June 21, 2013

Finest Hour 137, Winter 2007-08

Page 12

Action this Day – Winter 1882-83, 1907-08, 1932-33, 1957-58

By Michael McMenamin

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125 YEARS AGO:
Winter 1882-83 • Age 8
“Teaching me to be naughty”

Lady Randolph’s report on Winston’s first term performance at St. George’s School, sent to her husband on 26 December, was not inspiring: “As to Winston’s improvement I am sorry to say I see none. Perhaps there has not been time enough. He can read very well, but that is all, and the first two days he came home he was terribly slangy and loud. Altogether I am disappointed. But Everest was told down there that next term they meant to be more strict with him.”

Winston also fell short of his mother’s expectations at home. She reported that “he teases [his brother Jack] more than ever” and promised Lord Randolph: “When I get well I shall take him in hand. It appears that he is afraid of me.”

His brother Jack, however, did not appear to be bothered by Winston’s attentions. When asked by Lord Randolph’s fellow Fourth Party colleague, Sir Henry Drummond, if he was being good, Jack replied: “Yes, but brother is teaching me to be naughty.”

100 YEARS AGO:
Winter 1907-08 • Age 33
Britain’s African Responsibility

Upon his return from his African journey on 17 January 1908, Churchill began a series of speeches recounting his observations. Uganda, he told the National Liberal Club on 18 January, was

a country which from end to end is a garden—inexhaustible, irrepressible, and exuberant fertility upon every side, and I cannot doubt that the great system of lakes and waterways, which you cannot fail to observe if you look at the large map of Africa, must one day become the great centre of tropical production, and play a most important part in the economic development of the whole world.

We must bear in: mind about these countries—the protectorates on each side of Africa which we have acquired so easily—that they will increasingly supply the working and industrial populations of this country with the raw materials so indispensable to them. Cotton, rubber, fibre, hemp, and many other commodities will come in an increasing stream.

Churchill had more in mind than raw materials. He reminded his audience—in words that modern critics of the Empire have probably never read— that Britain’s first obligation was to the native populations of her protectorates:

But the real argument I would urge upon the Liberal party, as a cause of our not relaxing our efforts to develop these countries is the interest of the native races who dwell there. [Cheers.] Of course from time to time in the administration of large affairs detached incidents occur which everybody regrets, and which scarcely anybody defends. But 1 must say that I was most pleasantly surprised—no, I won’t say surprised; I was pleasantly impressed with the manner in which a great number of our civil and military officers who I met construed their duty towards the native populations among whom they lived. I found them resolved to protect these populations against the mere exploiter and the speculator, and those who merely wished to use them for some financial advantage.

Three days later, Churchill spoke at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester:

I believe as a Free-trader that all legitimate interests are in harmony, that there is no permanent antagonism between capital and labour, and that every one of us by setting up general interests before our eyes can best advance our own interests and can most highly elevate the interests of the whole community. But it is the inherent vice of the Protectionist philosophy that it always prefers selfish, special interests to large general interests; it is always preferring the interest of this or that class of producers to the large general interests of the community or the consumer.

Later that same day in Manchester, he spoke on a variety of subjects, including naval armaments:

You well know I have always advocated retrenchment in public expenditure, particularly upon armaments, and certainly I think we of the Liberal party are bound to make continual and persistent efforts to fight against that tendency to raise the cost of our military and naval preparations year by year. I deny that there is the slightest reason for a scare about our navy. I deny that there is the slightest reason for supposing our naval preparations are not in every respect adequate and capable of dealing with any developments that may take place.

In February, Churchill took a break from politics and addressed the Authors’ Club in London:

The fortunate people in the world— the only really fortunate people in the world, in my mind,—are those whose work is also their pleasure. The class is not a large one, not nearly so large as it is often represented to be; and authors are perhaps one of the most important elements in its composition. To sit at one’s table on a sunny morning, with four clear hours of uninterruptible security, plenty of nice white paper, and a Squeezer pen [laughter]—that is true happiness. The complete absorption of the mind upon an agreeable occupation—what more is there than that to desire? What does it matter what happens outside? The House of Commons may do what it likes, and so may the House of Lords [laughter]. The heathen may rage furiously in every part of the globe. The bottom may be knocked clean out of the American market. Consols may fall and suffragettes may rise.—(Laughter.) Never mind, for four hours, at any rate, we will withdraw ourselves from a common, ill-governed, and disorderly world, and with the key of fancy unlock that cupboard where all the good things of the infinite are put away [cheers].

