A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE late Prime Minister's resignation broadcast will rank very high in radio history. The impression Mr. Chamber- lain made was all the deeper because he was obviously not trying to make it. There was the dramatic element of surprise. Few listeners can have caught the significance of the fact that the speaker was announced not as "the Prime Minister," but as "the Right Hon. Neville Chamberlain," and the opening sentences, on the invasion of the Low Countries, were exactly what would be expected in a Prime Minister's broadcast. Mr. Chamberlain clearly felt that in dealing with that first and his own position later he was putting things in their right propor- tions. Again, he was most manifestly not seeking sympathy, but he could have gone no better way to get it than by the simplicity, dignity and sincerity of his statement, the warmth of his reference to "my friend and colleague," Mr. Winston Churchill, and his readiness to serve under his successor in any capacity. • No speech Mr. Chamberlain has delivered in his three years' Premiership can have rallied public opinion to him more effectively than this short address an hour or two after he had laid the Premiership down.
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