THE NEW TEAM'S TASKS
HE Prime Minister remodelled his administration in j.. comfortable time to anticipate this week's debate, which in certain circumstances might have been critical in a double sense. Both the House of. Commons and public opinion outside it had determined that changes were necessary and that the changes should be of a particular character. Mr. Churchill can be represented as having bowed before the general demand, but it is more reasonable to assume that he reached the same conclusion as his critics and acted accordingly. His announce- ment of exits and entrances has been made in two instalments, and a third, affecting mainly under-secretaries, is still to come. About certain of the appointments there is room for doubt, but that as a result of the changes the administration as a whole has become, in the Prime Minister's words, "more tensely braced and compact," is unquestionable. The War Cabinet itself loses, not surprisingly, Sir Kingsley Wood and M. Arthur Greenwood, and, most surprisingly, Lord Beaverbrook, whose disappearance still lacks full explanation, unless it is in fact a question of health and nothing else, and whose precise role in the future also remains obscure. His forte is stimulus rather than counsel; the War Cabinet will be deprived of the latter, but practical co-operation with both Washington and Moscow in the matter of production should be beneficially affected by the late Minister's new activities, to the substantial profit of all the fighting fronts. On balance there is more pin than loss here.
There is further and substantial gain in the addition of Sir Stafford Cripps to the War Cabinet, and the recall of Mr. Lyttelton to its deliberations in Whitehall from his representa- tion of. it in Cairo. Personal values in politics are never easy to appraise correctly. Only their immediaie colleagues are in a position to gauge accurately the qualities of men working in the seclusion of the Cabinet itself or in some non-executive office., But Mr. Lyttelton has made an excellent impression everywhere since Mr. Churchill extracted him from business life to become President of the Board of Trade in October, 1940. Supply, which concerns the Army only, is again in the safe hands of Sir Andrew Duncan, and Mr. Lyttelton, whose powers in this respect have still to be defined, promises to be a firm and fair co-ordinator where the rival demands of Army, Admiralty and Aircraft Production are concerned. But more important in the public mind, and more so intrinsi- cally, is the entry of Sir Stafford Cripps into the War Cabinet, without portfolio but with the exacting duty of leadership of the House of Commons. Enthusiastically as this experiment has been welcomed, and should be, it is wise to recognise that it still is an experiment. Sir Stafford has been a stormy petrel in the past, as his colleagues in the Labour Party, to which he once belonged, know well. There are many subjects, some not. unimportant, on which he almost certainly differs still from most of his Cabinet colleagues. And brilliant though his debating abilities are, it is not a simple matter to assume the leadership of the House, after an almost unbroken absence of more than two years from England, as representa- tive of a Government which he has only just joined: But his first exercise of his new function, on Wednesday, was impressive. There could be no higher proof of the general confidence in Sir Stafford's integrity of character, resolution and intel- lectual capacity than the unqualified approval with which his inclusion in the Cabinet has been hailed in all quarters, Particularly, of course, in those where admiration for Russia's achievements and ideals is most intense. The War Cabinet, thus constituted, contains too few members free of departmental duties, for it is a fallacy to suppose that Mr. Eden at the Foreign Office or Mr. Attlee in his new office as Secretary for the Dominions is the holder of a post to which only so much time and attention as can be spared from other duties need be devoted. But altogether the new Cabinet is a closer-knit, an abler and a better-balanced body than the old, and Mr. Churchill is to be congratulated on the rejuvenation which, pending evidence to the contrary, he may be believed to have effected. Of the changes in the non-Cabinet Ministries less need be said. None of them is for the worse and some are for the better, notably those at the War Office, where the promotion of the senior civil servant in the department to the Secretaryship of State is a bold and imaginative stroke, and at the Ministry of Aircraft Production. Lord Cranbome's translation from the Dominions Office, where he has done admirable work, to the Colonial follows neces- sarily on the very proper decision that the Dominions shall be directly associated with the War Cabinet through Mr. Attlee. Nowhere is the application of constructive thought more needed. both now and after the war, than in the colonial empire. Lord Cranborne will find abundant scope in his new office, and his appointment to the leadership of the House of Lords gives him an added status which he well deserves.
The work of the new, or renovated, administration will be closely scrutinised. The public is profoundly uneasy, and the more so since the Prime Minister's speech on Tuesday. Concern till then had been concentrated on the disasters in Malaya and at Singapore, the dangers impending in Burma, the Diitch Indies and Australia, the tendency to move back- ward rather than forward in Libya, and the blow to confidence involved in the successful voyage of the German warships through the English Channel. What was not known was that after a period in which the Battle of the Atlantic seemed to have been won, there has in the last few months been "a most serious increase" in shipping losses, not mainly in the Atlantic but in the Far East. All this creates a situation which demands not only from the Government but from the nation a new approach to the war, entailing new sacrifices, new self-discipline, or a relentlessly-imposed discipline, new resolution and new effort. The supreme need is for production —production of ships, of tanks, of aeroplanes, not of boxing- matches at the Albert Hall or of expensive meals with expensive wines at hotels and restaurants, on which thousands of pounds are spent nightly that, ought to be lent to the Government. There is room for new and sharp restrictions here ; the adop- tion of Commander King-Hall's rather drastic suggestion that no meal costing more than five shillings a head should be per- 'inissible would do more good than harm. The urgent and imperative demand for more and more aeroplanes, particularly long-distance fighters, is demonstrated by every despatch from every theatre of war. At the same time our whole air-strategy needs searching examination. The impression that night- attacks on Germany by heavy bombers is yielding, and must yield, quite inadequate results is growing. The impression may be wrong, but it is for the Cabinet to satisfy itself con- clusively that the existing strategy is right.
Finally there is India, where some political advance is essential. The problem is of crucial importance, but almost baffling difficulty, and to attempt to over-simplify it is to start on the road to sure disaster. An article on another page em- phasises the vigour of the Moslems' refusal to accept a position of political subordination to a Hindu majority. It is no more possible to allow the Moslems to be merely outvoted in India than it would have been to allow Ulster to be merely outvoted in a united Ireland. The task of working out a constitution for a Dominion of India is delicate and complex, and though a beginning may be made now completion must clearly wait till after the war. Meanwhile what? At the least, ungrudging progress along a path already taken. Indians have now been placed in a majority on the Viceroy's Executive Council. The Indian moderates, under Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, ask that the Council shall become all-Indian, with direct responsibility to the Crown, and in the matter of defence without prejudice to the position and authority of the Commander-in-Chief. To acce this proposal involves undeniable risk ; to refuse it involv greater risk. Its acceptance would satisfy extremists neither among the Congress Party nor among Moslems, but there is reason to hope it would rally a large moderate element in both camps to its support. Some such measure, combined with the abolition of the India Office and the transference of India: affairs to the Dominions Office, would be a convincint guarantee of our resolve to treat India, where possible n- and in all respects later, on the same footing as Canada Australia or any other Dominion.
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