75 YEARS AGO:
Winter 1932-33 •Age 58
“The Curl of Contempt”

On 14 December, 1932, Churchill spoke in the House on the government’s folly in letting France forget her war debts to Britain, while encouraging France to pay the United States in full. This was in contradiction of Churchill’s own policy as Chancellor of the Exchequer, which he repeated for the House’s benefit:

A communique was issued on the same point from which 1 may read one extract: It is a very good communique I may say—I wrote it myself: His Majesty’s Government have from the outset made it perfectly clear that any arrangements which they can come to with France must be governed by the principle so often declared that they must receive from France proportionate and pari passu payments to any she may eventually make to the United States in settlement of her war debt. It would be no service to Europe already so grievously stricken, if the sacrifices of one creditor of France merely conduced to the advantage of another.

Why did the Government whistle all this down the wind so lightly and so easily? When I read on Friday that the Government were actually urging France to pay the United States, having cheerfully let them off the obligation to pay us, I was profoundly shocked and distressed. It seemed to me that it was hardly possible that such an inversion of good sense could have been put forward. We were actually urging the French to pay the United States at our expense.

On 30 January, 1933, Adolf Hitler became the Weimar Republic’s last chancellor. On 17 February, Churchill spoke at Queen’s Hall in London where he condemned the recent Oxford debate where die resolution “That this House refuses in any circumstances to fight for King and Country,” had been carried by a 2-1 margin. Churchill wondered aloud what the Nazis would make of this:

My mind turns across the narrow waters of the Channel and the North Sea, where great nations stand determined to defend their national glories or national existence with their lives. I think of Germany, with its splendid clear-eyed youth marching forward on all the roads of the Reich singing their ancient songs, demanding to be conscripted into an army; eagerly seeking the most terrible weapons of war; burning to suffer and die for their fatherland. I think of Italy, with her ardent Fascist!, her renowned Chief, and stern sense of national duty. I think of France, anxious, peace-loving, pacifist to the core, but armed to the teeth and determined to survive as a great nation in the world.

One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of all these peoples when they read this message sent out by Oxford University in the name of young England.

Churchill was not done with the subject. While oft criticized during the 1930s as a warmonger, on 24 February, 1933, he seemed avowedly isolationist in his sentiments:

Young people argue a great deal about whether they would fight or no if a war came. But there is no likelihood of a war in which Great Britain would be involved. Even if foreign countries go to war with one another. I know of no reason why a wise and honourable foreign policy should not enable us to stand aside and prevent the fire from spreading. The Government has very rightly refused to extend our obligation in Europe or elsewhere.

Under the present constitution of the League of Nations, we cannot be forced into war against our better judgment of what is right or wrong. I think the first duty of British statesmen is to make sure that we are not drawn into any war, and only their second duty is to try to prevent others from fighting, or to try to bring their quarrels to an end. The supreme interest of Great Britain is peace in our time. With that object our foreign policy should encourage France ro keep a strong army, so that there is no danger of her being attacked by her neighbours.

50 YEARS AGO:
Winter 1957-58 • Age 83
“I hope they will be considered wortliy…”

In January, at the suggestion of President Eisenhower, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City arranged in that city the first exhibition devoted solely to Churchill’s paintings. (See page 20.) Churchill personally supervised the selection of thirty-five paintings for the exhibition. In a letter to her husband on 25 January, Clementine wrote: “according to the Daily Mail, ‘1,221 persons’ visited your Exhibition in one day at Kansas City and this is a record.” Earlier, Churchill had written Eisenhower: “I do hope they will be considered worthy of the honour you have done them.”

Later that week, he received an invitation from Eisenhower to visit the United States. Churchill told his wife it would be a short visit, “only a week, of which three and a half days will be spent at the White House and the rest with Bernie [Baruch], either in New York or at his countiy place. I do hope you will be able to come witJi me, but I shall quite understand if you feel that a double flight across the Atlantic is more than the experience will be worth.”

Alas Churchill himself became quite ill in mid-February with chills, cough and a high fever. He spent the rest of the winter recovering in the south of France, returning to England the first week in April.