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Home , Arms and the Covenant, Conservative Party (UK), David Lloyd George, Lord Randolph Churchill, Stafford Cripps, The River War

The "" of Winston

Herbert L. Stewart

I hate all this international sharping . . . . . If the Empire is anything at all, it is something infinitely more than a combination in restraint of trade. H. G. WELLS.

HAVE not", said Mr. Churchill, in an sible though in intense alarm at every di- "J oft-quoted passage, "become the King's vision (with a majority, as Mr. Churchill First Minister to preside at the liquidation says, of "two or three or whatever it is") of the ." Since those words indicates what he expects next time the were used, events have moved fast. people have a chance to express their will. "British Empire" is a term now generally Whether Mr. Attlee's iquidating the Em- avoided (except by those who use it for pire was resented and led to his punish- propagandist denunciation of Britain). ment at the polls, I do not presume to Even "British Commonwealth" seems to judge. But whatever may yet befall his off end, preference being shown for the policies, a great deal that was done during vague term "Commonwealth countries", these last five years could be undone only omitting "British." In Canada the Brit- by a process not inaptly compared to "the ish North America Act has now little more unscrambling of eggs." than antiquarian interest, all its significant Mr. Churchill, whose absorbing con- clauses having been superseded if not re- cern for half a century has been the govern- pealed. 'fo speak of "British North Am- ment of his country, watched the process erica" is to invite the sharp retort (especi- of liquidation since 1901 with intense con- ally in or Quebec.) "'l'here is cern. He discerned its beginning, to which no such place- any more than there is a others were blind, and exerted all his pow- British South Africa, a British , or a ers to remove or amend the circumstances British Burma." which were facilitating it. For he believed These changes were not effected under in the British Empire, though not with an the presidency of Mr. Churchill. On the uncritical but with a reforming faith. To contrary, his removal from the Premiership borrow a similitude from theology, he may was held indispensable to their completion. be called a modernist, not a fundamentalist, Five yea,rs of a very different leader pro- in his imperialism. His political ortho- duced in the British electorate the revolt doxy, like the orthodoxy of many a - of 1950, and as these lines are written, Mr. man, was such as he found it difficult and Atlee's resolve to hang on as long as pos- evep painful to adjust. But he knew that 16 PUBLIC AFFAIRS

