If Churchill were in charge

Julian Amery

Many—perhaps most—political leaders have entered politics by accident and espoused particular causes by opportunity. They have, no doubt, paid lip service to the principles of their party or connection; but a study of their lives and work suggests that they have no coherent political philosophy of their own. A smaller number have, first, elaborated a doctrine and even a programme, and then have entered the arena to put their ideas into practice. This could be said of Lenin and, indeed, of Hitler; and, in a more democratic context, of the great DemoChristian Trinity—Adenauer, Schumann and De Gasperi.

Churchill does not belong to either category. His political philosophy was organic to the man, rooted in his origins, deeply influenced by his intellectual formation and shaped above all by his experiences. It was never expressed as a consistent theory or system: but looking back at his life, his writings and his speeches there emerges a clear conception of the problems facing Britain at home and abroad and of the principles which should govern our efforts to resolve them.

Clearly, Churchill's origins were of determining significance. He sprang from a famous branch of the British aristocracy whose members still believed themselves to be the natural governing class. But there was nothing conformist about the elitism of his own family. His father, Lord Randolph, had been the Alcibiades of nineteenth century British politics and a great demagogue and populist. His aunt, Lady Wimbourne, had married into a great clan of capitalist ironmasters, the Guests. She gave sorely needed financial support to the young Churchill, and he spent much of his time in the Guests' circle. He thus had a foot in two significant British camps—the aristocracy and the plutocracy. Then there was the influence of his American mother, the daughter of a buccaneering New York tycoon of robust opinions and no respecter of persons. Churchill was no egalitarian, but no snob either. His personal values and his tastes are perhaps best reflected in his choice of friends —Birkenhead, Lloyd George, Beaverbrook, Bracken and in the last years Onassis. These were men of strong character, of independent, even unorthodox, views, and who had stormed the heights of success from humble origins.

He spoke for Britain as no one in our history has done before, but though he was above all a patriot Churchill was scarcely a typical Englishman. He shared few of the tastes and still fewer of the prejudices of his countrymen; his patriotism was imperial more than insular. He belonged to the cosmopolitan Europe, part aristocratic part plutocratic, of the early years of the century but with a broad streak of American flamboyance thrown in.

The man himself was formed by and in the Army. It was there that he first accepted instruction as distinct from enduring it. And it was against a background of Army life that he embarked on that course of selfeducation which would provide the intellectual foundations of his subsequent work. One result was that throughout his life he thought and largely expressed himself in military terms—in terms of strategy and tactics, power and supply, leadership and morale. His main studies, as is well known, were of Gibbon, Macaulay and the life of Napoleon. The influence of this reading on the shaping of his values has been widely recognised. But an even more powerful influence was the writing of his early books: The Malakand Field Force, The River War, and The Life of Lord Randolph Churchill. A man absorbs other people's values in a general way when he reads their works. But it is when he comes to put his own thoughts, emotions and experiences on to paper that he has to decide what to accept, what to reject and what to amend. It is only then that he begins to formulate and crystallise values of his own. All his serious work was done on paper: in books, articles, speeches —he seldom improvised—and in the flood of minutes in which his politics and strategies took shape.

War is a great university; and it was to be Churchill's only preparation for politics. From conventional schooling until he entered Parliament, it was to be war all the way: war in Cuba, war on the north-west frontier of India, war in the Sudan and war in South Africa. The facile compromises of peace paper over differences, breed illusions and avoid decisions. Not so war. Honour counts for more than honesty; cunning and courage are the supreme virtues. All depends on leadership and decision. The waging of war calls for brutal realism, and a clear insight into the animal as well as the divine elements of the human condition.

With Churchill, the gulf between his intellectual pessimism and natural optimism and generosity was bridged by an essentially rationalist approach. He appreciated the political utility of religion to government and its personal consolation to individuals; but he was, as he once described himself, 'A buttress of the church from outside rather than a pillar from within.' For the rest, he would probably have subscribed to Napoleon's dictum: 'Above all let my son read history : it is the only true philosophy.' But there was one abiding concern which troubled him most of his life. Where would science lead mankind ?

