Vox Populi

The French were furious when in 1935 the British, under Stanley Baldwin, made a separate naval limitations pact with Hitler Germany--an agreement which incidentally violated the Treaty of Versailles. And they were furious last week when Neville Chamberlain surprised almost everyone at Munich by accepting an invitation from Adolf Hitler to stay on after the Four-Power Conference had ended (see above) for a 90-minute talk.

Munich crowds, which had cheered Mussolini and then Daladier to the echo as they departed, went wild with shrieks, roars and tears of joy as Neville Chamberlain finally returned to his hotel and gave--what correspondents termed almost unprecedented for a British Prime Minister--an informal interview. Incredulous at this break, newshawks found Neville Chamberlain seated at a desk, sipping a cup of coffee and rolling a cigar between his lips with evident satisfaction. He shoved across the desk a copy of a communique to be issued in the names of himself and Adolf Hitler: "We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement [of 1935] as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

"We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference and thus to contribute to the assurance of peace in Europe." In Paris, where Premier Daladier enjoyed the greatest ovation in modern French history on his return from Munich, he was severely criticized the morning afterward for not having obtained from Adolf Hitler some such two-man peace pledge as Mr. Chamberlain got. It was this document, not the four-power pact dismembering Czechoslovakia, which the British Prime Minister proudly waved when he landed at Heston Airport, and at which monster British crowds went berserk with relief.

Such shouts and transports as London has not seen since the Armistice sped Britain's beaming 69-year-old hero to Buckingham Palace. There Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain and the King and Queen were called out on the balcony by a steady surf roar of "Good old Nev! Hurrah for Chamberlain! Peace with honor! Three cheers for Nev! Good old Nev! Peace in our time!"

In this vox populi the voices of British women were definitely a majority, but plenty of John Bulls added hoarse acclaim. It was obvious that the insular British throng cared little for Czechoslovakia, cheered mainly because they felt they will now not have to fight the only power they have feared since Napoleon--Germany.

Anxious queries from French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet were soon answered by British Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax with official assurances that the Anglo-French entente has not been scrapped or even weakened by the Chamberlain-Hitler communique. Neutral diplomatic experts shrugged, "The terms of the communique are indeed so vague that, depending upon circumstances, they can come to mean anything or nothing." Mr. Chamberlain dispatched a formal letter of assurance to M. Daladier.

In Germany and Italy, vox populi gave two dictators who have made a specialty of sabre rattling and warlike speeches the chastening experience of receiving one of the greatest ovations of their careers, solely because the Munich keynote had been not war but peace (see p. 18).

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