Character in Question

Winston Churchill's critics at home were little more impressed than Australia by the smash hit he scored in Washington. Angered by Britain's performances in Hong Kong and Malaya, they cried more loudly than ever that the Prime Minister's Government is deadweighted with stiff, obsolete wearers of The Old School Tie.

Said the solid, scholarly Economist: "Once again an enemy has been underestimated. Once again the impregnable has been assaulted. Once again British forces have gone out to battle inadequately supported from the air. Once again the boasts of the week before the campaign began have been made to look silly. Once again the public have been fed on stories of heroic stands and gallant retreats. . . ."

Said the liberal, keen New-Statesman and Nation: "At this point we face something even more unpleasant than incompetence. No one will complain that Penang was deliberately evacuated while there was time to withdraw its white inhabitants. But reports insist that its docks and its electric power station were left intact for the enemy's use [see p. 21] and subsequent denials only cover half the charges.

"In all this, we face a failure so general that the inadequacy of this man or the other cannot account for it. A ruling class was on its trial and here, as in Norway and Crete, it has broken down. A national tradition has for generations discouraged intelligence and science, to concentrate on sports and what it calls Character. Here is the result. History may decide that the kind of character that led the Russians to scorch their earth and blow up their Dnieper Dam has the higher survival value."

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