August 7, 2013

Finest Hour 120, Autumn 2003

Page 28

By Michael McMenamin

125 Years Ago:

Autumn 1878 • Age 4

“A woman of exceptional capacity”

Famine had come to Ireland again in 1877 with the failure of the potato crop, and continued for two years while young Winston was still in residence with his parents and grandparents. Government aid was totally insufficient and Churchill’s grandmother, the Duchess of Marlborough, initiated a famine relief fund.

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In his biography of his father, Churchill described his grandmother as “a woman of exceptional capacity, energy and decision, and she laboured earnestly and ceaselessly to collect and administer a great fund. Its purposes were to supply food, fuel and clothing, especially for the aged and weak; to provide small sums to keep the families of able-bodied men in temporary distress out of the workhouse; and thirdly, while carefully guarding against any kind of proselytism, to give grants to schools, so as to secure free meals of bread and potatoes and, if possible, a little clothing for the children attending them.”

100 Years Ago:

Autumn 1903’Age 29

“I am an English Liberal. I hate the Tory party…”

The writer Wilfrid Blunt recorded in his diary for October, 1903 his impressions upon meeting Churchill: “a little square headed fellow of not very striking appearance, but of wit, intelligence, and originality. In mind and manner he is a strange replica of his father, with all his fathers suddenness and assurance, and I should say more than his father’s ability….I should not be surprised if he had his father’s success. He has a power of writing Randolph never had, who was a schoolboy with his pen, and he has education and political tradition. He interested me immensely.”

While Churchill had not finally determined to leave the Tory Party to join the Liberals over the issue of free trade versus protectionism, he was drawing close. In October, Prime Minister Balfour gave a speech favoring retaliatory tariffs. An insight into Churchill’s reaction can be found in a letter he wrote (but did not send) to his close friend, Lord Hugh Cecil:

“I am an English Liberal. I hate the Tory party, their men, their words & their methods. I feel no sort of sympathy with them….It is therefore my intention that before Parliament meets, my separation from the Tory party and the Government shall be complete & irrevocable; & during the next session I propose to act consistently with the Liberal party. This will no doubt necessitate re-election which I shall not hesitate to face with all its chances.”

In early December, Churchill wrote to Bourke Cockran, his American friend and mentor who had influenced him greatly on free trade: “I was glad to get your letter and also to read in the ‘Democratic Campaign Guide of Massachusetts’ your excellent Free Trade speech. We are fighting very hard here, but I think on the whole, the outlook is encouraging….I wish you would Send me some good free trade speeches that have been made in America, and some facts about corruption, lobbying, and so forth….It is rather an inspiring reflection to think that so many of us on both sides of the Atlantic are fighting in a common cause—you to attack protection, we to defend Free Trade. I think what the double victory would mean for the wealth and welfare of the world.”

75 Years Ago:

Autumn 1928-Age 54

“He thinks [the Americans] are.. .fundamentally hostile “

Given his American mother and the influence of the Irish-American Bourke Cockran, it is natural but quite incorrect to assume that Churchill always cherished the “special relationship” between Great Britain and the United States. It is not well known, for example, that in 1915, while Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, naval intelligence agents arrested future U.S. President Herbert Hoover on suspicion of espionage for his efforts to ship food to Belgium through the British naval blockade.

The autumn of 1928, during Churchill’s last year as Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave him ample opportunity to voice his negative views on U.S. foreign policy which, equally incorrectly. is usually portrayed as having been “isolationist” during the Twenties. On German reparations the United States was pressing Britain and France for reductions, without offering any relief to either country on repayment of U.S. war loans. In a letter on 9 September, Churchill wrote, “We have given everything, and paid everything, and we cannot make any new sacrifice.” Two days later, he told French Prime Minister Poincare’ that “the taxpayers of the United Kingdom…should receive from Europe enough to pay America.”

The Earl of Dundee, visiting Chartwell in September, recorded in his diary: “Winston is building with his own hands a house for his butler, and also a new garden wall. He works at bricklaying four hours a day, and lays ninety bricks an hour, which is a very high output. He also spends a considerable time on the last volume of his war memoirs which he is writing. His ministerial work comes down from the Treasury every day, and he has to give some more hours to that. It is a marvel how much time he gives to his guests, talking sometimes for an hour after lunch and much longer after dinner. He is an exceedingly kind and generous host, providing unlimited Champagne, cigars and brandy.”