adjustment was needful if the essence was effectiveness to quote. In that remm1s- to be preserved, and for preservation of cent book he recalls his thrill of joy at news the essence he feels that he has now to of the Jameson Raid, his scorn for the fight the extravagant modernists much scruples of "Little Englanders" about more than the stubborn fundamentalists. British occupation of , his hope that Like many a theologian becoming "a re- somehow international harmony would so actionary" after years of "liberal" leader- break down as to give British soldiers a ship? chance to practise the technique of Wool- It is to tracing this development in Mr. wich and Sandhurst against foes more Churchill that the following pag·es will be worthy of their steel than either Zulus or 1 devoted. Afghans • The of those / late 1890's was dominated by martial in- stinct which took him wherever war was to II be witnessed or shared- to Cuba with the Spanish forces fighting a native insurrec- HOW radiant, and how uncritical, was tion, to the Indian frontier for chastise- his original imperialism may be seen ment of Pathan tribesmen, to the Soudan in his youthful publications, such as Lon- and to South Africa on a mission to avenge don to Ladysmith via Pretoria, or The River Gordon by slaughter of Dervishes and War, or The M alakand Field Force, each Majuba by slaughter of Boers. of more than half a century ago. They have the unmistakable ring of what, in the jargon of the time, was called "jingoism" III - the doctrine expounded to the world of business and finance by , ap- plied in foreign policy by Joseph Chamber- WHETHER these were justifiable un- lain and Sir Alfred Milner, instilled in song dertakings seems at that time for the masses by . "The scarcely to have suggested itself as a question day of small kingdoms, with their petty to his mind. He was not surely too young jealousies, has passed", said Chamberlain, (at twenty-four or twenty-five) to bother in one of the rapturous speeches at the with such puzzle. Others, much younger, Diamond Jubilee of - whose were considering it, but he had passed heart Disraeli had won by having her pro- straight from school to a military college, claimed "Empress of India." Just two immune from the provocatives to thought years later, the Minister who had spoken which Oxford or would have so would illustrate his doctrine by initiat- applied. A quaint reminiscent passage ing imperialist war in South Africa on the tells how, when he was almost twenty-two, Transvaal and on the Orange Free State. a friend remarked to him that Christianity Books on foreign affairs by Englishmen was "the last word in Ethics", and how, of the late nineteenth century- such as though he had been enough at church to Seeley's Expansion of and Dilke's know something of Christianity, he was Problems of Greater Britain- belong by altogether at a loss to guess what "Ethics" meant. "They had never been mentioned their very titles to a way of thinking which 2 it now requires an effort to recall. But to me at Harrow or Sandhurst" ! And to Mr. Churchill in his early twenties this yet he must surely have observed at least was the faith by which every Englishman in the British press of the later 1890's how should live. How completely he had ab- some critics, with a prima facie claim to sorbed the imperialism which his country's respect, were thinking about martial enter- leaders are now so concerned to repudiate, prises in a manner different from any_ to is made plain in his autobiography of his which he had been introduced at Sand- early years entitled A Roving Commission. hurst or at Harrow. For example, they Those who now brand him (on the Mos- were writing about the dreadful cruelty cow radio) as a "war-mong·er" mig·ht find and selfishness shown to the natives of there passages of at least very plausible Cuba by Spanish officials- the sort of of- THE "IMPERIALISM'! OF WINSTON CHURCHILL 17 ficials whose honoured English guest he As he went on to urge reduction of arma- had been in the war to castigate the na- ment at a time when the Secretary for War tives. He had himself contemplated in was proposing its increase, and used the Calcutta what Indian Congress Jeaders mottoes so familiar on Liberal Opposition were denouncing as "palaces" of the mag- lips about "peace, retrenchment and re- nates from the West, erected and decorated form", th'-l party organizers who had · at the cost of an overworked, starved, ex- worked to get him elected in began ploited Hindu proletariat. Projects of to wonder whether they had made a bad avenging Gordon and avenging Majuba mistake. Balfour's cynical comment, that were being branded as infamous, inhuman, when they thought they had found a young anti-Christian, by leaders of British liberal man of promise they proved to have found .opm10n. But for the time- an extraordin- only a young man of promises, was annoy- arily long time in one so highly endowed- ing to those who had chosen him. "So all this questioning of the imperial purpose here was I already out of step", Mr. seems to have been dismissed by Second- Churchill has reflected in his reminiscent Lieutenant Churchill as a piece of lower- mood about his first years in parliament. class impudence. His spirit was that of Those who remembered the doings of his the jeunesse doree, whose was the father, , in the heritage from guarded by House twenty years before were least sur- Primrose Knights and Dames against the prised. "If there is anything at all in sacrilegious touch of a ''Radical.'' heredity of disposition", they exclaimed, Something developed in the early 1900's "what else would you expect?" to upset in the mind of this devout young No one indeed could say of him, as of the imperialist the faith in which he had been younger Pitt, that in politics he had been nurtured and whose questioning by others "taught by his dad on a stool." He has he had resented. told us that between himself and his father there had never been a sharing of thought on public controversies. As far IV back as his school days at Harrow, Win- ston knew, and proudly mentioned, that F'11 ER leaving the army, he had entered his father was "a great man", but at no A parliament, conformably to the cus- time did Lord Randolph encourage him to tom of the ruling class in which he was discuss in conversation the public issues born. He was elected, of course, as a upon which this "greatness" was showing Conservative, but the Conservative leader itself. He died when Winston was barely of the House (at that time A. J. Balfour) twenty-one, but despite the paternal and soon detected a restive tone in this young filial affection which bound them to each back-bench follower. In company with other, the policies of the country were an Lord Hugh Cecil he was criticizing the excluded topic when they talked. "If leadership- somewhat presumptuously, the ever I began to show the slightest idea of Premier thought. He startled the Gov- comradeship", writes Mr. Churchill, "he ernment Front Bench by declaring, while was immediately offended; and when once guerrilla war was still being waged in the I suggested that I might help his private Transvaal, that if he were a Boer he hoped secretary to write some of his letters, he he would be with the guerrillas in the field. 3 froze me in to stone". 5 Lord Rosebery, In a like mood he had characterized the who had known Lord Randolph Churchill farm-burning by imperial troops in South intimately, lamented this lack of confi- Africa as "a hateful folly." He joined dence between him and his son. One with and C. P. _Scott (of the reads with amazement of Winston's visits Manchester Guardian) in denouncing Kitch- to Lord Rosebery after his father's death, ener's desecration of the Mahdi's tomb, 4 with the purpose of getting thus some in- and protested against the Government's direct insight into that enigmatic person- embargo on the landing of speakers likely ality. "I had· a feeling," he says, "of to advocate the Roer cause in England. getting nearer to my father when I talked 18 PUBLIC AFFAIRS

