1950-12-22 — Page 7

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, DECEMBER

1960.

The Churchill Story 9th Instalment

WHIRLWIND COURTSHIP

TWO

years after he had

By Colin Frame

*.

Naturally he had to face charges of being a turncoat

• crossed the floor to be "Some men change their party | partee, his impudent, boyish,

come

a Liberal, Winston for the sake of their principles; Churchill won his first others their principles for the ministerial post Under- sake of their party," was his

reply. Secretary for the Colonies.

He was then 31. Even now that would be considered a youthful age for а junior Minister.

was

Then It was a startling achiored

His father, who precociously successful in Parliament, did not get a ministerial position until he was 36.

Hurried ambition which had spurred the young Churchill's every step from the cavalry messroom was coming into its own. And, people began to whisper, he was taking its toll, too.

Over-Taxed Strength HT

E stooped more than ever now. His reddish hair was thinning. Ephesian, his early biographer, reports that one day he broke off his speech in the Commons and sat down, cover ing his head with his hands and murmuring apologies.

Had he tried to do too much? Was the physical breakdown and early death of his father to be tragically repeated in his so- similar son?

It was true that he over-taxed his strength at times, Long hours in debate, evening meetings all over the country, hunting which sometimes ended in heavy falls, public and private dinners and night hours spent in authorship-he risked his health with such strenuous

routine.

But strange end to a speech, one of the very few times in half-a-century when Churchill has been at a loss for words, was primarily due to his attempt to change his style. Instead of learning his speech he began to improvise

from a few notes.

In Opposition pure and sim- ple, accompanied by brilliant debating minds like those of Lloyd George, Reginald Mc- Kenna and Walter Runciman, Churchill returned sparklingly to the attack on Balfour.

With his ranks split on tariffs, his front continually under vociferous and bitter attack. Balfour gave up the struggle, went to the country and was terribly beaten.

ON

African Tour

N this, it is fair enough to point out that by crossing the floor Churchill had given hostages to fortuna,

It may have been his, youth, his infuriating ease with re

manner or, by some queer psychological twist, his immense eligibility as a bachelor; but whatever it was, they made his life and his meetings almost un- bearable.

he

JOHNS

Girl With A Bell "GET away, woman, Had he stayed to toe the

once roared exasperatedly Conservative line he was at one of them, In Dundee one followed him practically assured of office young woman much sooner. Two years earlier about forever ringing a dinner he could hardly have foreseen bell

such an out-and-out Liberal victory.

The Parliament to which he returned was a calm between two storms.

More gallantly he remarked on one occasion "I won't at- tempt to compete with a young and pretty lady in a high state of excitement" and he sat down.

"It's no use your being cross," she replied to one of his protests, She was still ringing her bell

out of a coach window as she drove round the town on polling

During its three years it per- mitted Churchill his first act of true statesmanship, an act dear to his heart ever since those adventurous days as a war correspondent in South Africa-day. the proposals for a generous One suffragette bombarded settlement of the Transvaal con him with coke. Another slashed stitution, granting self-govern at him with a riding whip. He ment.

took it away and put it in his It permitted him as Under-pocket. Secretary to tour more romantic About this time he met and one who secretly parts of Africa, shoot a white married

wiLT the cry rhinoceros and invest with due sympathised solemnity a chieftain in a "Votes for Women" but who dazzling kimono which Churchill believed in gentler methods. had bought for himself in Cairo.

Immortal Phrase IT permitted him to utter the first of those immortal phrases which have brought either a smile or a cheer to the lips

of his countrymen "terminological inexactitude."

Churchill first used it, not as many now think to avoid calling a member the unparliamentary word liar, but to describe the battle cry "Chinese Slavery" which the Liberals had them- selves used.

This Parliament had a new- comer on the Tory benches who was in many ways quite as re- markable as Churchill-the tall

and debonair F. E. Smith, later Lord

Birkenhead and Lord

Chancellor.

Miss Clementine Hozier for 42 years "Clemmy" to Winston Churchill, and Mrs Churchill of the fine-boned smiling face to the rest of the world was the daughter of a cavalry officer who became secretary of Lloyds,

They first met at Dundee, where her grandmother, the Countess of Airlie, was a popu- lar figure.v

“THE BATÚRBAY BVRHIKS PORT

1859.

“Ooooh-h-h! Wait'll I get him home.”

FOR THE BUSINESSMAN

Economic Outlook For India:

Optimism Keynote

Calcutta, Dec. 21. Optimism about the economic stability of India was the keynote of the address delivered by Finance Sir Chintaman Deshmukh, the Indian Minister, at the annual meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce.

He said, "India is at the crossroads of her destiny, and I have no doubt that she will take the right road.

12 Re-

com-

Although Churchill could up "Surveying the Indian eco-study free from all political

I am heartened predilections. to then hardly be described as nomic scene,

JUTE INDUSTRY a ladies man-he disliked the by the signs of stability that I

On the jute industry, he said: smart dinner parties and dances can discern through the welter to which his brother, cavalry of immediate difficulties. These, "The Government is fully con- He made the point that the officer Jack Churchill, always especially in the matter of food, scious of the importance of

are serious, but system under which indentured urged him to go; he reckoned admittedly

avoiding any hastily conceived Chinese worked in South African them no place for a serious man with careful management they measures which might adverse mines could not be "classified of the world his courtship was should not be insurmountable y affect the long-term in- as slavery in the extreme ac-almost as rapid and was certain-if the people face the situation terests of the industry.