But the Americans were on Churchill’s mind: “Winston talked very freely about the USA. He thinks they are arrogant, fundamentally hostile to us, and that they wish to dominate world politics. He thinks their ‘Big Navy’ talk is a bluff which we ought to call. He considers we ought to say firmly that we must decide for ourselves how large a navy we require, and that America must do the same.”

In November, Churchill wrote to his wife commenting on an anti-British speech by President Coolidge: “My blood boiled too….Why can’t they let us alone? They have exacted every penny owing from Europe; they say they are not going to help; surely they might leave us to manage our own affairs.” The United States had also been attempting in 1928 to secure the further disarmament of the armies of Britain, France and itself. Churchill opposed this, writing to a friend, “We always seem to be getting into trouble over these stupid disarmament manoeuvres and personally I deprecate all these premature attempts to force agreements on disarmament….”

November also saw the United States pressing hard for world naval disarmament negotiations which, so far, Britain had refused to enter. When a colleague circulated a note to the Cabinet warning of hostile American opinion on this refusal, Churchill responded by urging them to hold to their position: “I am decidedly of opinion that this would be a great mistake. We shall never agree among ourselves either to abandon our belligerent rights at sea or to cut the British Navy down by treaty to the limits which the United States considers suitable for herself. Any attempt to enforce such an agreement would divide the Conservative Party from end to end on the eve of the Election….”

Had Churchill a vote, the last American Presidential election in which he would have voted Republican was 1920. Writing to his wife about Herbert Hoover’s landslide victory in 1928 he said, “So Hoover has swept the board—I feel this is not good for us. Poor old England—she is being slowly but surely forced into the shade.”

50 Years Ago:

Autumn 1953-Age 79

“His growl was as frightening as ever”

Churchill spent the latter half of September in the South of France on holiday with his daughter Mary, who wrote to her mother that: “Papa is in good health—but alas, low spirits—which Chimp [Christopher Soames] and I are unable to remedy. He feels his energy and stamina to be on an ebb tide. He is struggling to make up his mind what to do. I’m sure you know the form—you have been witnessing it all these months….He thinks much of you & wonders what you are doing….Chimp & I are having a lovely time—bathing—reading—cards & and we love being with Papa—only we yearn to be able to do more than be the mere witnesses
(however loving) of his sadness.”

Returning home, Churchill began preparation for his 10 October speech to the party conference in Margate, his first since his still unpublicized stroke that summer. Here he revealed his intention to continue as Prime Minister:

“If I stay on for the time being bearing the burden at my age it is not because of love for power or office. I have had an ample share of both. If I stay it is because I have a feeling that I may through things that have happened have an influence on what I care about above all else, the building of a sure and lasting peace.”

On 20 October, for the first time since his stroke, Churchill attended the House for Questions, a much awaited event at which he acquitted himself well. Speaking a few days later to Lord Moran, Clementine Churchill was alternately displeased and proud: “He promised me he would retire when Anthony was fit to carry on and now when Anthony is perfectly fit he just goes on as before….But the trouble is, Charles, that his stock has actually risen, until they say it has not been so high for a long time….The old lion could still issue from his den, and when he did his growl was as frightening as ever….he strode up a long corridor in the House of Commons, swinging his arms as if he were twenty.”

On November 3rd, Churchill made his first speech in the House since his stroke, touching on familiar themes of denationalizing the economy. Henry Channon noted in his diary that it was one of the best speeches of Churchill’s lifetime: “Brilliant, full of cunning and charm, of wit and thrusts, he poured out his Macaulay-like phrases to, a stilled and awed house. It was an Olympian spectacle. A supreme performance which we shall never see again from him or anyone else.”

In early November, the Soviet Union rejected a suggested meeting of foreign ministers from Britain, France and the United States but, a week later, President Eisenhower accepted Churchill’s invitation for a summit meeting in Bermuda in early December with France, Great Britain and the United States.