with his intimate and illustrious friend". answer to the question "Don't you feel The intimate and illustrious friend made it badly the loss of Lord Randolph Church- perfectly clear that the revolt against tra- ill?" He was reported to have said "Had ditional "Toryism" which was inspiring you ever a boil on your neck? Did you Mr. Churchill in the first decade of this get rid of it? Would you like to have it century would have been recog·nized by again?" Whether he said so or not, the Lord Randolph in the 1880's and early answer expressed his mind. 1890's as like his own. "Ah", exclaimed What Lord Randolph had urged, in the Lord Rosebery, "he'd have understood."6 famous programme he wrote for the Con- But there is nothing to indicate that such servative party in 1885, included a break- ideas had even beg·un in the son's mind as of the authority by devolving far back as 1895. on "Local Government Boards" far-reach- ing legislative powers in England, in Scot- land, and even in Ireland. It included such changes of land tenure in the interest of the tenant as fairly horrified landlords y a process the very inverse of the one (especially the Irish of that privileged B usual in such a case, Mr. Churchill's class, whose ways the innovator had studied understanding and adoption of his father's on the spot when he was secretary to his opinions thus developed from a study of father, the Lord-Lieutenant, in ). him historically- as he might have learned It included temperance legislation no less from Canning or Peel or Beaconsfield. alarming to the brewers, and an Eig·ht- When in 1905, he published the biography, Hours Bill which the great employers of he was therein reinterpreting family mem"." Labor regarded as rank . rrhe ories by the light of public records, not climax w9,s reached when the daring Chan- vice versa. He dwelt with special emphasis cellor's budget proposals were found to in- upon Lord Randolph's vain attempt in volve such cuts (for "social reform" pur- 1885 and 1886 to ''moderni'ze'' the Con- poses) in the appropriation for the armed servative tradition. Lord Rosebery de- services as made the Secretary for War scribed this as "the wolf of Radicalism iq. confront the Premier with this dilemma- the sheep-skin of Toryism" ,7 and what "One or other of us must go". Joseph Winston had in mind during the years 1901 Chamberlain described Lord Randolph as to 1904 (until indeed he crossed the floor having borrowed from the cast-off policies of the House and declared himself a Liberal of very different extreme men alike; his in 1905) was much the same. Encounter- from Burns and Hyndman, his ing again, as in the 1880's, this "d(:\mo- Local Option from Sir Wilfred Lawson, his cratic Toryism" would not only shock but Egyptian policy from Illingworth, his · enrage the guardians of the old Tory faith. metropolitan reform from Stuart, and his Our Age has seen British Conservatives so Irish projects from John Morley. He compromise their inheritance that the asked, in high disgust, "Is this Tory- explosion of wrath at such an innovator in ism?" The answer was rendered in ac- 1886, and even in 1903, may surprise us tion, fiercely enough, by the party chiefs, as we read of it. But in truth it would for whom the Toryism in "'l'ory De- have amazed half a century mocracy" had become so faint as to be ago if the proposed innovations had been hardly discoverable. Lord Randolph's given in Conservative circles even a patient continuing insistence, with ferocious em- hearing. Lord Randolph resigned after phasis, that Ireland must be refused Home he had held the office of Chancellor of the Rule did not avail with the inner circle Exchequer just a few months, and his re- of the party to compensate for such vast signation was not only accepted but wel- sacrifice of other Conservative principles. comed by the Premier in whose following he had been incomparably the most effec- IS son, in the first decade of this tive of election campaigners. A story H century, was at once fascinated by his circulated about Lord 's cynical general purpose and hostile to some of his THE ''IMPERIALISM'' OF WINSTON CHURCHILL 19

