Low on Chamberlain

World affairs lately have made bad news to most people, but they have proved a godsend to the art of David Low. By far the best British cartoonist, Low has been drawing brilliant political cartoons for 36 of his 47 years, but never before have events so played into his dexterous hands, given him a cast of characters so suited to his talents, created so many situations to outrage his liberalist sensibilities, or presented him with so much international double-dealing, blundering and inhumanity to whet the anger that guides his pen.

Five years ago Cartoonist Low complained that he did not have an opportunity to do justice to ''the vulture glare in Mr. Neville Chamberlain's eye." Since that time Mr. Chamberlain has become Prime Minister, and it is hard to see how he could have undertaken policies more offensive to David Low than those he has followed. How offended Low has been was revealed last week when copies of his latest book of cartoons-- reached the U. S. from London. A collection of 146 drawings chosen from his contributions to the London Evening Standard, the book contained an entire new gallery of subjects for Low's caricatures. But it was principally notable for its merciless caricatures of tall, lean, sloping Neville Chamberlain.

For all their acid comments, Low's cartoons have usually had an owlish, good-natured air that kept them from being really bitter. He presented people as stupid and self-righteous rather than wicked or frightening. For years his satire has been summed up in Colonel Blimp, a pathetically pompous old walrus who inhabits a Turkish bath and periodically sounds off. "Gad, sir," exclaims the Colonel, in a cartoon called Onward, Colonel Blimp! "the reason our government is always getting kicked in the pants is that it doesn't stand with its back to the wall." Although Low has carried on systematic campaigns against English politicians in the past, native good nature suffused his drawings of them: Eden always looked timid and well-meaning; Squire Baldwin crafty and battered but not dangerous; Lloyd George disarmingly arch and jolly even when, by Cartoonist Low's lights, he was up to no good. There is no such warmth in Low's caricatures of Chamberlain. His overhanging eyebrows matching the steep curve of his mustache, his cadaverous features alternately harried and self-righteous, he appears in one Low drawing after another as sly, sad and sinister.

Low Again shows him in predicaments inglorious enough to bring about the fall of any government. His eyebrows upped with vague uneasiness, he hands a match to Mussolini, who is lighting a bomb under his chair. Perched beside Colonel Blimp on a raging volcano, he spurns Litvinoff's assistance in putting out the fire: "Sorry," he says, as the flames roast his rear, "but we don't want to burn our fingers." Cartoonist Low is almost as good in his caricatures of General Franco, but his drawings of Franco are in his old mood, give the General something of the air of a small boy unaware of the ruination around him. Only in his drawings of Chamberlain does Cartoonist Low seem unreservedly angry, and his campaign against the Prime Minister gives promise of belonging with the great performances of its type, the war of Thomas Nast against Boss Tweed, of Homer Davenport against Mark Hanna.

*LOW AGAIN--Cresset Press ($1.50).

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