No. 2 by No. 2

Angry as a gentleman and a Conservative can be--and that is very angry--Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill wrote a letter last week to the leader of his party, Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin, with whom he recently came to a partial break on the St. Gandhi issue (TIME, March 23).

"I read in the newspaper this morning," wrote Mr. Churchill to Mr. Baldwin, "that you wish Mr. Neville Chamberlain to conduct the [Conservative] opposition to the finance bill in my stead. As a matter of purely private courtesy I should have expected a letter from you to this effect. . . . .

"It will, I am sure, facilitate your arrangements if I resign my position as chairman of the Conservative finance committee, as the post should certainly be filled by whoever is conducting the opposition to the budget or by someone working under his immediate direction. Pray take this letter, therefore, as terminating my tenure."

In past years almost the most fun "Winnie" Churchill has had has been to rise up in the House of Commons, paw the air like a pink bear, and attack the financial bill (i. e. the Budget) presented by his archfoe gnomelike Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden.

Mr. Churchill, as the last Conservative to hold the office now held by Mr. Snowden, undoubtedly feels that he has a vested right to lead the Conservative attack. He has. But in politics might is right. And just now muddling Leader Baldwin's star is momentarily in the Conservative ascendant. Also (as not many people will recall) Mr. Neville Chamberlain has been Chancellor of the Exchequer (1923-24).

In easing Winston out, in welcoming Neville in, there is a distinct probability that Mr. Baldwin was nominating his successor. It is no secret that he yearns to retire, that he wrote out his resignation as Conservative Leader while watering at Aix-les-Bains last summer, that pious Mrs. Baldwin made him tear the resignation up, invoking DUTY.

Neville Chamberlain might make a great leader of the Conservative Party. But outside of England his merit, nay even the fact that he exists, has been obscured by the fame of other Chamberlains, his relatives. Old Joe Chamberlain, he of the haughty monocle and the orchid boutonniere, was a leading British political boss at the turn of the Century, though he never became Prime Minister.

Joe Chamberlain had three wives. The first two (cousins) each bore him a son, and both unfortunate mothers died in childbed. No. 1 son by No. 1 wife is Sir Austen Chamberlain, famed Nobel Peace Prize winner (TIME, Dec. 20, 1926). Many people privately consider him an affected blockhead, the husband of one of the smartest "political wives" in Europe. Austen copied his father in all ways as best he could (omitting only the 19th Century orchid); he made a name once as great as that of his friend Briand; and he retired with the Garter.

Neville Chamberlain, No. 2 son by No. 2 wife, was sent by Old Joe to Rugby and to Mason College, Birmingham, then packed off to sweat and supervise an estate in the Bahamas.

Meanwhile Austen was taking on his glass-like polish in Paris and Berlin (feted by Prince Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II for Old Joe's sake). In 1897 Neville Chamberlain returned to Birmingham, carved an enviable business career, finally became Lord Mayor (1915-16).

In both municipal and national aspects of such dry subjects as banking, housing, liquor control and public sanitation there are few greater experts than Neville. Entering Parliament in 1918, he has been Postmaster General, Paymaster General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and twice Minister of Public Health. This latter office he chose deliberately, turning down an offer by Mr. Baldwin, then Prime Minister, to appoint him a second time to the Exchequer.

The fact that two of his father's wives died in giving birth gave Neville Chamberlain the impetus to crusade for better methods in midwifery. "It is a terrible thing," he has told the House of Commons more than once, "to think that today out of every 250 mothers, one dies in childbirth, and that this state of things has persisted unchanged for the last 20 years."

In such a man Lucy Baldwin and Stanley Baldwin have been glad to place, with each succeeding year, more and more of their trust. Almost unnoticed by correspondents, Mr. Chamberlain has held during the past year a post analogous in the British Conservative party to Chairman of the U. S. Democratic National Committee. Fortnight ago this good man showed that he is also astute and can bargain with the enemy. Overnight, or so it seemed, he secured from Baron Beaverbrook, whose papers have been venomously attacking Mr. Baldwin (TIME, Feb. 9 et ante), a pledge to support the Conservative leader. With the Budget, the big Parliamentary debate of the year, but a few weeks off, every British newseye focuses today on No. 2 by No. 2.

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