GREAT BRITAIN: Apparatus Oiled

The olive branch of peace that Neville Chamberlain said he had brought back from Munich was little more than two months old last week and had already begun to lose its foliage. In fact, Mr. Chamberlain was clutching not much more than a bare stick as he watched the “appeased” Germans unleash their full brutality against the Jews and agitate revolution in Rumania (see p. 15), as he watched the Rumanians shoot and jail their own Nazis, as he watched two wars still going on while French and Italians were worried about another (see p. 16).

A general war in Europe cannot fail to involve Great Britain. That such a war had been stalled but not stymied at Munich many a Briton was suddenly made aware. An old people, with a long tradition of troubles, the British have an easily recognized traditional trouble-shooting apparatus. With high officials sounding dire warnings, with politicians patching up internal differences, with smooth persuaders out trying to make friends abroad, it looked as though the old apparatus was being oiled up last week.

>In a speech at Bradford, President of the Board of Education Earl De La Warr (pronounced “Delaware”) despaired of ever appeasing the dictators: “There is a growing feeling that there is nothing we can do to satisfy them, that friendly words and friendly actions are mistaken for cowardice, and that only armaments can speak effectively.”

>In the House of Commons Prime Minister Chamberlain denied that his subordinate’s speech represented official policy, admitted, however, that it expressed widespread disappointment at the “response the Government’s policy of international appeasement had evoked in Germany.” Mr. Chamberlain added that he saw no inconsistency in trying to be friends and arming to the teeth at the same time.

>Oswald Pirow, lion hunter and air pilot as well as Minister of Defense for the Union of South Africa, returned to London after making the rounds of authoritarian headquarters (Lisbon, Salamanca. Berlin, Rome). Encouraged by the British Government to sound out Adolf Hitler on just how much colonial “appeasement” would satisfy him and to ask other powers how much of their colonies they would hand over, Mr. Pirow’s trip turned out to be a flop. When the Jewish pogroms flared up, German stock in Britain fell to zero, and all thought of giving Germany anything now had to be dropped. Mr. Pirow direly predicted: “Unless there is a complete change of outlook within a month or two the international tension will reach the breaking point during spring of next year.”

>The House of Commons adopted a resolution which made it plain to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini that no colonial handout was in the immediate offing, but did not completely slam the door to future bargaining. The resolution read that “no change in the status of colonies, protectorates or mandated territories could at any time be considered which did not take full account of the interests and wishesof the inhabitants.” The vote was 253 for, 127 against, the opposition Laborites voting “no” only because the resolution wasn’t strong enough for them. Said Colonial and Dominions Secretary Malcolm MacDonald: “The peoples of the colonies are not merely content to be His Majesty’s subjects; they are happy and proud to be so.”

> To dinner last week at 69 Eaton Square, London, the home of former PrimeMinister Stanley Baldwin, now Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, went His Majesty King George VI. Tory that he is, Earl Baldwin invited to eat, drink and smoke informally with His Majesty eight Laborite and Liberal leaders who had never before met the King. Some thought that Earl Baldwin, privately vehemently critical of the Chamberlain Government, was hatching a palace plot against the Prime Minister. Better explanation: the King, symbol of the nation, was simply making friends with men who might be needed in a crisis. This could be gracefully done under the sponsorship of an elder statesman no longer in active politics. No newspaper printed the diners’ names, Buckingham Palace having passed the word down that they should be omitted from news stories to prevent “unfortunate speculation.”

>The Duke of Windsor, in his Prince of Wales days, used to be the British Empire’s most valued traveling salesman and good-will ambassador. Last week Britain had a scarcely less effective good-wilier—as far as the U. S. was concerned—in idealistic, handsome Anthony Eden, former British Foreign Secretary. He arrived in Manhattan on the Aquitania just in time to change from tweeds to tails and go to the annual banquet of the National Association of Manufacturers at the Waldorf-Astoria. There he delivered a long, rambling, formless speech on Democracy and the Modern World which contained many a plug for Britain, many a warily delivered hint that the U. S. and Britain were pretty much in the same boat.

To tall, youthful, handsome Mr. Eden, who resigned as Foreign Secretary rather than try to appease the dictators, it didn’t seem cricket to criticize the Chamberlain Government while in this country. But the British Government had bestowed their blessings on Mr. Eden’s seven-day visit to the U. S. (which was also his first), and many were the rumors in Britain last week that, if his U. S. mission was a success, Anthony Eden might return to the Cabinet. More accurately,the Cabinet might return to Mr. Eden.