special applications of it. Mr. Churchill "already disposed to view their actions in declares that his father was no imperialist, the most critical light". 10 He became as and Lord Rosebery judged that Lord Ran- impatient under A. J. Balfour as his father dolph's views on foreign policy were hard- had been under Sir Northcote, and ly different from those of Cobden or the fate of his father's effort at reform from Bright. But neither Bright nor Cobden within was a warning to him. made any pretence of being a Conservative, After a short period of outspoken but and neither of them thought of the British fruitless back-bench protest, upon which Empire after a manner whose expression his leader tried the disciplinary effect of Mr. Winston Churchill could have heard contemptuously ignoring it, Mr. Churchill with patience. What would the writer of crossed the floor. No one who watched or of The M alakand Field this, and knew the record of the Govern- Force have said of the Minister who re- ment Front Bench in 1886, could fail to signed from Gladstone's Cabinet in 1882 note how the new insurgent had learned as protest against the bombardment of from the experience of the old. Nor could Alexandria? How fundamental has been such an observer miss the suggestiveness Mr. Churchill's imperialism all through his_ of one particular sentence in Mr. Church- public life was made plain by his return, ill's biography of his father: "Great men, after long and bitter exile, to the Conser- at the height of their power, often to their vative fold, because there alone was it cost refuse to recognize the ability of new- cherished without taint. On the other comers". His attempt to freeze a rebel hand, the single imperialist doctrine which into submission cost Balfour much more his father continued to defend, the one than the like had cost his uncle, Lord Salis- about keeping Ireland agaist her will bury. Mr. Churchill led the terrific at- in the Legislative Union, Winston's "mod- tack in the general election of 1905 upon ernism" in the imperialist faith led him to the seven Tory seats in Manchester, one abjure. He did so, as he argued in his of which was held by the Prime Minister speech delivered under such himself, and captured them all. The tumultuous menaces in 1912, because it result was flashed to Liberal headquarters was his conviction that only by such "re- in an apt quotation from Wordsworth- interpreting" (as the theological innovators "We are Seven". would say) could the essence of the im- perialist faith be preserved. 8 UT although no doubt personal re- B sentment and filial memories had their share in barbing his political arrows, there VI is no reason to question the sincerity of Mr. Churchill's change in 1905. He was T is widely supposed that his breach then one of a notable band of "Unionists" I with the Conservative Party in 1905 (amongst whom the was on , in which he passion- was the most influential) who regarded ately believed and from which 's project of abandoning Free Chamberlain had started a successful Party Trade as a project of national ruin. He revolt. But if we may trust his own re- prosecuted the revolt indeed further, but collections, nearly thirty years later, of the more consistently, than most of them. influences which had then moved him, the Though late in beginning to think for him- "Tariff Reform" menace must be counted self on problems of social justice, he pressed by_ no means the strongest.9 From the forward rapidly the reflections once be- South African War, into which he had gun. On return from the South African entered with such eagerness, he came·back w·ar, deeply troubled about what he had a disillusioned man, and Conservatives witnessed there, he was in a mood to sus- who were then ecstatic over "the victory" pect further designs of the British leader drove him further into the reverse mood. who had chief responsibility for that one. Hence he tells us, when Free Trade was He began to reconsider what David Lloyd abandoned by Conservative leaders, he was George was alleging about the war as con- 20 PUBLIC AFFAIRS