The world into which he was born was technologically still very much the world of

the previous 3,000 years. True, there was the railway, the telegraph and some machines. But the motor-car, the wireless, the tele' phone, the aeroplane, the submarine, the tank, the computer, the nuclear bomb all° space exploration, were steps in the onward march of science only taken in his lifetime' Science has conferred immense benefits oh mankind. But might it lead to the phYsieal destruction of the human race? Or would it bring about the enslavement of the indivi" dual in robot societies of the type of Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell's 1984? 11°,g!, were freedom and survival to be preserve° ' I do not think he found the answer. Soldiering in India, Egypt and south Africa had taught him that the work of eivili" sation is constantly threatened from outside' It had taught him to admire the way Britain discharged her imperial mission overse, and this well before he knew much about hit! own country. He was, after all, familiar will' Indians, Egyptians, Sudanese and long before a parliamentary election broug"' him into real contact with the British peoPle' apart from the gardener at home and the soldier in the cantonment. Yet by the till! he made this first contact, he already krle',, what so many leaders of British oPirlid." ignored : how much the influence of Britala and the prosperity of its people depended eft, our access to the markets and raw material,' of what was then called The Outer EMPire He had understood that Britain's surviva depended on belonging to a wider systeln,e. Empire? The Atlantic ? Europe? emphasis would change with events, but raii basic principle was constant. The essentlas business of statesmanship, as he saw it, o'a to stop the jungle with its wild beasts errf croaching on the cultivated land and le possible to roll it back. Ordinary Pecli, could then get on with earning their liveld. hood in freedom behind a protective silie Given freedom of enterprise and the lay. erv tions of modern science, he saw no Old ce the prosperity they might achieve. Hel/to throughout his life he gave first priorirY v'e defence and foreign policy. It would 11,.nies been better if more of his contemP°ra

had done the same. ed la

As soon as the Germans were defeat to 1918, we find him calling for urgent actiohod suppress the Soviet regime in Russia !se. proposing to enlist Germany in this 010 As Russia under Stalin withdraws intd own shell in the nineteen-thirties, we ao. him focusing on the Nazi danger and c.cts. ing for an understanding with the Sovl

As Hitler's defeat becomes certain, so he turns his batteries once again on the danger of Soviet expansion. He is then the first statesman of the front rank, after the second world war, to call for Germany's return to the European family of nations.

Yet again, when Stalin died, Churchill is the first head of government to call (in May 1953) for a summit meeting between the western powers and the Soviet Union to explore the possibilities of a reconciliation. His call was rejected at the time by the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of France and indeed the leader of the Labour opposition in his own country. Did we make a mistake of historic proportions in not opening our doors at once to Mr Malenkov, while the wave of reaction against Stalinism was still in full flood ? Churchill would always think so.

Instinctively, he was a European patriot and deplored the decline of Europe's position in the world. It has often been charged that there was an ambiguity in his approach to Europe. Some have said that he wanted Britain to be loosely associated with a united Continent. I have little doubt myself from a study of his speeches and from what I heard him say that he believed Britain should take her full place in a European system, though I think he saw this system, as did de Gaulle, as a Europe of states rather than a federation.

How then are we to explain his inactivity over Europe when he came back to power in 1951 ? Several factors conditioned his policy here. The United States under President Truman had already moved to set up the Atlantic Alliance. The safety of Western Europe was thus assured as it had not been In 1946 or even at the Hague Conference in 1948. European union remained important for its own sake but it no longer had the same urgency. The Commonwealth was still very much a going concern and to persuade its leaders that Europe was in their interest as well as Britain's would take time. Economically, moreover, Britain was still very weak and dependent on the United States; and Eisenhower begged us in 1951 not to try a, rldJoin the European Defence Community lest, in the process, we delay the rearmament ,(E)f Federal Germany. Then there was the numan factor. Churchill was already an old 'nail. The perspective before him was shortening; he knew his European ideas were unpopular in many quarters in Britain, in his own party. His time was limited. ne concentrated therefore on those issues ,vvh. ere he might still secure decisions and get ;Ilings done. There were many of them. Had fie been younger he might have taken yet

Other European initiative.

