Go-Getter's Exit

Impish Alan Patrick Herbert, top-notch Punch humorist and jackanapes No. 1 of the House of Commons, bolted early breakfast one morning last week, hustled over to reach Westminster at 8 a.m. wearing an expectant grin. Other M. P.s, equally eager to squeeze into their House, which is much too small to seat all of them, were already jampacked around the door. They half-hoped that Leslie Hore-Belisha, recently ousted British War Secretary (TIME, Jan. 15), would clash with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the first really hot House of Commons debate since outbreak of war.

Actually there had been a usual and very British adjustment of the whole affair behind the scenes, but London editors, whom Mr. Hore-Belisha had made his best press agents, had given the affair a fine buildup. Cartoonists had a field day (see cut). On this occasion Mr. Hore-Belisha may have regretted the warm friendship, for he saw that much the best thing for his political future is to retire quietly with a stiff British upper lip.

"War Compels." The ousted War Secretary began by saying that he would really have preferred not to speak at all. "I offer to my successor any help or counsel I can give," he went on, and the House cheered his magnanimity to new War Secretary Oliver Stanley. There may have been an ironic rebuke to the Prime Minister in his declaration: "I did not select my colleagues [in the War Office] because they were complacent or supinely acquiescent. I selected the strongest men I could find, and I respected them most when they were most outspoken in Council. ... It did not occur to me to consider that we were making the Army too democratic to fight for democracy. ... No conflict of view has there been, so far as I know, no conflict of view or policy with many of my colleagues in the Government upon any point concerning my department or otherwise. . . . War compels the unified, whole effort of a nation, and I trust that it is in that spirit that I have spoken."

This left the Prime Minister sitting pretty except that a few Laborite backbenchers interjected occasional jeers. Said Laborite Josiah Clement Wedgwood: "There has been no denial of the prejudice felt in exalted circles against the holding of that post [War Secretary] by a man who was a Jew and who was the centre of the Goebbels propaganda. What circles got hold of the Prime Minister with these stories?" When Neville Chamberlain ignored this query, extreme Left Independent Laborite Jock McGovern jumped up and demanded: "Will the Prime Minister give a denial of that?"

Visibly angered, Mr. Chamberlain gave: "I did not think it worth a denial. Of course I deny it." Off his own bat the Prime Minister denied that the War Secretary's resignation was "a result of a battle between him and certain high officers vaguely described as 'brass hats.' . . . No officer has ever discussed with me at any time any change in the Secretaryship of State for War," said Mr. Chamberlain flatly. He also denied that there was ever any difference in policy between Mr. Hore-Belisha and the Cabinet which supported and today supports his democratic Army reforms. Finally, the Prime Minister went far toward confirming that the real reason why Go-Getter Hore-Belisha had to go was because his Cabinet colleagues found him personally obnoxious. The War Secretary was dropped, said Mr. Chamberlain, because of "difficulties--perhaps I might describe them as arising out of the very great qualities of my right honorable friend [Hore-Belisha]."

"Not Heaven-Born." Striking was the fact that neither Labor nor the Liberal Party really went to bat for the onetime Secretary. The speeches of the minority leaders showed that the Prime Minister privately had convinced them that Hore-Belisha was not quite the peerless executive that the press believed. Said the Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, Laborite Clement Attlee: "There has been a good deal of newspaper pressure. . . . We are not going to pretend that he has been a heaven-born Minister. . . . We are therefore not prepared to swing in behind the press campaign. . . . It would be ungenerous to deny that at the War Office Mr. Hore-Belisha effected some notable reforms. On the other hand, though ridiculous, it has been alleged that he alone did it. . . . We recognize the qualities of Mr. Hore-Belisha and the defects in his qualities. . . ."

Liberal Leader Sir Archibald Sinclair finished the job: "It is only fair to acknowledge the solid achievements which stand to his credit at the War Office, such as the recent improvements in the pay of officers and men and the measure of democratization in the Army. . . . At the same time it is a great mistake to suppose, as many people seem to do, that he was and remains the sole champion of these reforms. . . ."

GREAT BELISHA DRAMA WAS A FLOP headlined the London Daily Mail, and only Mr. Hore-Belisha's friend and military mentor, Captain Basil Henry Liddell Hart, was left this week still grumbling in the Sunday Express: "Generals are as sensitive as prima donnas," wrote Captain Liddell Hart darkly. "[The War Office] may meet the demands of common gratitude by laying wreaths on the grave of the reformer, but they will ensure that it is on his grave."

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