Second Section
Hongkong Telegraph.
Magazine Features
SATURDAY, MAY
1941.
Winston Churchill in boyhood,
when he was a student at Harrow.
TRANGE things happened in Britain when it was given Winston Churchill as Prime Minister. It was as if an electric current had been passed through two substances which, by chemical com- bination, suddenly became another. Mr Churchill found himself, and Great Britain found itself. Doubts resolved themselves, and it seemed that the Nation, as one man, fully realised why it was at war, how it must wage war, and to what end it must go on fighting.
There was little in the previous history of Britain or of Mr Churchill to indicate such a wed- ding. As a young man he had a coruscating career, and was admired for his dash, his daring, and often for his presumption. But he was not -a popular idol, and even in the House of Commons he was seldom closely in touch with the rank and file of his party, receiving general praise for his brilliance but little sympathy from any but his personal frienda, Had it not been for that circle of friends he would have seemed a lonely man in public life, n strange mixture of radicalism and conservatism, now offending the radicals by his conservatism, now disturbing the conservatives by disconcerting streaks of radicalism.
In the last war Churchill's actions were constantly misunderstood. He got the discredit for the Dardanelles disaster, though the wise Dardanelles project which he suggested was never adopted. He pressed the case for the tank long before it was adopted by the Army. For more than thirty years he was regarded as one of the most talented men in public life. Yet it was generally supposed that he was not enough of a party man over to be a party leader.
IT is strange to look back on Mr Churchill's past and compare it with the present. In advanced life, in an hour of need, the Nation has discovered.
Honeymooning with his wife in
1908.
He was then President of the Board of Trade.
After Sandhurst, he fought for Cuba in 1895 as a young Hussar officer,
CHURCHILL,
A LEADER
IN WAR
By R. A. Scott James
him. His past aloofness from party politics now stands him in good stead. His sturdy.indepen- dence, his good-humoured indifference to criti- cism, his contempt for political cant, his candour, are qualities which inspire confidence among ad- ministrators, soldiers and sailors, business men and the runk and file of the nation.
Here-was-one-who-had-spoken-consistently about Germany and Italy and Britain's relation to them for years before the war began. Here was a man, British to the core, with British virtues and faults, understandable to the man-in- the-street and understanding him, with a know- ledge of war and a passionate belief in liberty, a powerful administrator, an intrepid commander, and, above all, a man of great simplicity with the capacity to reduce great issues to their simpler.
terms.
There is none other in Britain's greater wars in which it had the advantage in equal degree of being ruled by a man so completely acceptable to all parties and classes in the community. William
First Lord of the Admiralty in 1912, he learns to fly.
in India (1896-98) he fights re- bellious tribes and plays polo. Right: Campaigning in 1900 for election as an M.P.
Pitt, who was Prime Minister in the most critical years of the war against Napoleon, had bitter, able and vocal enemies at home. David Lloyd George, who has a wider range of talents than Mr Churchill, throughout the whole of his Pre- miership in the Great War, as well as after, had to contend against political opponents both in the administration and in the Services,
Mr Churchill has no such handicap. The Tories adinire his handling of the Services. Moderate Conservatives and Liberals delight in his generosity, his open-mindedness and his energy. The Labour Party welcomes him as a man who sees eye to eye with it about the menace of Fascism and Nazism, and will allow no one to grind an axe for privilege. The man-in-the-street loves him for his courage, his frankness, his humour, his magnanimity and his likeness, on a larger scale, to himself,
THIS war differs from all previous wars in that it depends to a greater degree on qualities other than those which constitute genius. In the last war the German Generals acquired more influence and prestige than the Kaiser. At the approach of the present war there were some who supposed that when hostilities began the German Generals would become more important than Hitler. That 'supposition arose from a mistaken conception of
modern totalitarian war.
A leader to-day must be a leader of the whole nation. The energy with which civilian workers are aroused to enthusiasm in their work is no less important than the energy with which soldiers are led into battle. Hitler has succeeded in evok- ing the aggressive spirit of Nazism as no mere soldier could have done. It is Britain's good fortune that she found in Mr Churchill a-man equally capable of evoking the zeal of the British.
Goes to the front in 1916, and narrowly escapes death. Right; -Leaving hospital after recover- ing from paratyphoid in 1932.