NATIONAL UNITY
Sim,—In your comments on the week's news you say that the strength of the present Government lies in the fact that. it genuinely repre- sents all parties," and proceed to deduce that the retention therein of Mr. Chamberlain is indispensable. But do those parties themselves to- day represent anything in the country? That the cohort of Chamber- lain's Old Incorrigibles " in the House of Commons do not is amply proved by the publication recently of the latest Gallup Survey in the News Chronicle.
It cannot in view of recent resolutions passed by Trade Unions and other bodies be any longer denied, I submit, that Mr. Chamber- lain's presence in the Government is acting as a bar to full and fruitful national unity, any more than it could be denied that the enthusiasm of a fire-engine crew would be inevitably damped by the presence on the driving-seat of one of their number who already stood convicted of culpable dilatoriness in dealing with the fire in its early stages. To change the metaphor, to the public at large Mr. Cham- berlain presents the spectacle of an honest but luckless tipster who despite the fact that his late clients have been left nothing but their shirts on their backs, still haunts the course and keeps on urging them to lay_ more money on his ten-to-one " cert."
Nevertheless there is a reason for the departure of Mr. Chamberlain and his fellow men of Munich more compelling than considerations of past controversies. In the days of grim adversity that may lie before us with their ominous possibilities of widespread discontent, popular disillusion and civic disturbance, a moment might well come, as it came in France, when a Government that was not through and through a people's government, dreading the liberation of revolutionary and truly democratic forces, would be at odds as to whether dishonourable peace or overthrow of the established order were the greater .evil. We must, therefore, be governed exclusively by men who have not only solemnly sworn to Defend to the End, but by those whose one vested interest is Victory. In no other profession but politics can men earn the gratitude of their descendants by the simple expedient of self- effacement, and if the ones in question decline now to avail themselves of it surely the strategical as well as the psychological moment has
come for the leaders of the New Britain to challenge openly and defy
them.—Yours, &c., GEORGE RICHARDS. The Pond House, Stoke Row, nr. Henley-on-Thames.
[The man for whom the anti-Chamberlain campaign makes most difficulty is the Prime Minister, and his difficulties are quite sufficient at this time In this matter it is reasonable to trust his considered judgement—whether he decides to ask any member of his Cabinet to resign, or whether he does not.—ED., The Spectator.]
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