August 26, 2013

Finest Hour 110, Spring 2001

Page 40

BY MICHAEL MCMENAMIN

One hundred years ago:

Spring 1901 -Age 26

“Rising Political Star”

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The Spring of 1901, William Manchester wrote, was when Churchill “established himself as a rising political star.” In the House in March, he spoke in support of the Government against an amendment seeking to appoint a Commission to enquire into the Army’s dismissal of Major-General Sir Henry Colville as Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar. Colville had been dismissed when official enquiries into his conduct in South Africa disclosed he had failed to attempt to relieve beleaguered British troops despite being in a position to do so. Colville refused to go quietly, and appealed to supporters in Parliament, claiming that he had not been criticized at the time in official dispatches.

Churchill came to the rescue of a government described by his son, Randolph, as “hard-pressed to resist” the amendment, helpfully explaining to the House that “those who have not themselves had any actual experience of war may have some difficulty in understanding” why Colville was not criticized at the time. The reason, Churchill continued, was that the military in wartime typically did not tell the truth: “I say that I have noticed in the last three wars in which we have been engaged a tendency among military officers…to hush everything up, to make everything look as fair as possible, to tell what is called the official truth….all the ugly facts are smoothed and varnished over, rotten reputations are propped up, and officers known as incapable are allowed to hang on and linger in their commands in the hope that at the end of the war they may be shunted into private life without a scandal.”

Nevertheless, Churchill went on, politicians must rarely, if ever, interfere with the War Department’s promotion and dismissal of officers because that process—Selection—is “the only hope for increased efficiency in the army.” Secretary of State for War St. John Brodrick, expressed his gratitude in a note to Churchill: “May I say you will never make a better speech than you made tonight….It was a great success and universally recognized.”

Mr. Brodrick’s comments on the next Churchill speech in the House on military matters were not so kind, expressing the hope that one day “the hereditary qualities he possesses of eloquence and courage may be tempered also by discarding the hereditary desire to run Imperialism on the cheap.” Churchill had attacked Brodrick’s plan for Army Reform, featuring th~ creation of three regular army corps. On May 13th, Churchill spoke trenchantly against “Mr. Brodrick’s Army”: “I contend that [it] ought to be reduced by two army corps, on the ground that one is quite enough to fight savages, and three are not enough even to begin to fight Europeans….A European war cannot be anything but a cruel, heartrending struggle, which, if we are ever to enjoy the bitter fruits of victory, must demand, perhaps for several years, the whole manhood of the nation, the entire suspension of peaceful industries, and the concentrating to one end of every vital energy in the community…a European war can only end in the ruin of the vanquished and the scarcely less fatal commercial dislocation and the exhaustion of the conquerors. Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.” In the event, Churchill’s views prevailed, with the support of the Liberal opposition, and Mr. Brodrick did not receive his three army corps.

Seventy-five years ago:

Spring 1926’Age 51

“Tomorrow, Magnanimity”

Churchill played no part in the Baldwin government’s negotiations with the miners and the coal owners which led to the General Strike of 1926. The coal owners locked out the miners on Saturday, 1 May 1926 after the miners had again rejected a proposal for an immediate reduction in wages. A national strike in support of the miners was announced for Monday, 3 May. Government negotiations continued with both sides on Sunday, 2 May, until 11 PM, when word came that printers at The Daily Mail had stopped its publication because they did not approve of the lead editorial critical of the impending strike. Baldwin believed that a national strike was an unconstitutional attempt to undermine parliamentary democracy and, in response, he broke off negotiations, a move that received the unanimous support of the Cabinet.

The next day, Churchill spoke in conciliatory fashion in the House, acknowledging that the miners had a legitimate right to strike: “But that is an entirely different thing from the concerted, deliberate organized menace of a General Strike in order to compel Parliament to do something which otherwise it would not do.” Churchill said that once the threat of a national strike is withdrawn, “we shall immediately begin, with the utmost care and patience with them again, the long and laborious task which has been pursued over these many weeks of endeavouring to rebuild on economic foundations the prosperity of the coal trade. That is our position.”

The strike commenced on 4 May and Baldwin diverted Churchill to the secondary role of supervising publication of a daily government newspaper, The British Gazette. The first issue of the paper came out on 5 May and Churchill wrote the leading, unsigned, article on the front page in which he explained why a government newspaper was necessary during the strike: “Nearly all the newspapers have been silenced by violent concerted action. And this great nation, on the whole the strongest community which civilisation can show, is for the moment reduced in this respect to the level of African natives dependent only on the rumours which are carried from place to place.”

The first issue of The British Gazette printed a total of only 230,000 copies but six days later, the last day of the General Strike, over a million copies were printed and distributed. Churchill wrote that day to Baldwin offering his advice on how to proceed next: “The point to which I wish to draw your mind is that there must be a clear interval between the calling off of the General Strike and the resumption of the coal negotiations. The first tonight —the second tomorrow. But nothing simultaneous and concurrent. That will I am sure be fatal….Tonight surrender. Tomorrow magnanimity….”

Fifty years ago:

Spring, 1951-Age 76

“A duster of lion-hearted limpets”

On 10 April Churchill spoke in response to the first budget introduced by the Labour Party’s Hugh Gaitskell, who had succeeded the ailing Sir Stafford Cripps the previous fall. After praising Gaitskell for “the evident lack of hatred or malice” in his proposals, Churchill turned to the attack: “Those who hold that taxation is an evil must recognize that it falls upon this country in a most grievous manner at the present time, continually burdening the mass of the nation and continually clogging—or, at any rate, hampering our efforts….If we take the whole period of the rule of the Socialist Party, I think it is fair to say that the mismanagement of our finances over the whole period tells the same tale, or almost the same tale in different terms, as the mismanagement of our defences.”

In April two Labour ministers resigned in protest over the introduction of Health Service charges in the budget. One of them was future Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who had became President of the Board of Trade at age 31, three years younger than Churchill when he had held that post. Churchill, recalling his own experience at the Admiralty during the World War I, expressed sympathy to Wilson through Brendan Bracken, saying that he knew it was even more difficult on the resigning minister’s wife.

Wilson conveyed this to his wife and later wrote in his memoirs: “Two days earlier, I had been a minister of the Crown, red box and all. Now I was reduced to the position of a messenger between [my wife] and Winston Churchill, each of whom burst into tears on receipt of a message from the other.”

By the end of April, Churchill was back on the attack, speaking to the Primrose League at Albert Hall, welcoming Prime Minister Attlee’s return from hospital and chiding the Socialists on their reluctance to schedule a general election: “Mr. Attlee combines a limited outlook with strong qualities of resistance. He now resumes the direction and leadership of that cluster of lion-hearted limpets…who are united by their desire to hold on to office at all costs to their own reputations and their country’s fortunes, and to put off by every means in their power to the last possible moment any contact with our democratic electorate.”

In June, Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary of a recent display of Churchill’s vigor and stamina: “Conscious that many people feel that he is too old to form a Government and that this will probably be used as a cry against him at the election, he has used these days to give a demonstration of energy and vitality. He has voted in every division, made a series of brilliant little speeches; shown all his qualities of humour and sarcasm; and crowned all by a remarkable breakfast (at 7.30 a.m.) of eggs, bacon, sausages and coffee, followed by a large whisky and soda and a huge cigar. This latter feat commanded general admiration.”