cool heads and stout ferring to State trading in jute ceptance of the word without ly as successful as that of his with

hearts." Churchill married a some risk of terminological in-father.

he said that the Government Sir Chintaman Deshmukh,

was fully aware of the exactitude."

month before his 34th birthday.

who was replying to an ad-plexities of that expedient and "Powerful If Ugly"

dress of Sir Paul Benthall, its manifold social and economic president ou the Chambers,

He could only complications. FIS father was 24 when he

covered the major aspects of H

assure them that no action would met Miss Jenny Jerome, Indian economic policy, and be taken without full considera- nineteen-year-old American said: "We in the Government tion of all aspects of the ques- beauty, and within three days have a lively realisation of the tion. He added

that as well his proposal had been accepted. importance of maintaining law as the technical assistance under Churchill's wedding at Stand order and of creating the co-operative economic de- Margaret's, Westminster, was economic conditions conducive velopment plan evolved at the the event of the autumn. Lord to inducing the production of

recent London conference, India Hugh Cecil, his ally of his old wealth."

1 was likely to receive technical Tory days, was best man. Referring to Indo-Pakistani aid under President Truman's

The bride brought to the trade, Sir Chintaman Deshmukh Point Four programme, ceremony her own pale and said that no efforts had heen Reference to deteriorating dis- distinguished beauty, but Philip lacking on their part to arriva cipline among industrial labour, Guedalla in his biography "Mr at a suitable solution. All wat resulting in a fall in the pro- Churchill" reports that the they desired was the par value ductive capacity of the worker, bridegroom looked "powerful of the Pakistani rupee

was made by Sir Paul Benthall fixed as the result of objective in his presidential address, and he said that without discipline in the factories there could be no hope of industrial progress in India, and capital, both Indian and foreign, would remain shy of investment in Indian in- dustry.

In this election of 1906 the Liberals swept all before them. Manchester sent Churchill back with a handsome majority to become Under-Secretary for Smith. the Colonies.

Unsparing Duel

OR the next eight years members were to enjoy, as 'they have rarely enjoyed since, a continuous; breathless, un- sparing duel between the youth ful brilliants-Churchill and

Privately they became great Blood was shed in that friends. Publicly they asked election. Crowds, so famed had and gave no quarter in the cut he become as a personality to be and thrust of their debate, if ugly." seen and heard if not approved, Churchill slashing magnificently flocked to his meetings. Several with the sabre, Smith con- people were injured in a temptuously pointing with his stampede at one and the floor pionard as if it were all rather fell in at another.

a bore..

"Let justice be done even though the floor falls in," shouted Churchill as some of his supporters slipped into an empty swimming bath below their feet.

They honeymooned first at Blenheim Palace, Churchill's birthplace, and then in Italy.

And they returned to live in Queen Anne's Gate, gay with There were stories that the wedding presents from the King more brilliant of their exchanges and Queen and the Cabinet, and were carefully rehearsed be- from admirers 25 candlesticks, tween them in the Commonster cigarette cases, eight sets of smoking room.

salt-cellars and 21 inkstands,

Dundee election Churchill

"Churchill," drawled Smith Roof Squatters once in that devastating Oxford Two years later at his second Manner which completely squashed lesser men, "has spent JEST A MINUTE: the best years of his life pre- paring his impromptu speeches." Suffragettes

BY GEOFFREY EVANS

was still a target for suffragettes. His first child, Diana (now Mrs Duncan Sandys) was specially guarded in her pram because it was feared the suffragettes would kidnap her,

N 1908 Churchill fought two more elections. He became President of the Board of Trade Three women climbed peri- and had a seat in the Cabinet. Iously into the roof of one hall Under the rules of those days and demanded votes throughout a Cabinet post meant a by his speech by shouting down election and this time Mana ventilator, chester turned him down. Enjoving all hugely, Mrs Joynson-Hicks, the Tory--later Churchill sat with her husband "Jix." Home Secretary was his on the platform and waved conqueror.

gally at the roof squatters while her husband spoke.

But within a couple of days he was in Dundee to try again, and this time he was rewarded with a magnificent majority.

The success and continued happiness of this marriage was made so apparent during the He fought Ave elections at heightened history of the past, Dundee and won all but the last decade that it is known to the He represented that constituency | world. for 14 years.

Lef the last. Worl

* Women, many in general and forn

| one In particular, now Invaded

STANDARD

to be

BRIDGE

By M. Harrison-Gray

Dealer: North Love all

N

4 2

J 10.7 6 4

K 9:4 Q 10

E.

83

AK742

S.

K 865 9 2

863

AQ85 32 5

This hand from the 1949 Anglo-American match is a good example of the compli cations caused by the use of the forcing Jump raise. The American East opened One Club -and South bid. One Diamond. West was not strong enough for Three Clubs, so he temporised with One Spade. North bid: Two Diamonds, East Two Spades and South Three Diamonds; found another West: now weird bid Three Hearts and Fast for some mysterious reason bid Four Clubs which everyone passed, and Ma

In Room 2 the Brtiah West bid a non-forcing Three CHES

Bouth's One

· over Diamond: East, made a-

ira)

Tin

London

Market

London, Dec. 21,

The tin price came down with a rush this morning, Turnover was 40 tons, including five tong

for spot.

1,205

1215

1,210

Prices closed today at the end of the official morning session as follows:- Spot un, buyers Spot tin, sellers Business done at Three-months tin, buyers 1,870 Three-months tin, sellers 1,080 Business done at Settlement

1065-1.000

1,210,

-United Press.

LONDON RUBBER

London, Dec. 21, # Prices in the rubber futures closed today es