March 12, 2015

“Further Indianization will ruin the great services without which India will fall back to the level of China,” Churchill said. An independent India would “darken the lives of the enormous mass of [its] people.” Indian politicians were “largely untried and provedly disloyal”; they should prove themselves in the provinces before demanding “responsible control of the stately Empire.” But WSC lost an attempt to reverse Tory policy on India at a major Conservative meeting. His principle opponents were Sir Samuel Hoare and Lord Derby, who worked to undermine his position by gaining the support of Lancashire cotton interests for the Government’s India policy.

Churchill also attacked the Government’s inability to cure unemployment, which he called “a cancer eating out the heart of the people.” He advocated monetary reform and admired the “resolute mental energy of President Roosevelt,” although he questioned FDR’s telling the world to balance its budget:

“We should accept with some circumspection advice reaching us from across the Atlantic where practice does not conform with the doctrines preached.” Europe was a growing worry. “Britain’s hour of weakness,” WSC said, “is Europe’s hour of danger.” Writing continued at a hectic pace. WSC finalized his drafts of Marlborough and signed a contract to write History of the English-Speaking Peoples. In August he went to Moulin de Montreull in France, where he swam 3-4 times a day and “painted hard.”

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