NEWS OF THE WEEK
AT a mass meeting of Conservatives in London on Wednesday, Mr. Churchill blew the first blast of the trumpet in his party's campaign against what he called "the incompetence and feebleness of the Socialist administration" ; and he prophesied that "in the next few years we shall have come to fundamental quarrels in this country." It is sad to hear the eloquence that once united the country now employed in dividing her. Mr. Churchill is not to be blamed for that ; yet it is a measure of the difference between his two roles that while once his voice inspired a universal and instinctive response it is now just as likely to provoke doubt, scepticism, or plain dis- agreement. Nevertheless, in attacking the Government for its demobilisation policy, and its failure so far to produce any of the houses which are our most pressing 'need, Mr. Churchill pressed on two very sore spots ; yet the very ferocity of his attack lessened its effectiveness. The country at the moment regards the Government somewhat in the light of a military headquarters on the eve of a great and urgently necessary operation. It recognises that great operations require careful and complicated preparation and planning, and that unless correctly launched they may well fail. If at the end of long waiting nothing happens proportionate to the patience demanded, the Government will have to pay heavily ; but if the operation succeeds, the impatient critics will be silenced for a very long time.
Mr. Churchill and his party are in danger of launching their attack prematurely and when they leave the solid ground of demobi- lisation and housing for more general issues, they seriously mis- calculate the temper of the country. On the whole it does not believe in the issue of Conservative freedom or Socialist slavery which figures so largely in Mr. Churchill's mind ; the result of the election showed that clearly. It is, however, interested in whether the par- ticular measures in the Governments's programme are compatible with a high standard of industrial and business efficiency and it does expect of the Opposition a close and detailed criticism of every measure in which Government control threatens to interfere with personal liberty or individual initiative (which it does not understand to mean merely the liberty or initiative to make profits). It is by the accumulation of such criticism, involving much drab Parliamentary work, that the Government's position will be shaken, if it does not fulfil its promises. The role this offers to the Opposition is very much more humdrum than the crusade to which Mr. Churchill summoned the embattled Conservatives ; but even Mr. Churchill cannot have a crusade all the time.