trived for their own enrichment by mag- to avert or even to mitigate the doom. nates of the Rand gold mines, and Sir When the votes were counted, it was found Remy-Campbell-Bannerman's of that the Conservatives, after nearly twenty "methods or barbarism" in the manner by years of power, would have against them a which imperial troops waged it on Dutch majority more than twice as large as the farmers. largest ever before recorded. Benches on both sides of the House would be needed for Memories of what he had seen were supporters of the Liberal Government, haunting him, and they were not relie"."ed and in one of his earliest speeches after but intensified by the chorus of exultation parliament met, Mr. Churchill- pointing to in British Conservative circles over the the remnant of his former associates- "victory". Now the arch-designer of the said "- call them not 'the party opposite' attack on the Boers was planning an at- but 'the party in that corner',". To social tack on the Free Trade which experience reform projects far beyond any which as a had shown so vital to the masses in a Conservative he had fruitlessly pressed congested island that must import most upon his leader he now, as a Liberal Min- of its food supplies from abroad. Cham- ister, devoted his utmost effort. Side by berlain too, this observer could not but note, side with , he fought was being enthusiastically applauded by for old age pensions, for disestablishment those likely to make great fortunes of the '\Velsh Church, for Irish , through a protective tariff at the expe1;1-se for Insurance, for reduc- of the consuming poor. Were these, like ing the powers of the , for a the mining magnates of the Rand, finding tax on the "unearned increment of land." a,n agent of their financial manoeuvre in Joseph Chamberlain. If this was what he saw coming to, Mr. O voice more resolute or more elo- Churchill would cross the floor. That he quent than his was heard either in was a "boil on the neck" of Balfour (as N parliament or on platforms throughout the Lord Randolph had been of Salisbury) country, commending the triple cause of was sure to figure in the satiric Conserva- "The People's Rights, the People's Bud- tive press. But to Mr. Churchill such cita- O'et and the People's Insurance." In a tion of the case of his father was a welcome l:, ' mood specially vicious, his former com- though an unintended, compliment. 'l'he rades would explain him by a tempera- doom of the Party, led with so little dis- mental inheritance that went back far be- cernment in 1905 as in 1886, was in his yond his father. They would recall John view but a question of time- and not of a Churchill, founder of his house, whose very long time. He thought of the ten judgment of the side likeliest to win was years of Tory rule, begun .in 1895, as like shrewd and who at the nick of time "put the six years of Disraeli's political dictator- out his apostasy to hire." It was a base- ship begun in 1874, and he apprehended less taunt, excusable only by the high something like Gladstone's Midlothian campaign as impending for those who~e temper of a beaten party. That ~.r. Churchill would yet himself not only reJom boast was their inflexibility. As David but lead the , ridiculing the party Lloyd George put it, in the serene atmos- of his second as he had ridiculed that of his phere of the House of under first allegiance, would have seemed {orty Tory rule, his specially sensitive ear caught years ago inconceivable. I well remember from outside at length a "thundering at the gates." the bitterness with which a Scottish 'rory said to m.e "At least he is fixed now: a man By the summer of 1905, even Conserva- cannot 'rat' twice." But the inconceiv- tive leaders were alarmed. A general elec- able of one period has of ten proved the tion was almost due, and Joseph Cham- actual of a later, and the truth about Mr. berlain's diary records that reports from Churchill's changes has been most con- party agents over the country were "as vincingly as well as most clearly put by black as night." But it was then too late himself: "All through my life," he writes, THE "IMPERIALISM" OF WINSTON CHURCHILL 21

