If hat Resellers Think 7 Letters to the Editor

Timaru Herald, Volume CLI, Issue 22203, 21 February 1942, Page 6

If hat Resellers Think 7 Letters to the Editor

WINSTON CHURCHILL Sir,—ln days gone by I was an ardent admirer, although not a supporter, of the brilliant Lord Randolph Churchill until he castigated Gladstone most unmercifully for ending the first Boer War immediately after the Majuba disaster, but I forgave his lapse when, with fuller knowledge of the conditions then existing in South Africa, he admitted that Gladstone had done the only thing a real statesman should have done. I felt a kindred spirit with Lord Randolph's eldest son, Winston, when, as a young man he wrote his Socialist novel, Savrola, but the powerful social influences that played upon him dragged him down into the swamp of Conservatism, which has proved the bane of mankind everywhere and in every age. So our spirits parted company. We met again on common ground during the second Boer War, which we were assured would be begun and finished in a few weeks with about. 100,000 men. Before that war began I addressed a number of public meetings, pointing out, such were the conditions in which our men would have to fight in South Africa, that it would be criminal on the part of Joseph Chamberlain or any one else to send fewer than eight British soldiers for every Boer that took the field to finish the war, not in six weeks but in 12 months. "Let them begin as they have planned to do,” I said, “and we shall be subjected to a series of raids, surprises and ambuscades that will do far more 1,0 diminish the glory of British arms than anything that has happened in our history.” With the exception of General Kelly Kenny, Winston Churchill'is the only other man I know of who shared my opinion. I cannot, therefore, be blamed for having faith in him now. Although belonging to my <wn generation, fate has made Churchill virtual dictator of the Empire, and I know of no one more capable of leading us along the road to ultimate victory, although clouds have lowered all round us. Churchill is first, last ano always a soldier who has seen mote actual fighting than anyone now living. He is brave, courageous, adventurous and resourceful; but above all he is a man of action. If I am not mistaken, he will go far in an endeavour to outrival Stalin in his military achievements.—l am, etc., A. M. PATERSON.