The World and Churchill

When Winston Churchill in 1940 promised the British people "nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat," he was as much the voice of Britain as was the roar of Spitfires over the chalk cliffs of Dover. Last fortnight, when he offered the world a British way toward peace with security (TIME, March 29), he voiced the yearnings not only of his own countrymen but of all the Allied peoples. Among them were many differences, some deep and wide; but common to them all was a desire to see at least the outlines of a better world.

Winston Churchill's achievement was that he, alone among the leading Allied statesmen, had given the Allied peoples something that they could grasp, examine, discuss in tangible terms. Out of this discussion, by week's end, had come a good deal of light on the world that people want--and on the world that they are likely to have.

The Home Base. The Prime Minister had soared over the heads of lesser politicians, had struck a responsive chord in the mass heart of Britain. Most Britons reacted sentimentally; few stopped to analyze the things that Churchill did not say. But, in the British press, the few dissents were to the point. Said the Manchester Guardian: "The four-year plan [for domestic economy after the war] does not amount to more than what the Government is already pledged to in the way of reconstruction." Growled the London News Chronicle: "There was not one reference to the Atlantic Charter, nothing about the future of national sovereignties, hardly a word about colonial administration."

Politically, the speech was one of the Prime Minister's most astute maneuvers. It solidified Tory support behind him, and it may well split Liberals and Labor. Before the speech there had been many signs that Britain was swinging leftward. If this trend was really fundamental, no one speech--however great--could permanently halt it. But, after the speech, Winston Churchill's domestic intentions were clear: he proposed to drive the Tory chariot right through the war to a straight coalition, khaki-elected, postwar government, dragging Liberal and Labor defectives willy-nilly. Whether, now 68, he hoped to retain his personal ascendancy after the war was beside the point (he had said: "I have no personal ambitions"). But that Winston Churchill, the world statesman, was cannily bolstering his political base at home was a fact of world importance.

The U.S. Off Base. Winston Churchill's international premise had been clear enough: Britain, the U.S. and Russia must collaborate to establish first a secure Europe, then a secure Asia. Americans might agree with this premise -- and many of them did agree, conversationally and in the press. But among them there was an almost inarticulate sense of having been caught off base, of having been outsmarted. To have "a better world" mapped out for them by the Prime Minister of Britain was obscurely irksome. Wishfully, they pondered. Why could not their own Government state its position in as clear a manner? The question was not altogether fair: Mr. Churchill does not have to contend with the U.S. Congress. They sensed the fact that Winston Churchill was only doing his duty as a Briton if he proposed a postwar system to Britain's taste. That, too, was all to the good: Americans after the Churchill speech were, if anything, more anxious than ever for their Government to demonstrate a really enlightened self-interest in world affairs, and more of them were prepared to recognize that this demonstration might entail a reasonable understanding with both Britain and Russia.

These were some of the overtones discernible in the U.S. press. One notable fact: the phrase "collective security," familiar as a shibboleth in the '30s, had suddenly acquired a new currency and meaning. Yet it was also true that many, many Americans still looked first to themselves, then biliously at the rest of the world. Said the unshakably introspective New York Daily News: "We think our safety after this war can be preserved only by ourselves."

Eden at Bat. British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was in the U.S., and he too sensed some of these stirrings and questionings. Last week, in a speech to the Maryland General Assembly at Annapolis, he chinked up some of the gaps in Mr. Churchill's declaration. Said willowy Mr. Eden:

"No nation can close its frontiers and hope to live securely. . . . We shall never find security or progress within heavily defended national fortresses. We shall only find them by the greatest possible measure of cooperation. The United Nations, and in particular the U.S., the British Commonwealth, China and the Soviet Union, must act together in war and in peace. . . . We [the British] have no secret engagements with any country, nor do we seek as a result of this conflict to extend our boundaries or increase our possessions. . . . The enemies of your country are our enemies. . . . We shall not rest upon our arms until every one of our enemies has unconditionally surrendered."

Eden took pains to repair a notable omission in his Prime Minister's speech. The lack of any positive reference to China had caused Mme. Chiang Kai-shek to say in Chicago: "One must think not only in terms of the good of one's own country, but in terms of the good of other people's." Said Anthony Eden: "Let China not misdoubt us. . . . We, no less than you and our partner China, have a score to settle with the Japanese; nor shall we ever cease fighting until that evil growth in the Pacific has been cut back. We shall be with you in this to the end."

Americans at Bat. Eden's pointed reference to China as a full partner did not quiet the fears aroused in the Far East. For India, there was as usual little comfort in anything that Winston Churchill said. Along with the rest of the world, the peoples in Britain's colonies had every right to read Mr. Churchill's global declaration in context with his earlier statement, for home consumption, that Britain intends to keep and rule her own colonies in her own way, after the war (TIME, March 29). The tone of the Prime Minister's home statement left no doubt that he still does not propose to preside over the liquidating of the British Empire.

Such were some of the hopes and doubts which stirred the world, and not the least of Winston Churchill's services was the fact that he had eloquently stimulated them. By indirection, he had done a certain service to the U.S., and he had conferred an additional responsibility upon all Americans. Said the pro-Congress Hindustani Times of Delhi: "Except for the voice of America, nowhere do we hear the language of idealism. But how is America going to ensure that the coming peace will leave the world a better place to live in?"

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