''I have found myself in disagreement al- tives as the group with which Liberals ternately with both the -historic English could cooperate more fitly than with Labor. parties." 1-2 VIII VII ERE lies my answer to the question H this article set out to discuss, namely, IS return to the Conservatives is as what is Mr. Churchill's specific brand of H- intelligible, with no suspicion of insin- "imperialism"? It is the doctrine that the cerity, as was his withdrawal from them. organic connection among countries which An underlying imperialism was a common were called until lately "the British Em- element in the two, for this he conceived pire"- a connection not simply symbolized his second party to be forsaking as his by One Flag and One Crown, but implied first had served it ill. in innumerable historic institutions, cus- toms, legal and executive ·rules- has been The decision of the Liberals in 1924 to of the utmost value to the interests of each. "put the Socialists in power" was what Put negatively, Mr. Churchill's imperialism started Mr. Churchill on his return to is the denial that those interests have been oryism. For Socialists in his conception rr or will now be equally promoted by each were no modernizers of the imperialist going its own way, with no more heed of Faith. Theirs was rank and traitorous the rest in a nominal "Commonwealth" unbelief. No doubt he would now quote than of a foreign country, and that coin- the development of Mr. John Strachey and cidence of policies thus voluntarily chosen Mr. to prove the wisdom may be trusted even more than organic of his advice "Stop it at its Beginning.'' union. "Alone among the nations of the The · election of 1924 had made the world", he bade his Party to remember Labor members, led by Ramsay Mac- with pride, "we have found the means to Donald, the largest single group in the combine Empire and . Alone House. Naturally its leader was invited among the peoples we have reconciled by the king to form a government if he democracy and tradition." 13 could, and he undertook to do so, having Those words spoken a decade ago might been promised by the Liberal leader (at be reiterated now, with many an illus- that time H. H. Asquith) such support trative warning from the experience of as would relieve him from fear of defeat other countries since then which the liqui- in the division lobby-provided, of course, dators of the British Empire have been the need of Liberal auxiliaries was kept rashly imitating. The great human values, clearly in mind when the legislative pro- in Mr. Churchill's view, such values as per- gramme was being drawn up. In As- sonal , social justice, local pro- quith'sjudgment, there was enoughcommon gress, would be promoted rather than re- ground for Liberals and Labor men (enough tarded by maintenance of organic con- on which they were alike against the Tories) nection, interpreted with the magnani- to make such arrangement practicable mous insight which experience had taught without sacrifice of principle by either British leaders of a generation ago to ex- group. How else, he asked, but by such press in " status". "Why," he coalition, in the circumstances which had exclaimed, in a memorable speech, "should arisen, could the king's government be we break up the solid structure of British carried on? What Mr. Churchill would power, founded upon so much health, kind- have done, if he had been in Asquith's liness and freedom, for dreams which may place in 1924, he has never, so far as I some day come true but are now only know, specifically stated. But it seems dreams and some of them nightmares"? 14 plain that he would either have insisted on an immediate new general election to IS affirmation and his denial brought secure an independent Liberal majority or H him into conflict with those who have sought a coalition with the Conserva- during the last thirty years either demanded 22 PUBLIC AFFAIRS .

