Evening star., 1938-10-03
Britain's Young Men.

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Alfred Duff Cooper, forty -eight, first
lord OF the admiralty, follows Anthony
Eden, forty-four, secretary of state for
foreign affairs, out of the Chamberlain
cabinet because they disapproved and
tnistrusted the governments foreign pol
Icy. past and to some. AS Captain Eden
took his departure in February because
he resented the Prime Minister'S program
Of realistic" negotiations with the die
tatorships for European appeasement,
so Mr.. Duff Cooper now relinquishes the
naval portfolio in consequence of his
chiefs most recent deal with Hitler and
Mussolini, the four-power pact of Mu-
mich, and its appendage, the Anglo
German pledge to renunciate war be-
tween the Empire and the Reich.
Thus, youth has had it's fling in Down.
Ing Street and Whitehall, for Eden and
Duff Cooper left ship of state manned,
for the most part, by oldsters of years
enough to be their fathers. Mr.. Cham
berlain is siXty-nine; Viscount Runci-
man, whose futile mission of conciliation
In Czechoslovakia led to the conferences
at Berchtesgaden and Godesberg, is
sixty-eight; Sir John Simon the Prime
Minister'S second in command, is sixty
five; Sir Thomas Inskip another possible
successor at "No. TO- if the incumbent,
laurel -burdened, elects to step down, is
s1xty-tWo. In the inner circle of the
government are also Sir Samuel Hoare,
likewise also a potential heir to Cham
berlain's mantle, who is fifty-six, and
Lord Halifax, foreign secretary, fifty
seven.
Ranged in opposition to the Prime
Minister'S foreign policy, within his
cabinet, are nearly all of it's junior men,
bers. Accounted as sharing the Eden
Duff Cooper attitude are Walter Elliot,
minister of health; William Shepherd
Morrison minister of agriculture; Oliver
Stanley, president of the Board of Trade,
and the Earl de la War;, lord privy seal
all of them well on the sunny side of fifty,
and several not yet forty. Two other
youthful ministers of the crown, Leslie
Hore-Belisha, dynamic secretary for war,
and Malcolm Macdonald, secretary for
the colonies, once belonged to the Eden
school, but are not now considered as
anti-realist as they once were.
So the strife within his majesty's gov
ernment appears to be between it's sea-
soned" members and the element gen.
orally known as Young Turks" Mr..
Duff Cooper informed the Prime Minis
ter that honor and loyalty demand that
offer you my resignation" because "I
profoundly distrust the foreign policy
which the present government is pur-
suing and seems likely to continue to
pursue"
The point of view which inspires the
retiring first lord of the admiralty is
reflected in the Edenite Yorkshire Post,
mouthpiece of conservatism in the mid
lands. "The Munich procedure" it says,
lis so harsh as to be horrifying. The
accept what is really decree of political
and economic suicide. Long discussions
of the mistakes of the peace treaties had
not convinced most of us that this was
a reasonable method or one conducting to
lasting international contentment. Mr..
Chamberlain, if his hands had not been
tied, would certainly have insisted on
less barbaric surgery. We yielded to a
remorseless will and an iron discipline
which we had not prepared ourselves to
confront"
John Bulls young men, who reject
"realism" in foreign affairs when it
runs counter to their conception of right,
honor and British traditions, cannot be
suspected of impetuous or callous willing
ness to plunge the country into war.
Eden, Duff Cooper and all the other anti
Chamberlain Young Turks" without ex-
ception are men who saw active service in
the World War. They must have
learned. from flrst-hand experience and
the wounds some of them still bear, to
abhor force, as an instrument of ma
tional policy, as thoroughly as their
elders. They personify that school of
thought which holds that war was not
the only alternative in the recent crisis;
that the immense preponderance of
power which the democratic nations pos
sessed, If backed at the right moment
by unequivocally expressed readiness to
use it, would have sufficed to compel
Hitler to negotiate and would have
cheated him of the victory he won by
sheer bravado and intimidation.
Traffic Safety.