Evening star., 1938-09-18
By Frederic William Vile

/
in the world five men Of more diverg-
ent personalities and backgrounds
| than the group which rivets anxious
mankinds attention at this zero hour of
international destiny-the hitherto sup
| posedly unimaginative Neville Chamber
| lain, Prime Minister Of Great Britain; the
! incalculable Adolf Hitler, Fuehrer Of NaN
| Germany; Eduard Benes, co-founder and
President of Czechoslovakia; Georges Bon
net, Foreign Minister Of France, and
Konrad Henlein leader of the Sudeten
| Germans and now fugitive from Czecho-
slovakia under indictment for high treason.
| 1t Is, Of course, primarily in the hands of
| Chamberlain and Hitler that the question
| OF peace or war in Europe rests. Their
| deliberations over the fate of CZechoslo-
vakia, which set in at Hitler's mountains
top chalet in the Bavarian Alps last Thurs.
day and are to be renewed elsewhere in
Germany this week, will determine wheth-
| er the Reich is to continue its unchecked
defiance Of the Western powers in Europe,
| or whether the democracies and Soviet
Russia will at length halt the Nazis' tri-
umphal progress and preserve Czechoslo-
vakia independence. The three others,
OF course. will play their parts.
** X
WHEN Neville Chamberlain angular
Birmingham iron-founder and town
councillor, was vaulted into the prime min
istership In 1887 as successor Of Stanley
Baldwin after the Edwardian abdication,
| Britain had every reason to anticipate a
regime at No. 10 Downing street that
would be colorless and humdrum. The
new head of the government had inherited
little OF the dynamic fair for statesman
ship that distinguished his famous father.
the great imperialist, Joseph Chamberlain,
or OF his half-brother, Sir Austen Cham
berlain. foreign secretary and chief au-
thor Of Locarno. But Neville Chamber
lain, who will be 10 next March. was bv
| no means devoid Of public experience when
ne came to the premiership. He had
served year as postmaster general in
1929 and at various periods between
1928 and 1881 was minister of health.
Baldwin gave Chamberlain his first chance
for front-rank cabinet service when he
| appointed him chancellor OF the excheouer
In the national government Of 1923-24 and
again for a six-year term between 1881
and 1887.
Treasury Statesmen.
Britain throughout its long parliament
tary history has had watchdogs of the
treasury who achieved fame by way of
the budget. At the exchequer statesmen
like Lord Randolph Churchill, father of
Winston Churchill; Sir Michael Hicks
Beach. Winston Churchill himself, Philip
snowden and Herbert Asquith, in their
respective days, had budgeted themselves
into celebrity and occasional unpopular4
ity. But Neville Chamberlain's steward
ship OF the department which levies taxes
never gripped the imagination Of his
countrymen except to confirm the uni
versal judgment that duller statesman
never sat in Whitehall. It was with such
| a reputation that he came to power as
| Prime Minister. Chamberlain had not
been in office long before the rise of the
dictatorship impelled him to adopt the
policy of realism" in foreign affairs. which
last February led to the bitter clash with
Anthony Eden over the cabinets decision
to negotiate with 'Mussolini and Hitler.
The fact that the Conservative party with
| stood that shock is q high tribute to
Chamberlain's political acumen. The
Tories have never been under more effective
control. It was under the new prime
ministership. too, that Great Britain f1nally
came to grips with the Irish problem and
succeeded in burying that ancient hatchet.
Presently, the Anglo-Italian pact emerged
as the first fruit of Chamberlain realism.
The mercurial course Of the Spanish civil
war prevented the valuation of the deal
with Mussolini, and then the Sudeten
crisis emerged to confront Britain with a
far graver dilemma
Precedent -Shatterinx Move,
The rest is history, except that which is
now in the making. as the result of Neville
Chamberlain's' bold, dramatic, precedent-
snatterlng initiative in approaching Hitler
In desperate, eleventh-hour attempt to
put out the fire that threatens to plunge
Europe-and the world-into another con-
Migration If Chamberlain, like Disraeli
60 years ago, brings home peace with
honor" from Germany, he will take imme-
diate rank as one Of Britains truly great
| PiAile AlluSUtIS. Even SnOOld ne fall-
provided failure does not subject him to
the charge, which history would hardly ever
extenuate, that he sold the pass-the dour
secretive, unprecedented Midlander will
yet have assured himself eminence as the
statesman who dared and did his best at q
supremely critical moment in modern his
tory.
TINE alone can fix Adolf Hitler's place
| in history. 1t Is already one of mag
nitude, If not Of splendor. To have scaled
the heights which Der Fuehrer has climbed
in is years+from the Munich beer-cellar
putsch of 1928 to the chancellorship of
Germany and the uncrowaed kingship of