April 25, 2015

Finest Hour 119, Summer 2003

Page 16

By Michael McMenamin

125 Years Ago:

Summer 1878 »Age 3

“I think the Conservative Party are gone mad”

The Congress of Berlin took place in the summer of 1878 in the wake of the Russo-Turkish War, which at one point had threatened to escalate into an Anglo-Russian war if the Russians seized the Dardanelles Straits or the Gallipoli Peninsula. Lord Randolph Churchill had privately opposed Disraeli’s policy of threatening war with Russia, writing at one point to a Liberal Party friend: “I think the Conservative party are gone mad. Their speeches are calculated to provoke war.”

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In the event, war was avoided and, in the Treaty of Berlin of 13 July, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli succeeded in rolling back many territorial gains achieved by the Russians. As Disraeli’s biographer Robert Blake wrote: “Disraeli was now at the height of his fame and fortune. The Treaty of Berlin was regarded throughout the country as a major victory for British diplomacy. The old Jew was indeed the man.”

Churchill’s mother Jennie traveled to London that summer to attend the “Peace with Honour” banquet given for Disraeli. She reported her enjoyment at his description of his old adversary Gladstone as being “inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity”—a comment strikingly similar to one Neville Chamberlain would make fifty years later about her son Winston.

100 Years Ago:

Summer 1903-Age 28

“I can’t help admiring Chamberlain’s courage”

The Free Trade/Protection debate was at the center of affairs in the summer of 1903 and the young Churchill was among the most articulate and effective of the free traders. Sir Edward Hamilton wrote in his diary that Churchill “is taking a very devoted line against C. [Joseph Chamberlain]. He is thoroughly in earnest about it and it does him credit, for it is doubtful whether he is playing the card best for himself…It is the fashion to run him down — but I think there is a great deal in him and that he is bound to win in the long run.”

In a speech to the Commons on 29 July 1903, Churchill painted in lurid terms the internal political and economic consequences of protectionist policies: “What is the experience of all the European nations who have adopted the bounty system? They have reduced themselves to an astonishing position. Vast industries of poor people, artificially stimulated, exerting considerable political power, and using that political power to maintain and even increase that artificial stimulation; giant trusts enjoying a complete monopoly of the home market, making enormous profits out of the home consumer, and no doubt using the wealth thus obtained still further to influence the Government machinery. As the result of this state of things over-production on a prodigious scale; cut-throat competition between the trusts for the free English market; enormous exportations at unprofitable prices, and encouragement by the Government…which increases year by year at an astonishing rate.”

Churchill then explained that protectionist policies were not necessary for more developed countries to compete with newer countries because “I think we ought to contemplate that evolution and the transference of our people from being, as it were, hewers of wood and drawers of water to the more elaborate processes of manufacture with unmixed satisfaction. But if we are to find that outlet for our strength, energy and skill, it will be only by utilising our resources of capital…” The real problem with protectionists, Churchill helpfully suggested, was that “They watch the river flowing to the sea, and they wonder how long it will be before the land is parched and drained of all its water. They do not observe the fertilising showers by which in the marvelous economy of nature the water is restored to the land.”

Churchill retained respect for his chief Protectionist adversary, Joseph Chamberlain, writing to his mother in August that “I cannot help admiring Chamberlain’s courage. I do not believe he means to give way an inch, and I think he is quite prepared to sacrifice his whole political position and Austen’s [his son’s] as well, for the cause in which he is so wrapped up.”

75 Years Ago:

Summer 1928-Age 53

“A brilliant wayward child”

Free trade and protectionism were still splitting the Conservative Party twenty-five summers later. Leo Amery urged “protection ‘as a remedy for the present difficult unemployment situation, giving our industries some measure of shelter in the home market.'” Meanwhile, Lord Derby wrote to Churchill on 25 July that protectionists like Amery “ruined our party once and they will ruin it again if they have their way….Take care that there is not an attack on Free Trade disguised under a vendetta against you.”

In August, Churchill wrote to his wife on the significance of Prime Minister Baldwin’s leaving for France and not placing Churchill in charge of the House of Commons in his absence as Churchill had expected: “All this reveals how serious is the handicap I have had to carry in the party by warning them off the protectionist question.”

