A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE Churchill difficulty deepens. The worst thing possible would be to exaggerate it, but it is the Prime Minister himself who has most recently emphasised it. " I must ask the House to realise," he said on Tuesday, " the enormous burdens falling on me, not by my work as Minister of Defence, but by repeated and constant attendance on this House, which I never expected I should have to face, but which I will face." That was a duty of which Mr. Lloyd George was largely relieved, and adequately enough, in the days of the 1917-18 War Cabinet, by Mr. Bonar Law. Who could fill that role adequately today? I suggest Mr. Eden. The Labour Party should not, and almost certainly would not, demand at such a time as this that the Prime Minister's deputy in the House should be taken from their benches. Certainly Sir Kingsley Wood, if he is to remain in the War Cabinet, would not meet the case ; nor would Sir John Anderson, for among his many and conspicuous gifts ready speech does not figure. Neither, of course, had Mr. Lloyd George to bear the responsibilities of a Ministry of Defence, except in so far as a Prime Minister must necessarily concern himself with military problems in time of war. If Mr. Churchill could bring himself to appoint a deputy Defence Minister, or cease to be Defence Minister, keeping major decisions finally in his hand as Prime Minister, he would materially increase confidence in himself and his Government. But all these questions must be discussed, as they need to be discussed, against a background of dominating facts. The Prime Minister typifies Great Britain to all the world, not merely more than any other single man does, but more than any other single man could. He it was who sustained the Commonwealth through the year it was facing Hitler unsupported. He it was who in a speech of literally incalculable value on the night Russia came into the war, disposed swiftly and finally of all doubts in America as well as Britain and made Russia from that moment a full ally. These are unforgettable services, and there will be more like them to be rendered yet.
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