hoodwinked the French Cabinet, both of whom have co-operated in the Dardanelles operations from the first? Moreover, there is the case of Antwerp, where according to the _ same very bitter critics Mr Churchill is supposed to have rushed in where, not only angels, but Lord Kitchener feared to tread. A more preposterous story was never put in circulation in sober editorial type. . Everybody who is tho least bit behind the scenes knows well enough, as was pointed out in this column weeks ago, that the Antwerp expedition, which Mr Asquith has,, parenthetically, stated to have been the decision of the whole Cabinet, was a sheer political necessity. But for that expedition, and the know.edge that it was coming, the Belgian army would, in all probability, not be fighting with the Allies in Flanders to-day, and Belgium; faint with hopeless heroism arid sickened with a futile martyrdom, might have come to terms with the Hun. One hesitates to anticipate any Ministerial statement on a matter which may yet come up for discussio'n in tho House of Commons. But I am assured on the authority of a member of the Cabinet that political considerations of a not wholly dissimilar character influenced the Allies in what is now being condemned as tho premature opening of naval operations in the Dardanelles before tho necessary military co-operation was available. This Minister was indignant at the attacks upon Mr Churchill and the inferential conclusion that would bo drawn from the “Morning Post” article that Ministers were ordering the strategy of this war without proper foresight, consideration or inquiry. Was it likely, he asked, that the Cabinet would lightly plunge into an affair of such magnitude as the forcing of the Dardanelles without first ascertaining the views of every person whoso views were entitled to ' respect and consideration ? The initial bombardment of the Dardanelles was, he assured me, dictated by two vital considers tions, of which the first was- a well grounded expectation that but for the initiation of this movement Bulgaria would have thrown in her lot with Turkey. There was some reason to believe also that when the Allies revealed their intentions in the eastern Mediterranean military co-operation on a not unsubstantial scale might be looked for from Greece even i-eforp the French and British Expeditionarv Forces would become available. That expectation was brought to nought by the action of the Kino 0 f Greece in over-ruling his Prime Minister, Venozelos.