Cabinet on Brink

The luxury of rage was recklessly indulged in, last week, by the big, pugnacious, florid statesman who guards the Empire's money bags, the Rt. Hon. Winston ("Winnie") Leonard Spencer Churchill.

As he faced the House of Commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed mad clear through. His wrath was due to an attempt by members of his own party (Conservative) to block a measure which, if passed, would effect important savings to the Treasury--savings perhaps sufficient to enable Mr. Churchill to face the voters at the forthcoming election with his budget not too precariously balanced. As his wishes were flouted by his own colleagues the Chancellor, seated grimly on the Treasury Bench, grew first pink and then red with rage, was seen to clench and unclench several times his large and sinewy hands.

How dared Conservatives fail to fall in behind the Chancellor? The fact of their daring proved once more how muddlesome and namby-pamby is the leadership of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Last week the Party was definitely split and undetermined on the issue presented by Mr. Churchill's money bill: namely, should the Government pay in whole or in part the allowed claims of loyal Irish subjects of His Majesty who had suffered destruction of their property during the Sinn Fein insurrections (1916-20). Should a Loyalist whose mansion had been burned down by mobsmen get a whole new house, or just a cottage? Apparently Mr. Churchill felt that a cottage would be adequate, especially since the saving would help to balance his budget.

Too often judgments based on such opportunism prevail among statesmen, but England has still her champions of morality. Whate'er betide, none will be found stauncher than two famed scions of the historic House of Cecil. The elder of these two brothers, Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, winner of the Woodrow Wilson $25,000 Peace Award (TIME, Dec. 15, 1924), resigned as British delegate to the League of Nations when he came to feel that the Empire was not fulfilling its whole moral duty to the League.

The younger brother, who rushed into the House of Commons fray last week, is Lord Hugh Cecil.

"Lord Hugh" is a name with which to conjure down the very angels of Morality. For 30 years this sombre yet brilliant High Churchman has been what Britons call a "pillar of reform." During the War he showed the fine, tempered metal of the Cecils by learning to fly and how to shoot down the enemy. Not for nothing was his great ancestor, the First Earl of Salisbury (circa 1565-1612), the strongest and wisest counselor of Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. Last week with every blue drop of his Cecil blood a-boiling, Lord Hugh rose to confront and confound Winston Churchill.

"Economy," thundered Lord Hugh, "does not mean the refusal to pay a debt of honor. That is called by a name too harsh to be heard within this House. It was England that deprived the Loyalists in Southern Ireland of the protection of the British Parliament and British law [by creating the Irish Free State]; and since they were driven from their homes, in many cases penniless, the least that England can do is to compensate them in full !" Pausing at the conclusion of his speech and sweeping the House with earnest, brooding eyes Lord Hugh exclaimed, "Those who have explored the depths of this grievance ought to divide [vote] against the Government. I earnestly hope that the Government will be defeated! I think that the Government will deserve to be defeated."

So potent was the tug of this appeal that a hasty canvass by Government whips showed that beyond a doubt the Cabinet must have fallen had a vote been taken then. None the less, Chancellor Churchill had worked himself up to such a purple pitch that the whispered pleading of the whips moved him not a jot or tittle. There was but one thing to do. Chief Whip Commander Bolton M. E. Monsell sent a limousine roaring up Whitehall to fetch the Prime Minister. Ten minutes later paunchy Stanley Baldwin rushed panting through the long corridors of Westminster and into the House. Lucky as usual, Squire Baldwin was in time. Without a glance at the Chancellor, who sat morose and downcast, the Prime Minister took the floor and exclaimed breathlessly, "In view of the expressions of opinion reported to me, I am perfectly prepared to move to 'report progress' on this bill and ask leave to sit again, with a view to re-examining the whole situation in the light of this debate."

Seldom has a Government had a narrower squeak, and seldom indeed has even headstrong "Winnie" Churchill deserved so stinging a rebuke. Folding his arms and scowling at a point on the floor some six feet before his toes, the Chancellor endured in stony silence a chorus of Labor jeers: "Go on, get up and resign! Be a man! Show your backbone! Resign!" When the tempest had blown itself out, Mr. Churchill rose, stalked from the House. Next morning Laborites guffawed when their Captain William Wedgwood Benn, M. P., gravely and solicitously enquired of Mr. Baldwin, "Is there a Cabinet vacancy at the Exchequer?" Two days later the Prime Minister briefly announced that the Government was now prepared to pay the adjudged claims of Irish Loyalists in full.

Such a four-day political melodrama could not be staged by U. S. statesmen. It can only be accounted for in England by remembering the allround uniqueness of the Rt. Hon.. Winston Churchill. He has been twice a Conservative and was a Liberal-Coalitionist in between. As a promising young M. P. he seemed to be dyed-in-the-wool Conservative, and for years he and Lord Hugh Cecil headed a group of "young men in a hurry," and were thick as two angels before the Fall. Temptation presently lured Angel Churchill into the Lloyd George Coalition Cabinet which gave Home Rule to Ireland (1920), despite the furious protests of Conservatives. It was these peppery die-hards who were ready, last week, to work off their old grudge against Mr. Churchill even at the cost of toppling down the Cabinet. Had the Government actually fallen, it would presumably have been reformed at once, minus Mr. Churchill; and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin would then have faced the election with a Cabinet which the Chancellor's enemies would consider all the stronger for lack of his perpetual alarums and excursions.