·or accepted without demur a constitutional pourings of his distrust and scorn and anger upheaval in preference to better working in his next election campaign? The of the historic system. The Labor Party answer is that the war suspended all other (which Mr. Churchill always calls "the considerations. During that supreme ef- Socialists") did not, in his conception, be- fort, while regarding the cooperation of lieve in the British Empire at all; the Con- some party opponents as like that of the servatives he knew to be passionate be- French, he looked on others as allies more lievers in it, but he found them combining like the Russian Communists, but he that belief with policies of social injustice wanted them all, whatever their motive, which by no means followed from it and for the common fight against Nazi Ger- might well prove ruinous to it; the Liberals, many. Differences on other issues could in turn, he judged to believe in it, but with and must wait. His motto, whether in such qualifications, such under-estimates apostolic language "This one thing I do" of its importance, such exaggeration of or in the language of the golf links '' Keep other ideals relatively to it, as to make your eye on the ball", forbade distraction them willing to abandon it- at least tem- by sifting of varieties in what he has called porarily- for the sale of something else. "The Grand Alliance"- whether inter- So it was indeed a hard choice, a choice of national or domestic. the least among evils, and he held the cir- But a time was sure to come, after vic- cumstances of 1924 to prescribe the re- tory in war, when these conflicts of pur- verse of what had been prescribed by the pose would split the Allies both domestic circumstances of 1905. Much as he had and international. Discussions wisely desired, and still desired, social reform, postponed would be resumed. Like · the he would not sacrifice the unity of the rebuilding and reopening of structures Empire in order to secure it, nor did he demolished or closed under war-time in- believe that it could be thus secured. His structions, a reproclamation of the im- choice again in 1945, that he would go no perialist faith must follow the strategic further in the political company he had silence about it which had been needful kept for the war emergency with the to keep those who doubted or denied it in Socialists, was like that of many a so- a common effort with those true to it called "liberal theologian" who would re- against the common enemy. With how turn to fundamentalism rather than con- much misgiving his contemporaries- such tinue with associates modernizing the Faith of them as were left- acquiesced in the into a mere acknowledgement of human leadership of one between whose earliest brotherhood such as Confucius, or the and latest orthodoxy the heretical interval Buddha, or Auguste Comte would have had been so long and marked by heresies endorsed. so furious, we outsiders may conjecture. Liberals (the group of nine in the House) F this analysis of Mr. Churchill's mind are more outspoken. They dwell on "the I is correct, he must view the present betrayal of both parties in turn," Mr. virtual extinction of the Liberal Party at Churchill's answer, alike to the murmur- the polls as showing an instinctive com- ings of suspicion and the rhetoric of ar- mon sense in the British electorate. He raignment may be seen in his famous must likewise see in the present rupture article Consistency in Politics. He there of the Cabinet of Mr. Atlee exactly what wrote: was inevitable sooner or later, when genu- ine Socialists should feel strong enough A statesman should always try to do what he be- lieves is best in the long view for his country, and he to risk throwing off the mask of an alliance should not be dissuaded from so acting by having they had made to obtain power. Why, to divorce himself from a great body of doctrine to which he formerly sincerely adhered. Those, then, it may be asked, did he welcome into however, who are forced to these gloomy choices the Cabinet he formed in 1940 such men as must regard their situation in this respect as un- lucky .... and Sir , Anyhow, where is Consistency today? The Philip Snowden and , if greatest Conservative majority any modern parlia- ment has seen is led by the very statesman who a they were of the sort to deserve the out- few years ago was one of the leaders of a General THE "IMPERIALISM'.' OF WINSTON CHURCHILL 23

