Sticks and Stones

For the first time since Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, millions of Britons last week began seriously to question his abilities. The progressive, widely read News Chronicle, asked: "Have we not been hypnotized by Mr. Churchill's personality, by the force of his rhetoric, by his hold on the House of Commons? Have we not been drugged . . . into a frame of mind in which we've lost our grip on realities?"

Almost alone among the angry national newspapers, Lord Beaverbrook's Daily Express argued: "The horse Churchill is pulling a heavy load uphill. What do we do to that horse? Beat him with sticks? Or get behind the wagon and give him a hand?"

The Tea was Bitter. Although the disastrous rout in Malaya held the gravest military consequences for the United Nations, it would not, by itself, have provoked the violent political storm which began raging in Britain at week's end. The escape of the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, however, was an altogether different cup of tea. Hitler could not have concocted a bitterer brew. Any reverse at sea makes an Englishman gulp. But the violation of the English Channel by a mediocre Nazi fleet made the British definitely ill.

The Churchill Government also suffered further embarrassment. Three members of the Liberal National Party, which since 1931 has supported the Conservatives, resigned. Two of them announced that they would function as "independent" members of the House of Commons, while advocating a new Government of National Union with strong Empire representation. The third, moonfaced, ambitious, onetime War Secretary Leslie Hore-Belisha (whom Churchill thoroughly detests and whom his son Randolph once described as "Britain's No. 1 Racketeer Politician"), stated that he would continue to support the Government. But many Britons guessed that he considered the eventual fall of Churchill a good gamble.

On top of all this, Parliament and the nation were disappointed with the powers given to Lord Beaverbrook as Minister of War Production (TIME, Feb. 16). Although Beaverbrook's job was compared to Donald Nelson's in the U.S., it was clear that, at best, the Beaver will have only a half-Nelson on war production. Power over labor remains the primary concern of his rival, Ernest Bevin. The Supply Ministers will still answer to Parliament and may appeal over Lord Beaverbrook's head to the War Cabinet. About the only person who seemed satisfied with the appointment was Lord Beaverbrook himself. Chirped he: "I am willing to mix diplomacy with decisions, providing I always get the decisions."

The Problem was Personal. With his political position thus seriously threatened, and with no compensating event (such as Russia's or America's entry into the war) to mollify the nation's dissatisfaction, Churchill faced a battle to the finish between his vanity and his stubbornness. If stubbornness won, Churchill might shortly be swept out of No. 10 Downing Street. If vanity won, to hold the Prime Ministership, he would be forced to make drastic changes in the Government's personnel and policies. It was anybody's guess what Churchill would do.

The Crime Would Be Mortal. In the darkest hour since Dunkirk, Churchill's voice reached untold millions of British subjects in a broadcast from 10 Downing Street. There was plenty of fight still left in his tough, pudgy frame, but he was more somber, less eloquent than he had ever been before. "All I have to offer," he said, "is hard adverse war for many months ahead. . . . Many misfortunes, severe, tortuous losses, remorseless and gnawing anxieties, lie before us."

Of Singapore he said: "A ceaseless stream of ships, men and materials have flowed from this country for a year and a half in order to build up and sustain our armies in the Middle East. We had to do our best to give substantial aid to Russia. . . . How then, in this posture, gripped and held and battered as we were, could we have provided for the safety of the Far East against such an avalanche of fire and steel as has been hurled upon us by Japan?"

Of the U.S. he said: "When I survey and compute the power of the United States and its vast resources and feel that they are now in it with us . . . I cannot believe that there is any other fact in the whole world which can compare with that."

Of Russia he said: "The Russian armies have not been defeated. . . . They are advancing victoriously, driving the foul invaders from that native soil they have guarded so bravely and loved so well."

But Churchill failed to utter even a syllable on the one subject uppermost in British minds: the escape of the German ships through the Channel. To his critics he turned what those critics call the stubborn side of his character--the stubborn side which carried Britain through her darkest previous hours: "One fault, one crime and one crime only can rob the United Nations and the British people . . . of the victory upon which their lives and honor depends: a weakening in our purpose, and therefore in our unity. That is the mortal crime."

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