Ills attitude to social questions was 'cinaPed by his experience as an officer and HeePerted by his sojourn in the Liberal camp. e had the officer's concern for his men. To esnsure their welfare was right for its own otke and vital to the morale and efficiency en' _t,he unit. Beyond this, he retained to the ab(1 of his life the radical ideas learned, ve all, from Llbyd George. It was the of society to provide for the old, the

children, the sick and the unfortunate. As he was fond of saying: 'There should be a floor

below which no man can fall by misfortune

or even by misconduct. But there should be no ceiling to the heights to which a man can attain.' Social reform in fact, was to be a byproduct of the creation of wealth. This made him an inveterate opponent of the fashionable egalitarianism of the postwar period.

Churchill's active life ceased in 1955, and in the decade that followed, he said and wrote very little, even on the great issues of the day. Since his death another decade has gone by. What would be his view of Britain and Europe's affairs today ?The answer can, of course, only be speculation. But for those of us who claim that there is a valid Churchillian political philosophy, it is a duty to say how we think it should be applied.

Where Britain is concerned, we would no doubt have argued that the abandonment of empire and the adoption of socialism has led to an inevitable and sharp decline and justified his gloomiest predictions. Certainly the loss of empire has deprived us of a preferential access to markets and raw materials on which we had relied for several generations. Arguably—and I would accept the argument—British socialism has led us to spend upon ourselves more than we have earned and can justify. But then, I think, the man of action in him would have reasserted himself. He would have counted the assets still to hand: the high quality of our technology, the reserves of oil and coal, the financial expertise of the City, the network of connections overseas—with the United States, with the Commonwealth and with the Middle East. He would call for new leadership to unite the nation, since as the Turks rightly say : 'The fish stinks from the head'. He might even have argued the case for a government of national unity. At heart he was always a coalitionist, despite his strong and sometimes extreme views on particular issues. His first aim would have been to re-establish a sound currency and then leave industry the maximum freedom to head for recovery. Faced with our intractable problems in industrial relations, he might well have revived his concept of a chamber of industry and so called on the trade unions to accept constitutional responsibilities to match the powers they already enjoy.

Abroad, with the commonwealth system largely dismantled, he would have concentrated his energies on developing Europe. I doubt if he would have tailored the machine to his own needs rather to any theoretical concept. The economic side he might have left to others, but he would certainly have worked hard to produce a European foreign policy and to back it up with a European defence policy. This must have included an independent European nuclear deterrent, though it would require Churchillian ingenuity to devise it. Then he would surely raise the question—'Who is the enemy ?' Here there can be little doubt of his answer. The massive rearmament of the Soviet forces, conventional and nuclear, the offensive deployment of their forces in Europe, the appearance of a vast Soviet navy on and under the waters of the seven seas, the establishment of Soviet bases in south Arabia, in east Africa and now in west Africa give the clue clearly enough.

He would see in the Soviet conquest of Angola his own 'soft under-belly strategy being turned against the West. He would be quick to see through the confusion which obscures the southern African situation to Europe and America today. He would appreciate that the threat of Soviet imperialism to our markets and raw materials in the area was the primary and mortal threat. Without those raw materials our industries would be disrupted, prices would rise, unemployment would increase and social tensions could reach critical proportions and threaten the free way of life of Britain and the whole western industrial world. He would recognise the racial confrontation as real but secondary. Doubtless he would urge a more generous approach to their racial problems in South Africa and Rhodesia. Central and southern Africa are so vital to the survival of the industrial West and particularly of Europe and Britain that he might well seek to make southern Africa the anvil on which Europe's foreign policy was fashioned and a much broader alliance between Europe, America, Japan and even China hammered out.