Strike which he only last year tried to make again legal. A life-long Free Trader at the Board of ment that the distinctive purposes of Trade has framed and passed amid the loudest Toryism were vital to national recovery, plaudits a whole-hearted Protectionist Tariff. The they opposed the argument that pursuit Government which only yesterday took office to keep the from falling, is now sup- of just those distinctive 'rory purposes ported for its exertions to keep it from rising. would, in the circumstances of 1945, con- duct to national perdition. T has often been cited as an act of shock- i-µg ingTatitude in the that I OT a few shrewd observers of the Mr. ·Churchill was refused, at the post- British scene at that time felt that war election of 1945, a mandate to remain N if Mr. Churchill had secured a majority, as Premier. The refusal may have been with the policies he had announced, there unwise, but' I dispute the reproach that it would have been such an outburst of strikes was ungrateful. as must have disorganized the whole indus- A very strong case might have been made trial life of the nation. Some at least of in 1945 for continuance of that uni·on the most grateful as well as the most dis- Sacree which had been essential for victory cerning of his admirers were concerned in the over the Germans. The post-war settle- refusal to grant him a further mandate in ment had much in it of national emergency 1945 under the conditions for which he had which should suspend party strife. In stipulated. 1940, on becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill had chosen for his Cabinet re- But no one should excuse, far less justify, presentative men alike of Conservatism, the deluge of abuse which return to party of and of Labor. The same warfare has brought upon one to whom his year he accepted for himself the leadership country owes so much. Memories of pub- of the Conservative Party, explaining that lic service are short. Mr. Churchill may he did so with no purpose of leading _i_n now fitly recall how the Duke of Wellington party conflict, but rather the reverse- in his old ag;e had to protect his windows to represent, in deliberations on what all with iron railings from the stones of a could achieve together, the special con- mob. Against one who had left tribution of the group whose principles he each of two Parties in turn, the slumber- had come, on the whole, to share most ing resentment of each was sure to arrive fully. It might well have been argued in once party warfare had been resumed. 1945 that reconstruction would _call for An imperialist, like a theological modern- what all must do together. ist must confront attack on two controver- sial fronts, assailed alike by those who If, foreseeing six years ago what is now blame him for having gone too far and by so painfully clear, party leaders had agreed those who blame him for not having gone to preserve the unity of the war period far enough. At least in ,his policy of for at least another parliamentary term, compromise between extremes Mr. Church- Mr. Churchill would have had no com- ill is in the best English tradition, and his petitor for the Premiership. But it was foreign critics (successively Nazi and Com- in no such character that he appealed for munist) may be left to answer each other. renewal of trust. It was as a party chief His early repudiation of , the Dogma of of the familiar pre-war fighting spirit, de- Tory Infallibility wa,s quite consistent riding and denouncing the very men whom with his later abandonment of those eager he had entrusted through five years of to "put out all the lights" on the im- constant national peril with the very perialist altar. That somewhere between gravest responsibilities. He cannot fairly the doctrines of a century complain because the gauge of battle he ago and those of Aneurin Bevan now lies then threw dbwn was taken up, and his the true policy for Britain, should not need colleagues of yesterday retorted to his to be demonstrated. But what should be taun.ts in kind. rro Mr. Churchill's argu- needed is very different from.what 'is need- 24 PUBLIC AFFAIRS ed, and in this controversial war, as in tician" is one he may remember with pride. other wars Mr. Churchill has waged, What on earth would have been the fate there must be many casualties. At all of his country if that particular politician events the sneer at "an unsinkable poli- twenty years ago had been sinkable?

1 Cf. A Roving Commission, Chap. VII. 7 ibid p. 136. 2 ibid., p. 109. 8 Cf. Th011ghs and Adventures, p. 18: "Those 3 A Roving Commission, p. 364. Cf. Mr. strong Conservative elements some of whose deepest Churchill'H explicit judgment (ibid., p. 94) that Lord feelings I sh.are and can at critical moments express, Ralisbury's ruling idea in foreign policy when he came although. they have never liked nor trusted me." to power in 1895 was to keep things quiet in Europe as preparation to take revenge in Africa for the Gordon 9 Cf. especially Thoughts and Adventures, chap. I. affair and the Majuba affair of more than a dozen JO ibid, p. 16. years before. For this, a quarrel had to be picked in the Transvaal and in the Soudan. Such reflection 11 Life, I, p. 222. \\ as a sufficient provocative, surely, to enquire about "Ethics" (Christian or any other sort.). 12 A _Roving Commission, p. 330. Cf. Preface 4 to (p. 7) in which his editor All the Tories, Mr. Churchill recalled in 1937 says of Mr. Churchill: "He always finds it difficult to with disgust, had "thought it rather a lark" to insult subordinate his views on public affairs to the current the Mahdi's remains and to profane his tomb (A Rov- exigencies of party position." Cf. Thoughts and ing Commission p. 228). But what he thought of it on Adventures (the essay on "Consistency in Politics) pp. the spot and at the time he does not explicitly state. 39-47. Did he reliably remember? 13 Blood, Sweat and Tears, p. 458. • ibid " Arms and the Covenant, p. 93. 6 Rosebery, Lord Randolph Churchill, Cf. Thoughts and Adventures, p. 52. 16 Thoughts and Adventures, pp. 45-47 .

Diplomatic Polish

A foreign diplomat once walked unexpectedly into the office of President Lincoln to discover him blacking his shoes. "Why, Mr. President!" he exclaimed superciliously, "do you black your own shoes?" The President looked up with his slow, wise smile "Yes," he saiq.. "vVhose shoes do you black?"

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