In an August 12th letter to Lord Irwin, Neville Chamberlain described Churchill in terms reminiscent of Disraeli on Gladstone: “One doesn’t often come across a real man of genius or, perhaps, appreciate him when one does. Winston is such a man….To listen to him on the platform or in the house is sheer delight. The art of the arrangement, the unexpected turn, the master of sparkling humour, and the torrent of picturesque adjectives combine to put his speeches in a class by themselves. Then as you know there is no subject on which he is not prepared to propound some novel theory and to sustain and illustrate his theory with cogent and convincing arguments. So quickly does his mind work in building up a case that it frequently carries him off his own feet….In the consideration of affairs his decisions are never founded on exact knowledge, nor on careful or prolonged consideration of the pros and cons. He seeks instinctively for the large and preferably the novel idea such as is capable of representation by the broadest brush….There is too deep a difference between our natures for me to feel at home with him or to regard him with affection. He is a brilliant wayward child who compels admiration but who wears out his guardians with the constant strain he puts upon them.”

50 Years Ago:

Summer 1953-Age 78

“The French want the best of all worlds”

With Anthony Eden unwell and scheduled for surgery in America, Churchill was fulfilling the duties of both Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary in the summer of 1953, thereby assuming de facto the only cabinet office he had not held de jure. But the strain was showing.

On 23 June, Lord Moran wrote in his diary: “When I saw the PM today he seemed played out—as he was at Cairo before the Carthage illness. I thought his speech was slurred and a little indistinct. Twice I had to ask him to repeat what he had said. He said the Foreign Office was very hard work. I asked him must he really carry the burden of the FO until the autumn? He said he must. I told him I was unhappy about the strain, that it was an impossible existence and that I hoped he would find he could do something about it. He grunted and picked up some papers.”

It was another of the Hinges of Fate that Churchill had written about in his war memoirs. That same night, Churchill held a dinner for the Italian Prime Minister, Alcide De Gasperi, during which he suffered a massive stroke. His condition worsened so that, three days later, his entire left side was paralysed and Lord Moran told Churchill’s secretary, John Colville, that he “did not think the Prime Minister could possibly live over the weekend.” But not for the first time Winston Churchill would defy predictions.

Churchill survived well beyond the weekend but was counseled to postpone a summer summit in Bermuda with President Eisenhower. Five days had made a huge difference. As Colville recorded in his memoirs: “By Monday morning, the Prime Minister, instead of being dead, was feeling very much better….He told me that he thought probably that this must mean his retirement, but that he would see how he went on, and that if he had recovered sufficiently well to address the Tory party at their annual Meeting in October at Margate, he would continue in office.”

Churchill’s mental faculties were not affected by the stroke at all, and on 1 July he wrote to both President Eisenhower and separately to General Bedell Smith. To Eisenhower he explained his medical condition: “I am so sorry to be the cause of upsetting so many plans. I had a sudden stroke which as it developed completely paralysed my left side and affected my speech….Four years ago, in 1949, I had another similar attack and was for a good many days unable to sign my name. As I was out of office I kept this secret and have managed to work through two General Elections and a lot of other business since.”

To Bedell Smith, he enclosed (at Eisenhower’s request) all draft chapters of the last volume of World War II memoirs which contained references to Eisenhower: “The differences cannot be wholly concealed or glossed over. They belong to history. And the final judgment on them will be made by the historians of the future. I hope you will think that I have handled them fairly and with no intent to prejudge the verdict of history.”

On 6 July, Churchill made a foreign policy observation to a visitor, Sir William Strang, about the French in the context of European unity which resonates today: “[the French] want the best of all worlds—not to fight in the war, but to remain a great power.”

On 7 July, Churchill recited from memory to Lord Moran a thirty-four line poem by Longfellow, prompting the physician to record in his diary: “He is confiding in no one, but he means to carry on if he is able, and the question whether he will be able is hardly ever out of his head. This is his secret battle. There are moments when he does not want to do anything, when a dreadful apathy settles on him and he nearly loses heart. But he always sets his jaw and hangs on.”

By 18 August, Churchill had fully recovered and was back in London presiding over the first cabinet meeting since his stroke. As Norman Brook observed to Lord Moran: “Winston let other people talk more than usual perhaps—he certainly talked less himself. No one noticed anything strange in his speech, and he walked to his seat much as he usually does. He had dipped his foot in water, and it wasn’t cold; he wants to go on. This isn’t the moment to make decisions about retiring.”