Evening star., 1940-05-07
Member of the Associated Press
The Man of Sorrows

Americans who have read Carl
Sandburg's voluminous Abraham
Lincoln-The War Years" under
stand, If they did not know before,
why the Great Emancipator was
called "the man of SORROWS" If they
will apply the analogy of Lincolns
ordeal before Gettysburg, and even
In the two subsequent years before
Appomattox, to the trials and tribu-
lations of Neville Chamberlain, peo-
= pie in this country will have better
comprehension of the plight which
the British Prime Minister faces in
the House of Commons today and
tomorrow.
For two days the Chamberlain
government, in manner of speak
ing, will be on trial for its life. Its
survival may depend on its success
or failure in convincing Parliament
that allied reverses in Norway are
not due to what David Lloyd George
In last Sundays Star branded as
Anglo-French plumbers, ineptitude
and slackness."
Throughout the Civil War, until
the tide of battle turned definitely
In the Unions favor, Abraham Lin
coin was the target of precisely the
same kind of criticism, hostility and
abuse as that now leveled at Cham
berlain. Lincoln's antagonists en-
visioned the Confederacy in certain
victory because of the North's appar-
ent inability to conquer Dixie and
her valiant though hard-pressed
armies.
In Chamberlain's case, of course,
his detractors assail him for political
and military errors that antedate the
present ill-starred campaign. Their
indictment includes, as Lloyd George
puts it, "a series of incredible botch-
cries" It ranges all the way from
Britain's indifference to Germany's
rearmament Cat cost of 9O0O0,000,-
600 marks in six years, by Hitler's
own admission), to the "irresponsi-
BILE" guarantee of Poland's integrity.
Some of these alleged British blum
derings occurred before Neville
Chamberlain became Prime Minister
like the failure betimes to match
the creation of Goering's air force
and to oppose the Reich's rearma-
ment, including remilitarization of
the Rhineland. But for events since
then the Birmingham manufacturer
turned statesman will be held
squarely responsible as he faces
Liberal and Labor attacks and even
carping from his own Tory ranks
when "the Gallipoli of 1910" is under
fire this week. 1t is Chamberlain the
appeaser at whom the barrage will
be aimed, the man who brought home
"peace in our time" from Munich,
which only paved the road to Poland
and Norway.
The latest indications are that the
Chamberlain-C Churchill war regime
will survive the onslaught 1t is about
to undergo. The governments sup
porters compose top-heavy, over
all majority of the House of Com
mons. It can afford the detection
even of a considerable number of it's
embittered constituents and yet pre-
vail. Attacks on the mismanage-
ment OF the Scandinavian campaign
eventually may induce Mr.. Chamber
Lain to revamp his cabinet, but it is
doubtful, as he proceeds to meet his
severest parliamentary test, that his
government will fall.
Britain and France still are the
masters at sea. German air power
Fhas not paralyzed allied initiative, as
attested by current Anglo-French
naval moves in the Mediterranean.
But as a consequence of what i'm
pends within the historic walls of
Westminster, new impetus is al
most inevitably about to be given
the Chamberlain governments war
effort. John Bulls spirit is far from
broken, his resources far from ex-
hausted, but he is Enthusiastically on
the brink of lost patience with
"muddling through" policy which
has produced nothing but defeat and
loss Of prestige, especially among
neutrals. Any Nazi who reads de-
spair and readiness for Hitler peace
into Britain's criticism of her war
leadership is woefully ignorant. of
the character of the nation that
never knows when it's beaten.